Fifth Edition of Les Mille et Une Nuit (The Thousand and One Nights), Antoine Galland (1729)

Dr. David Damrosch intertwines imperial expectations in 18th century Europe with Middle Eastern realities, in Antoine Galland's Les Mille et Une Nuit, or The Thousand and One Nights.

Filled with flying carpets and trapped genies, the tales of Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Scheherazade might seem little more than bedtime stories. But the tales of The Thousand and One Nights iwere born out of the real experiences of 8th century Middle Eastern empires, evolving at the crossroads of Sassanid Persia, Abbasid Baghdad, and Ottoman Cairo and Damascus. Published in 18th century Paris, Galland's epochal French edition brought the tales beyond the Arabian peninsula, adding Aladdin and Ali Baba to his Syrian source manuscript, and transforming the tales into a work of world literature. A thousand years on, it too was informed by the imperial dynamics of the aging Ottoman Empire, the young French empire of Louis XIV and Napoleon, and their mutual rival, the Holy Roman Empire of the Austrian Habsburgs. Galland's edition is embedded with the turquoiserie and territorial ambitions of 18th century Europe. But retelling the tale of the tales reveals their subversive potential, seized upon by souk storytellers, European orientalists, and contemporary Arabic novelists alike.

PRESENTER: Dr. David Damrosch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, and founder of the Institute for World Literature. He is the author of Around the World in 80 Books, published by Pelican Books in November 2021.

ART: Fifth Edition of Les Mille et Une Nuit (The Thousand and One Nights), Antoine Galland (1729).

IMAGE: 'Frontispiece and Title Page of Les Mille et Une Nuit'.

SOUNDS: Lobo Loco.

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.

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