Fairy Tales Transformed?: Twenty-First-Century Adaptations and the Politics of Wonder

4. Resituating The Arabian Nights: Challenges and Promises of Translation

4Resituating The Arabian Nights Challenges and Promises of Translation [Scheherazade] avait un courage au-dessus de son sexe, de l’esprit infiniment avec une pénétration admirable . Elle avait beaucoup de lecture et une mémoire si prodigieuse, que rien ne lui était échappé de tout ce qu’elle avait lu. Elle s’était heureusement appliquée à la philosophie, à la médecine, à l’histoire et aux arts; elle faisait des vers mieux que les poètes les plus célèbres de son temps. Outre cela, elle était pourvue d’une beauté extraordinaire, et une vertu très solide couronnait toutes ces belles qualités. Le vizir aimait passionnément une fille si digne de sa tendresse. Un jour qu’ils s’entretenaient tous deux ensemble , elle lui dit: “Mon père, j’ai une grâce à vous demander; je vous supplie très humblement de me l’accorder.” —Les mille et une nuit, 1704, Antoine Galland’s translation of Alf layla walayla (fourteenth- or fifteenth-century Arabic MS of Syrian origin now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France) Scheherazade was possessed of a degree of courage beyond her sex, joined to an extent of knowledge, and degree of penetration that was truly astonishing. She had read much, and was possessed of so great a memory, that she never forgot anything, she had once perused. She had applied also, with much success, to philosophy , to medicine, to history, and to the arts; and made better verses than the most celebrated poets of the time. Besides this, her beauty was incomparable ; and her virtuous disposition crowned all those valuable qualities. The Vizier was passionately fond of so deserving a daughter. As they were conversing together one day, she addressed him with these words. “I have a favor to ask of you, my father. And I entreat you not to refuse me.” —Arabian Nights, 1802, Edward Forster’s translation of Galland’s translation 144 ▪ Chapter 4 [The vizier’s] older daughter, Shahrazad, had read the books of literature, philosophy, and medicine. She knew poetry by heart, had studied historical reports, and was acquainted with the sayings of men and the maxims of sages and kings. She was intelligent , knowledgeable, wise, and refined. She had read and learned. One day she said to her father, “Father, I will tell you what is in my mind.” arabian niGhts, 1990, Husain Haddawy’s translation of Muhsin Mahdi’s edition of Alf layla wa-layla (fourteenthor fifteenth-century Arabic MS of Syrian origin now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France) Adaptations of the Arabian Nights play out a related but different economy of wonder genres from the one I explored in chapter 3, and crucial to their global production and reception for several centuries now has been the mostly naturalized work of translation, as standing in for adaptation and constructing the “Orient” as other. Thus when I teach the Arabian Nights, I find it particularly important—even if and in a way even more because I am ignorant of the Arabic language—to do so in ways that call attention to the politics of translation (Spivak 1993; Venuti 1998) but also foster a “culture of translation” (Shankar 2012, 141).1 In my classes, this means analyzing at least selections from different English-language translations to foreground how their varied poetics inflect the representation of characters, social world, style, and the supernatural in Arabian Nights. I do this to denaturalize appropriative misreadings and stereotyping , and also to reinforce the understanding that translation—like storytelling, like reading, and like adapting—always involves interpretation and transformative choices. I have found that looking at how Edward Forster, Edward William Lane, John Payne, Richard Burton, Powys Mathers, Husain Haddawy, and (most recently) the Malcolm C. and Ursula Lyons team introduce Shahrazad, the bold heroine and wonderful storyteller of The Thousand and One Nights/ Arabian Nights, to their readers is, for instance, a good place to start. She is an extremely well read woman in all translations, but in turn she is also beautiful, wise, polite, sweetly eloquent, incomparable, well bred, phenomenal at memorizing book knowledge, avid as a book collector, or active in learning from books and sayings. Whether the translators are working from Arabic manuscripts, Antoine Galland’s immensely influential French translation, or other French Resituating The Arabian Nights ▪ 145 and English texts; what their knowledge of and investment in Arabic language and cultures are...