The Arabian Nights or The Thousand and One Nights 14th Century Author: Anonymous

Early Background for Nights Probably the most widely known literature in the Arab world, ____________________________ ______________________. Began as a collection of tales called a “Thousand Stories” translated from Sanskrit (classical language from ancient India) Much evidence of the Persian and Indian (Sanskrit) origins are evident in the names of people and place names in the story (e.g., Scheherazade, Indo-China, Samarkand, etc.)

There are two branches of stories in Nights: The ________________& The _______________ _______: The earliest versions of The Arabian Nights were more conservative and thus tended to stick with the more original Arabic (Near-Eastern) tales _______: More modern versions from the 14th Century are known as the Egyptian branch which delete some of the original stories and add others from Indian, Persian, Turkish, and Egyptian sources (_______ is an earlier addition from the Syrian branch and ________ is a later addition from the Egyptian branch)

Style and Theme of Nights The first “complete” edition of Nights in English was put together in 1984 There is no official set of stories that cover 1,001 nights as is the legend concerning the work It may be more appropriate then to refer to the work as the Arabian Nights Style and Theme of Nights Classical Arab literature finds little place for Nights in its study, ____________________ ____________________________________ Also, it was not composed in an elegant, poetic style, but _____________________ _________________________________

It’s filled with magical and fantastic stories that are clearly untrue, but ___________________ It touches on a variety of themes: _____, madness, __________, justice, _________ _______________, and heroism Just because the style isn’t poetic doesn’t mean that the stories aren’t told well; there is an artistry evident in Nights that can be explained by imagining a fabulous storyteller telling you about a magical world full of luxurious settings, fantastic adventures, and dramatic cliffhangers

Your selection is mainly concerned with the Prologue (______________) and then the first 18 “nights” from the text Nights’ prologue does not “_______” all of the tales in the work; rather, the prologue _______ _________________, and while the tales (usually covered over multiple nights) that follow may talk about several different people, they are all ultimately recounted by a young woman named Scheherazade As previously stated, there is no single manuscript that contains all 1,001 nights; _______________ ________________________________________