The Arabian Nights in Historical Context: Between East and West

351 Pages·2009·2.72 MB·English

by  Saree Makdisi

The Arabian Nights
in Historical Context
This page intentionally left blank
The Arabian Nights in
Historical Context: Between
East and West
EDITED BY
Saree Makdisi and Felicity Nussbaum
1
3
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp
OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship,
andeducationbypublishingworldwidein
Oxford NewYork
Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi
KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi
NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
Withofficesin
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress
intheUKandincertainothercountries
PublishedintheUnitedStates
byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork
#MakdisiandNussbaum2008
Themoralrightsoftheauthorshavebeenasserted
DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker)
Firstpublished2008
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,
storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,
withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,
orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate
reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction
outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,
OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove
Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover
andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
Dataavailable
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Dataavailable
TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India
PrintedinGreatBritain
onacid-freepaperby
BiddlesLtd,King’sLynn,Norfolk
ISBN 978–0–19–955415–7
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The idea for this collection of essays was sparked when the editors, while
chattingabouttheirteaching,serendipitouslydiscoveredamutualinterestin
The Arabian Nights. Many of the essays published here were presented in
shorter form at a conference we subsequently organized, ‘The Arabian Nights
in Historical Context: FromGalland toBurton’ (October2005). The confer-
encewasgenerouslysponsoredbytheSeventeenthandEighteenth-Century
StudiesCenter,UniversityofCalifornia,LosAngeles,andheldattheWilliam
Andrews Clark Memorial Library in Los Angeles. We would like to thank
most heartily Professor Peter Reill, Director of the Clark Library, for his
unstinting support of our project from its very inception. He has made
possible the funding for the research assistance that brought this book to
fruition,andhehasalsogenerouslyofferedadviceandcounsel.Thestaffsof
the Center/Clark of the English Department have also been extremely
helpful, for which we are very grateful.
Several other essays included here were presented in shortened form at
the conference ‘Romancing the East’, organized by Nick Groom and John
HalliwellattheUniversityofBristol(January2006).Wethanktheorganizers
andauthorsforsharingtheseessayswithus.NicoleHorejsi,nowteachingat
Columbia University, and Naindeep Chann, currently a UCLA graduate
student, provided bibliographical skill and superb editing in compiling the
manuscript. We also wish to thank editor Andrew McNeillie, as well as
Valerie Shelley, Jacqueline Baker, Fiona Vlemmiks, and Claire Thompson
at Oxford University Press for expertly assisting us at every stage of the
publication process.
Theeditorswanttothanktheirfamilies,colleagues,students,andfriends
for their kind support and knowledgeable advice. These include especially
John Agnew, Christina Makdisi, Ali Behdad, Donna Landry, Robert Mack,
Susan McLarey, and Anne Mellor.
This page intentionally left blank
ONTENTS
C
List of Illustrations ix
Notes on Contributors x
Introduction 1
Saree Makdisi and Felicity Nussbaum
1. Translation in the Contact Zone: Antoine Galland’s Mille
et une nuits: contes arabes 25
Madeleine Dobie
2. Cultivating the Garden: Antoine Galland’s
Arabian Nights in the Traditions of English Literature 51
Robert L. Mack
3. Playing the Second String: The Role of
Dinarzade in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction 83
Ros Ballaster
4. Galland, Georgian Theatre, and the Creation
of Popular Orientalism 103
Bridget Orr
5. Christians in The Arabian Nights 131
Nabil Matar
6. White Women and Moorish Fancy in
Eighteenth-Century Literature 153
Khalid Bekkaoui
7. William Beckford’s Vathek and the Uses
of Oriental Re-enactment 167
Donna Landry
viii / Contents
8. ‘The peculiar character of the Arabian
Tale’: William Beckford and The Arabian Nights 195
James Watt
9. Coleridge and the Oriental Tale 213
Tim Fulford
10. The Adventure Chronotope and the Oriental Xenotrope:
Galland, Sheridan, and Joyce Domesticate
The Arabian Nights 235
Srinivas Aravamudan
11. Under the Spell of Magic:
The Oriental Tale in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade 265
Nasser Al-Taee
12. The Arabian Nights and the Contemporary Arabic Novel 297
Maher Jarrar
Select Bibliography 317
Compiled by Robert L. Mack
Index 329
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
1. Le´on Nikolayevich Bakst (1866–1924), Ballet Hindou (1913). Photograph # 2008,
Museum fo Fine Arts, Boston, Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection. Bequest of
GraceM.Edwardsinmemoryofhermother.
2. HenriRegnault (1843–71), Summary Execution under the Moorish King of Grenada (1870).
Muse´e d’Orsay, Paris, Photograph Jean Schormans, Re´union des Muse´es Natio-
naux/ArtResource,NewYork.
Music Examples
1. Rimsky-Korsakov,Sheherazade,SultanSchahriar’stheme,movement1
2. Rimsky-Korsakov,Sheherazade,Scheherazade’stheme,movement1
3. Rimsky-Korsakov,Sheherazade,the‘Whirling’themefrommovement2
Part1ofthe‘Whirling’theme
Part2ofthe‘Whirling’theme