Literary Concepts
There are levels to this, aka embedding, and this is the highest level, which provides an interpretive context for that which is within.
What is the frame story?
Black slave with whom Shahryar's wife gleefully "communes" in the courtyard.
Who is Mas'ud?
The story where remembering the words "open sesame" determines whether one lives or dies.
What is ‘Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves?
The person responsible for first translating the Nights for widespread Western consumption.
Who is Galland?
Incest isn't cool, except when it's with your...
What is a cousin?
We're told these are part of the Nights, but they have suspisicously Western moments. Galland has some 'splaining to do.
What are orphan tales?
The prince who falls madly in love with a sea princess, prior to ever meeting her.
Who is Badr?
The story in which we see a set of people wrongly thinking that they killed the same person, and have the stories they attempt to tell in exchange for their lives rejected.
What is 'The Hunchback's Tale'?
His process of translating the Nights into English likely entailed much less risk of catching STIs than Burton's.
Who is Edward Lane?
The animal that Badr, son of Jullanar, get transformed into by Queen Lab and her mother?
What is a bird?
Characters that seem to be reflections of each other. This concept is closely tied to the structure of frame tales, since a lot of characters reflect parts of Shahrazad or Shahryar or a "parent" tale. Examples: Women in chests calling to men in trees, powerful kings who don't know they are being cuckholded.
What are mirrors/doubles?
Forgets the secret code to leave the thieves’ caves, is quartered.
Who is Qasim?
The story in which Nur al-DIn Ali al-Misri and Badr al-Din Hasan al-Basri have the same job.
What is 'The Tale of the Two Viziers'?
The Syrian monk with whom Galland allegedly worked closely to get a handful of orally transmitted tales of the Nights.
Who is Hanna Diab?
How Badr falls in love with Jahara.
What is hearing a description of her?
A critical moment of recognition and reclamation of identity in a story (as seen in Sindbad)
What is anagnorisis?
They have three eyes among the three of them; they come to the house of the three ladies.
Who are the three dervishes?
A king’s son is fated to marry the daughter of his estranged brother.
What is, “The Story of the Two Viziers”
Translated Muhsin Mahdi's 1984 Arabic version of the Nights into English in 1990.
Who is Hussain Haddawy?
The porter has to guess the name of the three sister's genitalia. What does he call his own?
What is the smashing mule?
Earth science-y term that reflects the idea that the 1001 Nights came together through a process in which each copier, translator, orator, or editor added something to the collection. Other examples we discussed in class were Wikipedia and the bible.
What is sedimentation?
Legendary Caliph of Baghdad. He appears in several stories with his vizier Ja'far.
Who is Harun al Rashid?
The story in which a hater is a motivator... of attempted murder
What is "The Tale of the Envious and the Envied"
The language in which the 1001 Nights was originally written.
What is unknown? The Nights is considered a work that was produced through the process of sedimentation as translators added more stories and twists. Some of the early languages were probably Farsi, Sanskrit, and Arabic.
This was the cause of the hunchback’s death-like appearance in “The Tale of the Hunchback”.
What is a fishbone?