Charming Orient Shining England

By Dr. Mahmoud F. Al-Ali

The Arabian Nights is a composite work consisting of popular stories originally transmitted orally and developed during several centuries, with material added somewhat haphazardly at different periods and places.
This study was devoted to the impact of The Arabian Nights on four novelists of the nineteenth century: Charlotte Bront, Charles Dickens, George Meredith, and Robert Louis Stevenson. These authors were selected on the ground of their life spans, which encompassed almost the whole century. Because they are among the masters of the English novel, it is reasonable to assume that they did not content themselves with mere imitations resulting in pseudo-oriental tales. Their original creations assimilated the influences from The Arabian Nights, forming new unified structures with interwoven references and allusions, which are to be redetected.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781493114535

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Copyright © 2013 by Dr. Mahmoud F. Al-Ali.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013918643

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4931-1452-8

                Softcover       978-1-4931-1451-1

                Ebook             978-1-4931-1453-5

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Rev. date: 10/26/2013

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1:   Introduction

Chapter 2:   The Arabian Nights in England

Chapter 3:   The Influence of The Arabian Nights on Charlotte Brontë

Chapter 4:   The Influence of The Arabian Nights on Dickens

Chapter 5:   The Influence of The Arabian Nights on George Meredith

Chapter 6:   The Influence of The Arabian Nights on Robert Louis Stevenson

Chapter 7:   Conclusion

DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate this book to my grandsons and granddaughters:

Hoping that they are studying hard and learning a lot in order to have a full education and to be in the future, each of them the second to none.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

M y first thanks that always go to Glory to Allah Most High, Full of Grace and Mercy. Allah is the One and Only, the Eternal, Absolute. He is near us and He cares for us; we owe our existence to Him.

I would like to gratefully acknowledge My wife; Amina Hassan Al-obaidi and my family for their unique and invaluable advice.

I am also grateful to Niles Senior Center, especially Jaymi Ostman for all the help she gave me and Senior Center Staff. However, no acknowledgment would be complete without the library of Des Plaines staff and the library of Niles staff as well.

It is impossible to thank everybody has touched my life in the creation of this book. But these are some of the folk that I need to acknowledge; Maegan Arevalo publishing consultant Xlibris Corporation, Edward Taylor submissions representative, Leo Montano operations supervisor, James Calonia manuscript services representative, Lloyd Baron marketing services representative Xlibris Corporation, Ronald Reese supervisor-marketing, Elaine Tan author services, and all the rest of the team of Xlibris Corporation.

Dr. Mahmood F. AL-ALI

`

PREFACE

A NY RESEARCH INVOLVING the impact of a book on the literature of a nation is important, and when rightly carried out, it makes a valuable contribution to knowledge. The literature, in this study, is English, and the book is Alf laylah wa laylah ( The Thousand and One Nights ), more commonly known as The Arabian Nights Entertainments . It is a book that has taken its place among the great literary masterpieces of the world as an enchanting book of timeless quality and rare enjoyment. Its universal elements are manifested in its popularity through a classical period, a romantic period, and in an age of scientific inquiry.

From the time of its introduction to Europe, The Arabian Nights has left a deep imprint on all European literature in general and on English literature in particular either by direct imitation or imitation of forms and motifs and even as a precedent and incentive for the collection of tales.

The chief concern of this present thesis is to trace the marks that Scheherazade’s tales left on the works of prominent novelists of the nineteenth century. It will be proven that these novelists have read the tales and gratefully acknowledged their formative influence upon their imaginations; it will be investigated in what manner these authors used The Arabian Nights—what matters they borrowed, adapted, or imitated and for what reasons.

The study begins with a general survey of the cultural and literary relations between the Arabs and the English through the ages. Its reception in England and related matters have supplied much useful information, although it was found necessary, at times, to supplement some points by independent research, especially in the parts dealing with the relation between a romantic view of life and the fictional world of The Arabian Nights. Modern historians and critics of English literature tend to ignore the influence of The Arabian Nights completely, or they allude to it in passing. In earlier studies, the references to the importance of the Scheherazade’s tales are more numerous, but they will never go beyond acknowledging, in a general way, the existence of their influence. Comparative studies dealing with matters directly related to the subject of this thesis have been less useful than their titles seemed to promise. They were either too general or too concentrated on other fields of literature, criticism, poetry, etc., to the point of exclusion of novels. Wherever possible, their general statements and conclusions have been incorporated into this thesis in order to put the findings of this study into a larger framework. The goal of this thesis is to investigate, in a number of novels and their authors, to what extent The Arabian Nights has been a forming power.

The conclusion tries to assess the impact of The Arabian Nights on English novelists of the nineteenth century in a more general manner to present the overall picture, which emergence after the many, and at times, confusing details of the study have been found to fall into definite patterns. Then it moves to the reception of The Arabian Nights in England. Whole chapters are allotted to this since reception has native ground and since the tales would have been rejected and disregarded had they been in conflict with fundamental English values, emotional attitudes, or artistic canons. Since there was no such basic conflict, they could give new insights and enrich the English literature.

Special attention is given to the causes that explain the romantic strain in the reception.

