Thousand and One nights (Group 1)

Thousand and One nights also known as Arabian nights is a collection of many Middle Eastern and Asian stories and folk tales, stories such as Aladdin, the Merchant and the Genie and Shahrayar and Shahrazad. As time went on these old stories have been translated in different ways to appeal to its particular audience and  most of the translation were done by Western authors. Because the East was so foreign to people of the west the term Orient was devised to describe their culture while the term Occident was used to describe Western cultures . They found it necessary to have a distinction between the two because it was so unfamiliar to the people of the West. This then gave rise to orientalism which is the exaggerated difference between Middle  East and European cultures.

According to Edward Said Orientalism “is a style of thought based upon ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the Orient” and “the Occident”.” He went further to say the large mass of writers have then accepted this distinction between them and used it as starting point for their work which means the Occident (western) view and ideology of the orient (Eastern) is what is believed and seen as true.

The concept of orientalism then applies to the stories of Thousand and One nights for example, The Merchant and the Genie and the Merchant and the Genius. Both these stories share the same moral but with significant differences because they both target different audiences making changes that they will be able to comprehend. The Merchant and the Genie was John Payne version of the story and he was an English poet and translator while Lang, the translator for The Merchant and the Genius was a Scottish poet and novelist. Payne version is of old English which makes it harder to understand but that is what his target audience, English  understood. At the time words such as thy and thou were used therefore it appeared frequently in his work and overall his English culture showed in his translation. This is then how orientalism plays a role, the original context of the story is changed to one that they would understand. Same applies to Andrew Lang version of this story, he made adjustment for his target audience to understand.

Due to orientalism the original meaning of a story can then be misunderstood or completely altered because of different translations. The East was seen as exotic and unfamiliar which is why these stories had to be translated that way it can be relatable to its new audience.