Lecture on THE ARABIAN NIGHTS pt 1 from Dr Jimmy Redd

hi class and welcome to lecture on the Arabian Nights also known as Thousand and One Nights this is another work from the Middle East we've also read the epic of gilgamesh and this work originated in the Middle East of course several thousand years later another one of the great works world literature that is really good read really easy read at least in the translation that we're doing here and so hope you enjoy it if you have your book your Cosmo classics version of this book then invite you to grab it now pause the video go grab it and view it if you don't there is link online via canvas where you can view these stories and the Andrew Lang translation of it is also available online and you can also find it via LibriVox the Arabian Nights entertaining that's translated by Andrew Lang and you can listen to it as an audio book so let's talk little bit about some context of the Arabian Nights they've been numerous versions and calculable versions of the Arabian Nights so sometimes it's kind of hard to wrangle which stories you're talking about and when you try to pin down themes there will be different tellings of the story so there'll be different thematic renderings of story it's most important to note the two most important versions of my opinion are the one by Sir Francis Burton which was up until recently has been arguably the most importantly scholarly version of the work it was heavily footnoted heavily researched face to face he gathered many of these stories as he went about he was an English researcher who went into Arabia really famous dude greats life story in fact and so he calculated lot of these stories and he had lot of people tell him these stories directly and he recorded what they what they said but he did not write them he was translator and compiler of these stories he put together 13 volume of the Arabian Nights which actually you can't find copy of in the MSU library and the Special Collections his version of it it was heavily footnoted heavily researched his wife destroyed lot of his notes and stuff after his death because she found them to be obscene so it's really it fascinating to study his rendering of the work but nowadays Husain hanaway has published what is now thought of to be the most authoritative modern version he's found translation to one of the oldest manuscripts from 14th century Syria and this is now thought to be the most authoritative text although it misses it doesn't have lot of the most famous stories like Ali Baba and Sinbad these things aren't in that authoritative text and it's thought that these stories were added later my spring 2020 class in particulars reading Andrew Lang's version which is much more readable it's written kind of PG toward you know more adolescent audience and maybe even sometimes child's audience it leaves out lot of great details that edits and censors lot of things mm-hmm it's really very erotic tale and very violent tale as well so it's fascinating to read this story if you want to find out more read some other versions of it read Sir Francis Burton's version or Hussein hataway's versions many of these tales were compiled or developed in the Middle East and in India and some of them are thought to be derived from China and other countries soon even though it's called the Arabian Nights really what's happened is these tales have kind of like most fairy tales been adopted from other cultures as people travel around these stories get retold and reinvented for different cultures the tales and some versions borrow from some Western tales such as Sinbad's encounter with the Cyclops and its connections with Odysseus and his encounter with the Cyclops probably retold from that story as it was heard because that story is written about 600 700 years earlier depending on which version of it you're looking at the Knights are one of the most famous examples of what's called the nested story they're also known as the Thousand and One Nights and although most versions don't have this many stories thousand and one it often seems as if there are that many because more stories are constantly being told within stories and that's what the nested story is like your nesting one story within another almost as if you break an egg and there's another egg inside of it and you break that egg and there's another egg if inside of it that's exactly what it's like to read the Arabian Nights tales so arguably the most important story of all of the stories is the frame tale this is probably the most famous tale from the thousand one nights it's the story of shekhar azad and also the story of siya simon and sherry are these two brothers who were rulers of this arabian land this ancient arabian land now one of the things that you've got to surmount when you're reading this story is that every translation seems to have different spelling because it's phonetic they're trying to transfer the arabic language into the Phoenician alphabet so you're just gonna have to do it based on what it sounds like and it seems like everybody spells their names differently put how Andrew Lang spells them up above so that's something you're gonna have to surmount as you're reading the backdrop of the two brothers and what Lang isn't telling you because of the Fiji nature of his translation okay so let me tell you little bit about that story in the frame tale we have these two brothers who are who split the rule of the land because they love each other they're characterized as good Kings as Kings that people love because they're just Kings and they rule well but then both of their wives cheat on them and what Andrew like doesn't tell you is that they have these wild orgies that these men watch unfortunately and they suffer greatly knowing how awful it is that even these kinds of terrible things can happen to Kings just as soon as they turn their backs these wives are sleeping with all the servants and so as it says they're one bad apple spoils the bunch the old queen cheats on her husband and the King decides that all women are unfaithful and so the King gets angry and he decides to take it out on women his decision is to marry new woman every night and then he beheads them in the morning because there are no women according to him who are worthy but Harris odd proves him wrong Scheherazade is ultimately the hero of the story in the Arabian Nights is it's hard to defend it it as anything other than tale that does have lots of misogynistic tendencies but it should be noted that over all you do have the great hero of this story is woman it is Scheherazade who is so brave that she's willing to sacrifice her own life to save the rest of the women who is so intelligent that she is able to tell all of these stories who is such great storyteller he was so smart that she could tell these stories and string along the King and she does this in different versions for different amounts of time the Hussein version has 260 or so stories in it Hussein had away version has it if you consider that the most authoritative text and by the end of it all she's had three kids in the Sir Francis Burton translation and she's crowned the queen she's rewarded so here we have story of woman who is brave and and willing to sacrifice herself and smart and because she is all of those things she's able to save her people from this unjust ruler and it also shows the power of good story so moving through these stories that we're gonna be reading let's take look at she horizon's' first story her first story first nested story is the merchant and the genius and if you don't know what genius is it doesn't mean smart man it means genie you might know that from the Aladdin stories or Aladin also