NES 6723 - [The Arabian Nights: Then and Now]

(crosslisted)
(also COML 6723)

Spring. 4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with COML 3723/NES 3723.

S. M. Toorawa.

The medieval Arabic cycle of stories known as The Arabian Nights or The Thousand and One Nights is a classic of world literature. In the first half of the course we will read the Nights and discuss both its dominant themes-deceit, love, sex, revenge, violence, and justice-and its storytelling contexts and antecedents (e.g., the Sanskrit Jataka Tales and the Middle Persian Tales of Bidpai). And in the second half, we will explore the ways in which its themes and tales have been adapted and appropriated by authors such as Jan Potocki in Polish, Edgar Allan Poe and John Barth in English, Jorge Luis Borges in Spanish, and Naguib Mahfouz in Arabic itself. All material is in English translation.