Shahrazad is One of Us: Practical Narrative, Theoretical Discussion, and Feminist Discourse

Abstract

Setting out to investigate the frame-story the Nights and its impact on Eastern and Western literature, I was unaware the wealth studies that have been published. They range from strictly philological research to postmodern literary studies. The former often include considerable reservations about the latter and their seemingly inflated interpretations details. For this reason, I have largely restricted myself to reconsidering previous theses and theories and will regroup different approaches as to content, form, or both while focusing on Shahrazâds different roles as heroine, narrator, and woman. Introduction Your name's really Sherazade? Yes. Really? It's it's so How can I put it? know who Sheherazade was? Yes. And that doesn't mean anything to you? No. You think you can be called Sherazade, just like No idea. He looked at her, standing the other side the high, round counter at the fast-food, unable to believe his eyes. And why not Aziyade? Who's that? A beautiful Turkish woman from Istanbul who Loti was in love with, a hundred years ago. Pierre Loti I've heard of. Not Aziyade. . Aziyade belonged to the harem an old Turk. was a young Circassian slave, converted to Islam. Why you telling me about this woman? She's got nothing to do with me. She had green eyes, like you. That's no reason. Sherazade was drinking her Coke out the can. wasn't listening any more. Julien Desrosiers went back to reading the small ads in Liberation. (Sebbar 1-2) Shahrazâd seems to be common property for Arabs and Europeans, natives and migrants, the educated and the uneducated alike. Beyond the diffusion Shahrazâd's own story and the repertoire her stories into many cultures, there is also evidence for their origins in many cultures. The collection known as Thousand and One Nights is the result a and ethnic meltingprocess (Walther 12), in which Indian and Persian elements blend (not to mention Greek, Egyptian, and Turkish). Against this multinational backdrop, the principle intertwined stories corresponds to Arab concepts adab by underlining the power the word and brilliant speech. Shahrazâd herself is a cultural amalgamate, for she speaks the Arabic language, bears a Persian name (meaning of noble appearance and/or origin), and employs an Indian narrative mode, the frame-story device. Moreover, it has repeatedly been pointed out that, long before Galland's French translation the Nights started its triumphant march through the Western world, its forerunners had already stimulated European and Judeo-Christian culture. The Sindbâd-cycle has been compared to Homer's Odyssey, and Shahrazâd has been considered-and refuted-to be a sister the biblical Esther (De Goeje; Cosquin), while the opening story the two kings Shariyâr and Shâhzamân has been believed a variation paradise lost and regained (Ghazoul 18). Whatever common grounds the Nights and the foundation myths Judeo-Christian culture may have, there is no doubt that before they were even translated into French, English, and German, the Nights made their mark on European literature, in particular on the literature Renaissance Italy (Walther 17; Littmann 359). In Europe and America as well as in the Near East, writers in the twentieth century (in fact more so than ever) still used the characters Shahrazâd's tales and her narrative mode as models for their own writings. With this in mind, Fedwa Malti-Douglas states: Were the Arabic Shahrazad to awaken, like some fairy tale princess, centuries after she first wove the stories in The Thousand and One Nights, she would undoubtedly be surprised by her numerous literary transformations (Shahrazad Feminist 40). Robert Irwin states that it is probably easier to specify the few Western or non-Arab authors who were not affected by the Nights (Irwin 358; Pinault 65-66) than to present a comprehensive list those who were-this list ranging from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sir Walter Scott, and William Thackeray through Gustave Flaubert, Stendhal, and Gerard de Nerval to H. …