known as Djinn so what are genie is an Arabian Lord so in Arabian Lord genies are usually not the happy-go-lucky big blue Smith or Robin Williams characters they're usually evil kind of like demons who live on the earth they are actually in the Koran and but there are some of them in the Arabian Nights that are good that worship God or Allah and there are some but most of them are bad or evil but they've got great power and they're like monsters we also have this story right here at the merchant and the genius the merchant is eating his dates and he throws the pits of the dates out and kills the geniuses little kid and so the genius wants to take revenge on the merchants by chopping his head off and this is presented as unfair vengeance lot of these ancient societies we see will they'll have rule of vengeance if something bad happens and you need to get vengeance on that person an eye for an eye but this is characterized as in this case here it was an accident so the genie is going too far in fact he should give true justice but the merchants friends use width and great storytelling and bargaining in order to help him get out of getting killed because one by one they tell story that's so fascinating and makes bargain with the genie that they all buy off his life there and keep the genie from killing him so it also demonstrates and lot of these stories we'll just as the Odyssey and justice that the camera dude how one can use wit to save their life stories also talk about ultimately in Islamic society they they believe in the Turman ISM they believe in all things are determined to happen in this world they're all known by Allah they're all predetermined by Allah or God and all things happen by the will of Allah and some that they and Allah is ultimately good so all things in the end will ultimately end up good because Allah has great divine plan we may not know that plan but we should trust in that great divine plan and that's quite different from the way that camera presents the things that happen in this world good people might in the end altom utley suffer maybe in heaven things will work out but maybe not in this world but ultimately in these stories time and time again it seems to be this idea of determinism and Allah as divine will and the idea that good and the end will come out on top and bad in the end will be punished we also see lot of people succumbing to the role of chance and the role of fate this takes place in lot of these stories looking at the first story of the old man who tries to buy off the merchants life from the genie in his hand and what what is that if you don't know what that is it's deer his wife's been turned into deer right there because of her jealousy and her deceit and her wickedness she got her just desserts and this is story that shows again that justice wins out in the end it evil is punished we also see lots of bargaining that's happening in this story we also see the idea of pity versus mercy witness Burton mercilessness we see people who are favored who were willing to show pity to others and those who show mercy lessness ultimately are punished those who are fair versus unfair those who are fair in the end are rewarded and those who are unfair in the end punished though it may seem to be that you know that might not work out in the short term we also see jealousy is criticized in something that we need to watch out for sometimes it seems as if cunning and deception are good and these stories sometimes it seems as if they're bad the story of the second old man and the two black dogs in this case here we what happens to good men who take care of their family like they're supposed to in the end ultimately he is rewarded but he has to he does suffer lot because of jealousy and greed of men because these two men his two brothers take advantage of him he is shrewd in his business dealings and he avoids the dangerous of travel so ultimately he is able to be successful then we see Scheherazade second nested story which is the story of the fishermen we see the role of fortune and chance in this story we'll see the experience of poverty and rags-to-riches stories we're gonna see justice versus unfair treatment what are the results of each of those things this is the story of the fisherman who is very poor and three times day he'll throw his net out into the sea hoping to feed his family he trusts in law in the will of Allah in order to give him what he needs and we do see tree rags-to-riches story here ultimately he has such faith and is smart enough in order to be successful he pleased to the genie whenever he frees the genie from the jar here he pleas to him to give him fair treatment he tells some stories that prove and lot of times we're gonna think about the function of stories as we read through all of the Arabian Nights we're gonna see constantly stories that prove what the author is arguing and in this case the story proves that fair treatment should be rewarded whereas unfair treatment is going to be have it's just deserts we're gonna see the discussion of rebellion versus obedience we see that the genie is punished because of his rebellion whereas others who are obedient to the will of the Lord and Allah and His law they indeed are rewarded although at times it seems as if rebellion is justified or warranted in the case of Shahrazad she disobeyed her father and married the Sultan and this is shown to be smart or wise decision but that is rare we see the dangers of excessive anger in the case of the genie versus the usage of rationality like the fishermen does we see stories that demonstrate the usage of and cunning in order to attain what you want as well we see that in the story of the great Greek king in the physician Dube and we see the rewards of cruelty we also see the rewards of being dunce or being foolish versus having wisdom and you can relate that to the stories of the de Cameron we see the dangers of listening to bad advice versus silencing good advisers in the case of what the Greek King ultimately does to the physician do ban and punishing him whereas he should have been rewarding him we see the results of jealousy and greed in the actions of the Vizier and turning the King against the physician or sage to bone we see the use of deceit and cunning to gain vengeance and the actions that the sage do Bond does in order to punish the king after he's chopped off his head and we also see the role of magic in many of these stories as well how powerful it is finally build and building into what we're gonna do next time we're gonna see the return to the fisherman's story where it's nested story and like most of these we're gonna see another story nested within that one and that's gonna be the story of the Sultan and the four colorful fishes as well as the ensorcelled Prince is what it's called in some ticks and we're gonna see prince whose legs are made of black marble what is going to happen next we're gonna see constantly stories that show where curiosity leads us lot of times it can get us into lot of trouble but lot of times the usage of it to our advantage can get us out of trouble so that's about all have to say for these stories now but and so the next time we talk begin thinking about some of these themes and how they're bleeding over into the other stories think about looking at your quiz there be sure to look at the characters that are on those quizzes shekhar azad is on that quiz Shahriyar and Shaw Zaman we're gonna see other characters like Sinbad and Alibaba are gonna be worth writing about but until the next time we talk wish you happy writing and hope you are enjoying yourselves and hope you are well most especially until talk to you again wish you peace love and happiness