List of works influenced by One Thousand and One Nights

The Middle Eastern story collection One Thousand and One Nights has had a deep influence on culture around the world.

Literature

The influence of the versions of The Nights on world literature is immense. Writers as diverse as Henry Fielding to Naguib Mahfouz have alluded to the work by name in their own literature. Other writers who have been influenced by the Nights include John Barth, Jorge Luis Borges, Salman Rushdie, Goethe, Walter Scott, Thackeray, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Nodier, Flaubert, Marcel Schwob, Stendhal, Dumas, Gérard de Nerval, Gobineau, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Hofmannsthal, Conan Doyle, W. B. Yeats, H. G. Wells, Cavafy, Calvino, Georges Perec, H. P. Lovecraft, Marcel Proust, A. S. Byatt and Angela Carter.[1]

This work has been influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by Antoine Galland.[2] Many imitations were written, especially in France.[3] Various characters from this epic have themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin, Sinbad and Ali Baba. Part of its popularity may have sprung from the increasing historical and geographical knowledge, so that places of which little was known and so marvels were plausible had to be set further "long ago" or farther "far away"; this is a process that continues, and finally culminate in the fantasy world having little connection, if any, to actual times and places. Several elements from Arabian mythology and Persian mythology are now common in modern fantasy, such as genies, magic carpets, magic lamps, etc.[3] When L. Frank Baum proposed writing a modern fairy tale that banished stereotypical elements, he included the genie as well as the dwarf and the fairy as stereotypes to go.[4]

18th century

19th century

20th century

21st century

Japanese literature

The Nights also had an influence on modern Japanese literature. George Fyler Townsend's revised edition of the Arabian Nights was the first European literary work to be translated into the Japanese language during the Meiji era, by Nagamine Hideki in 1875. The Japanese translation was entitled Arabiya Monogatari ("Arabian Stories" or literally "Stormy Night Stories"), as part of the monogatari genre.[11] Though the book was intriguing to Japanese readers who then had very little knowledge of Arabic culture or the Middle East in general, the Nights didn't gain popularity in Japan until a more Japanified translation, entitled Zensekai Ichidai Kisho (The Most Curious Book in the Whole World), was produced by Inoue Tsutomu in 1888.[12] His translation exerted a great influence on the literature of the Meiji, Taishō and Shōwa periods, with writers and poets such as Hinatsu Kōnosuke, Hakushū Kitahara and Mokutaro Kinoshita citing the work as an influence on their own works.[13] In the early 20th century, other translations from the Lane and Burton editions were also published,[14] including ones from the Lane edition by Kōnosuke and Morita Sōhei,[15] as well a translation of the Andrew Lang edition by Daisui Sugitani,[16] and translations of individual tales by Iwaya Sazanami.[17] In "Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Murakami, Toru refers to Reiko as a regular Scheherazade when she leaves a story about her past unfinished. Murakami also published a short story entitled, Scheherazade, in The New Yorker in October 2014.</http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/scheherazade-3>

Film, television and radio

There have been many adaptations of The Nights for television, cinema and radio.

The atmosphere of The Nights influenced such films as Fritz Lang's 1921 Der müde Tod, the 1924 Hollywood film The Thief of Baghdad starring Douglas Fairbanks, and its 1940 British remake. Several stories served as source material for The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), the oldest surviving feature-length animated film.

In the late 1930s, Fleischer Studios produced three two-reel animated Popeye cartoons in color for Paramount Pictures. All three cartoons, known also as the Popeye Color Specials (or Features), were adapted from The Nights: Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor, Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves, and Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp.

One of Hollywood's first feature films to be based on The Nights was in 1942, with the movie called Arabian Nights. It starred Maria Montez as Scheherazade, Sabu Dastagir as Ali Ben Ali and Jon Hall as Harun al-Rashid. The storyline bears virtually no resemblance to the traditional version of the book. In the film, Scheherazade is a dancer who attempts to overthrow Caliph Harun al-Rashid and marry his brother. After Scheherazade's initial coup attempt fails and she is sold into slavery, many adventures then ensue. Maria Montez and Jon Hall also starred in the 1944 film Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

Columbia Pictures released A Thousand and One Nights, starring Cornel Wilde as Aladdin, in 1945.

In the 1952 Universal Pictures movie The Golden Blade, Harun al-Rashid (Rock Hudson) uses a magical sword that makes him invincible to free Baghdad from the evil vizier Jafar and his son Hadi and win the love of the beautiful princess Khairuzan (Piper Laurie).

The 1955 RKO Pictures film Son of Sinbad combines the Sinbad character with Ali Baba's Forty Thieves (who in this film are all female).

The 1958 movie The 7th Voyage of Sinbad was a Sinbad film produced by the stop-motion animation pioneer Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen also provided the stop-motion effects for The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974) and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977).

In 1959, Columbia Pictures released a UPA-produced animated feature starring Mr. Magoo, entitled 1001 Arabian Nights.

Osamu Tezuka worked on two (very loose) feature film adaptations, the children's film Sinbad no Bōken in 1962 and then Senya Ichiya Monogatari in 1969, an adult-oriented animated feature film.

The most commercially successful movie based on The Nights was Aladdin, the 1992 animated movie by the Walt Disney Company, which starred the voices of Scott Weinger and Robin Williams. The film led to several sequels and a television series of the same name. Scheherazade and her "thousand tales" are referred to in one of the songs from the film.

"The Voyages of Sinbad" has been adapted for television and film several times, most recently in the 2003 animated feature Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, featuring the voices of Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

A recent well-received television adaptation was the Emmy Award-winning miniseries Arabian Nights, directed by Steve Barron and starring Mili Avital as Scheherazade and Dougray Scott as Shahryar. It was originally shown over two nights on April 30, and May 1, 2000 on ABC in the United States and BBC One in the United Kingdom.

In 2001, the Radio Tales series produced a trilogy of dramas adapted from the Arabian Nights, including the stories of Aladdin, Ali Baba, and Sindbad.

Other versions of The Nights include the 1974 Italian movie Il fiore delle mille e una notte by Pier Paolo Pasolini and the 1990 French movie Les 1001 nuits, in which Catherine Zeta-Jones made her debut playing Scheherazade. There are also numerous Bollywood movies inspired by the book, including Aladdin and Sinbad. In this version the two heroes meet and share in each other's adventures; the djinn of the lamp is female, and Aladdin marries her rather than the princess. Other Indian films inspired by the book, include Allauddinum Albhutha Vilakkum (1979; Malayalam), Allaudinaum Arputha Vilakkum (1979; Tamil) and Daya (1998; Malayalam).

The Turkish television series Binbir Gece (Thousand and one nights) is a modern re-telling of the book. It tells about an architect named Şehrazat (Scheherazade) who spends a night with her boss for a sum of money to pay for son's expensive surgery.

In 2009, the BBC Radio 7 science fiction series Planet B featured an episode set in a virtual world which had merged The Nights with a wargame.

Alif Laila (Thousand Nights) is a TV series based on the stories from The Arabian Nights. It was produced by Sagar Films (Pvt. Ltd.) and has been presented on air so far on DD National, India, SAB TV, India and ARY Digital, Pakistan.

In the episode 'Stan of Arabia (Part II)' of American Dad!, Roger distracts a wealthy sheik with stories from American soap operas to delay consummating their marriage.

Bugs Bunny portrayed a Scheherazade-like character in Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales. Bugs must entertain Sultan Yosemite Sam and his son Prince Abba-Dabba with story after story or else be subject to beheading.

In the third season episode "The Scheherazade Job" of the TNT series Leverage, Hardison (the "Hacker") has to play the violin solo in a live performance of Scheherazade in order for the crew to successfully rob the story's villain. Ironically, the crew is so captivated by Hardison's playing of the solo in the fourth movement that they stop still during the robbery to listen. While discussing Scheherazade, Sophie says she was the first "grifter", being able to make the king fail to keep his murderous vow and then to make him fall for her.

The Japanese animated film Sinbad: Sora Tobu Hime to Himitsu no Shima is inspired by Arabian Nights.[18]

Music

Classical

Opera

Other

Popular

Games

References

  1. Irwin, Robert (2003), The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Tauris Parke Palang-faacks, p. 290, ISBN 1-86064-983-1
  2. L. Sprague de Camp, Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy, p. 10 ISBN 0-87054-076-9.
  3. 1 2 John Grant and John Clute, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, "Arabian fantasy", p 52 ISBN 0-312-19869-8.
  4. James Thurber, "The Wizard of Chitenango", p 64 Fantasists on Fantasy edited by Robert H. Boyer and Kenneth J. Zahorski, ISBN 0-380-86553-X.
  5. Irwin p.244
  6. Irwin p.245-252
  7. Horner, Avril (2002), European Gothic: A Spirited Exchange, 1760–1960, Manchester University Press, pp. 13 & 183–203, ISBN 0-7190-6064-8
  8. Crawford, Jr., Joseph H.; James J. Donahue; Donald M. Grant (1953). "333", A Bibliography of the Science-Fantasy Novel. Providence, RI: The Grandon Company. p. 35. OCLC 3924496.
  9. Ley, James (November 2009), "A town called Merv" (PDF), Australian Book Review: 15–16
  10. Hamilton, Masha (January 2012), "Benjamin Buchholz’s ‘One Hundred and One Nights’: War as intimate and subtle", The Washington Post
  11. Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, pp. 116–7, ISBN 1-85043-768-8
  12. Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, pp. 119–25, ISBN 1-85043-768-8
  13. Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, pp. 125–6, ISBN 1-85043-768-8
  14. Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, pp. 126–9, ISBN 1-85043-768-8
  15. Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, p. 135, ISBN 1-85043-768-8
  16. Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, p. 132, ISBN 1-85043-768-8
  17. Yuriko Yamanaka, Tetsuo Nishio (2006), The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West, I.B. Tauris, p. 131, ISBN 1-85043-768-8
  18. "Nippon Animation Makes Sinbad Adventure Film for July". Anime News Network. January 23, 2015. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  19. 1 2 Iranica
  20. Ezequiel Vinao La Noche de las Noches
  21. Lyrics of "Sahara"
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