The next four chapters are devoted to the impact of The Arabian Nights on four novelists representative of the nineteenth century: Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, George Meredith, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

These authors are selected on the ground of their life spans, which encompassed almost the whole century. Because they are among the masters of the English novel, it is reasonable to assume that they did not content themselves with mere imitations resulting in pseudo-oriental tales. Their original creations assimilated the influences from The Arabian Nights, forming new unified structures with interwoven references and allusions, which are to be redetected. The illustrations in this study, necessarily selective, emphasize devices that have crept into figurative expressions that will be shown to have been inspired, but the matters and manners of Scheherazade’s tales with all the variety of their details in the books and articles that have been read for this study have been of different value.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

T HE CRUSADES ARE a convenient starting point when writing about close contact between England and the Middle East. ¹ These military expeditions were carried out by Western Christians against Muslim powers with varying motives and fortunes but with the claim of taking possession of the Holy Land. In fact, Europe in the eleventh century was feeling the impact of population growth, which made it desirable to search for new frontiers, and Muslim predominance in the Mediterranean stimulated organized action. The Crusades took place over a period of nearly two hundred years—between 1095, when the first Crusade was launched, and 1291, when Latin Christians were finally expelled from their bases in Syria.

Historians and men of letters agree about the complexity of the motivation of the Crusades. Bernard Lewis considers the Crusades

essentially an early experiment in expansionist imperialism, motivated by material considerations with religion as a psychological catalyst. Traders from the Italian city republics following the trade they had established with Byzantium and the Fatimids to the sources of supply, warlike and ambitious barons, younger sons in search of principalities and sinners in search of profitable penance—these rather than the seekers of the Holy Sepulchre were the significant and characteristic figures of the invasion from the West.²

Philip Hitti points out the same motivations: French and Norman princes were hungry for territorial acquisition. Italian merchants from Genoa, Pisa, and Venice were interested in commercial expansion. The restless and romantic adventurers were eager for a new outlet for their ambitions. The devout and sinful sought penance through the holy pilgrimage.³ Syed Ameer Ali, an Indian Muslim historian, takes it upon himself to reveal the ghastliness of these wars, the cruel, savage, and treacherous character of those who were engaged in them, and the dire miseries they inflicted upon Western Asia. Europe was drained of men and money, and threatened with social bankruptcy, if not with annihilation. Millions perished in battle, hunger, or disease, and every atrocity the imagination can conceive disgraced the warriors of the Cross.⁴ Whatever their motive, most Europeans entered the Crusades with very definite ideas about the kind of people they would encounter. Their prejudices were the result of their familiarity with the Bible, especially the Old Testament, the classics, and the religious propaganda of the age. In this connection, it is interesting to remember that the Crusades were nothing but minor skirmishes in the eyes of the people in the Middle East, which explains why so little attention has been given to their background and complexity by Arab historians and scholars.

Culturally the Crusaders in the East experienced some of the attractive sides of Islamic life, and attempted to imitate these on their return home. A few translations from Arabic into Latin were made in the Crusading states.⁵ It is also assumed that "the Crusaders must have heard stories of the Arabian Nights and carried them back to Europe. Boccaccio is said to have incorporated some of these tales in the Decameron.⁶ In England, as was the case in other European countries, the Eastern stories must have had a considerable impact. They were transmitted by the returning warriors, among whom were knights who enjoyed an exalted position in English society. But their tales, which furnished the romance writers with numerous themes and motives which they exploited in their stories,"⁷ were hostile to the Muslim East. However,

when one keeps hold of all the facts of the medieval confrontation of Christianity and Islam, it is clear that the influence of Islam on Western Christendom is greater than is usually realized. Not merely did Islam share with Western Europe many material products and technical discoveries; not merely did it stimulate Europe intellectually in the fields of science and philosophy; but it provoked Europe into forming a new image of itself. Because Europe was reacting against Islam it belittled the influence of the Saracens and exaggerated its dependence on its Greek and Roman heritage.⁸

Watt continues by urging Western Europeans to correct this false emphasis and to acknowledge fully their debt to the Arab and Islamic worlds. Only on such a basis, he believes, can humanity move into the era of the one world.⁹

In literature, the fabulous stories and legends that Crusaders had brought with them must have come from Kalila and Dimna and The Arabian Nights.¹⁰ Other shorter Middle Eastern narratives—like the example, anecdote, fable, and fabliau—were also current in the Middle Ages.¹¹ They came from a variety of sources: folklores, local happenings and legends, lists of classical tradition, biblical and historical material, adapted in oral transmission, and numerous plots (often cynical) that can be traced to the East.¹² These oriental tales were preferred to the popular medieval stock not only because of their variety and polished literarily presentation, but because above all they displayed a richer imagination and a more edifying aim.¹³ Europe is a more exalted place than it deserves. E. Baker expresses a more balanced opinion when he writes the following:

In that remote time, folk-tales and legends made their way by primitive modes of transmission into Western Europe and were received into the general stock, or were collected and translated into Latin in learned compendiums for use as illustrations in teaching or preaching. The West had been able to assimilate the East because to simple minds the marvels and magic and grotesqueries of the one seemed not very different from the extravagances that were native to the other. The new stories took their place side by side with the old, and provided just as good material for the fabliaux