Richard, Close Reading-Group 2

Thousand and One Nights has shaped the view of the west on that part of the world ever since it was first translated. There are many different translations, but one that stands out in particular, is the translation done by Richard Burton. Burton was an explorer and a scholar in the 19th century, but most importantly he was an Orientalist. Now in addition to being an Orientalist, he was also from the West, in a time where the West did not understand the East and did not want to be associated with it. This led to his translation of Thousand and One Nights to have some reflections of this distinction between the east and the west.
According to Edward Said, the author of Orientalism, Orientalism was “ultimately a political version of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, West, Us) and the strange (The Orient, East, Them).” Basically, it was a way to separate East from West. In Burton’s translation, it’s possible to see a reflection of Said’s definition in his writing and in particular the footnotes he made during his translation of the opening story of “King Shahryar and His Brother” to accompany his descriptions of the Orient.
The part of the translation that stands out to me is the sex scene where the Queen brings twenty slaves to the courtyard. Now the translation says that the queen brought out 20 people, 10 white men, and 10 white women. Then when the Queens lover arrives, he is black and is described as a “big slobbering blackamoor, a truly hideous sight” (Burton 42). Burton says he is hideous because of the color of his skin and uses the world slobbering to make him look like an animal. When one thinks of slobbering they think of a Dog, or Tiger, or a wild animal. Slobbering is usually not a word used to describe humans. Burton makes a footnote at this point that reads, “Debauched women prefer negroes” (Burton, 42). The word debauched means morally corrupted. So right away he is making a negative association with the people of the East. He is basically saying only someone without values would prefer someone with darker skin. In this same footnote, Burton also talks about the “parts” of the negro. What is important here is the subtle comparison he makes when he says, “This is a characteristic of the negro race and of African animals,” (Burton, 42). He is literally comparing them to animals. It might not seem like much but he is making them appear inferior by likening them to the wildlife of Africa. He wants to make sure that no one mistakes “Us” for “Them.”
It might not be a lot, but remember that these examples of orientalism were found on one page of Burton’s translation. Now imagine the amount of stereotyping and negative connotations that would be present in the entire collection of stories. It is no surprise that at this time fear for the “Other” was rising, and just as Said said, tit was scholars such as Burton who promoted this difference and would contribute to the divide, and that was the biggest failure of the West, to never realize what they were doing and one can stills ee the impact of this way of thinking today.

Sources:
https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/12/Said_full.pdf
http://ia802700.us.archive.org/19/items/arabiantranslat01burtuoft/arabiantranslat01burtuoft.pdf