Description
Book SynopsisIn its first edition, this book was a new opening in the study of the Arabian Nights as an index of literary taste, a case study for the engagements of poets and writers, along with the common reading public, with an art that took Europe by surprise, and forced new patterns of response and writing. Borges thought of its advent as a dynamic that helped generate the romantic mode and sensibility. It certainly disturbed old habits of thought and made significant cultural inroads throughout European cultures. Almost no one in 18th-19th century literatures remained oblivious to that sweeping phenomenal appearance. The book analyzes and studies modes and patterns of reading, response, engagement, commentary, translations, claims to authentication, abridgements, and illustrations. It focuses on debates and controversies around the Arabian Nights, and shows how these happened to be at the center of a growing colonial culture. This book can never lose its significance for stude
Table of Contents
List of Figures – Preface – Preface to the New Edition – Acknowledgments – The Eighteenth- Century Reception of the Arabian Nights – The Growing Vogue of Scheherazade’s Tales – Patterns of Critical Response: The Romantic Appraisal of Scheherazade’s Aesthetics – Lane and the Victorian Literary Scene – A Panorama of Eastern Life – The Growth of Scholarly Interest in the Arabian Nights – A Selected Bibliography – Index.
