![]() ![]() Two damaged and discolored pages from a book called The Thousand Nights, discovered in Cairo but originally from Syria, sketch the primal scene of storytelling: a character named Dinazad asks Shirazad to tell her-if she isn’t too sleepy-a tale of “excellences and shortcomings, craft and stupidity.” There is no mention of the bloodthirsty King Shahrayar, who vows to deflower and then murder all the kingdom’s virgins after witnessing his wife’s infidelity, but the paper fragment is proof at least of Scheherazade’s existence some 1,200 years ago.īooks with similar titles and scenes are known to have circulated in the medieval Arab world, but the oldest surviving manuscript comes from the fifteenth century. ![]() The first written evidence of what is known in English as The Arabian Nights or The Thousand and One Nights dates from the early ninth century.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |