I. Introduction to Arabian Nights

According to legend, in ancient times, on the island between ancient India and China, there was a Sassanian kingdom, and the king's name was Shanua. One day, Shanua and his brother Sam came to a grassland by the sea. When they were resting under a tree, suddenly a black water column appeared in the middle of the sea. A girl came to them and told them that all women in the world were untrustworthy and untrustworthy.

When King Sanou and his younger brother Saman returned to Sassanian Kingdom, they killed the queen, maids and slaves. From then on, Shanuya hated women and took revenge. He started to marry a woman every day for one night, and then killed and married again the next day, completely becoming a tyrant. This situation lasted for three years year after year, killing more than 1000 women.

Sang Lu Zhuo, the eldest daughter of the Prime Minister, told her father that she would marry the king and she would try to save thousands of women in Qian Qian. "After entering the palace, Sangluzhuo told stories to the king every night. In this way, Sang Luzhuo tells a story every day, and her stories are endless and wonderful, until "One Thousand and One Nights" finally touched the king. Shanua said, "I swear to God, I am determined not to kill you. Your story touched me. I will record these stories and keep them forever. " Thus, there was the book "One Thousand and One Nights".

Generative and stereotyped

Arabian Nights (the old translation of Arabian Nights) is a large-scale and rich collection of folk stories in medieval Arab literature. It has a cartoon version and is a bright pearl in world literature.

The story of Arabian Nights consists of three parts. The first one is a film called Herzog? Afsanai's Tales of Ancient Persia (1000 Stories) originated in India, originally in Sanskrit, then translated into Persian, and then into Arabic, with some Arabic stories added. The second part originated from the Abbas dynasty in Iraq, especially Harun? The story of Rasheed's reign; The third part is a story about Mamalik dynasty in Egypt. Its core is the first part.

According to the statistics of the original Arabic version, there are 134 big stories in the book, and each big story contains several small stories, forming a huge story group. Arabian Nights is a collective creation of working people, which has gone through a long historical process from oral creation to compilation. As early as the first century, Indian and Persian folktales spread to Iraq and Syria. From the mid-8th century to the mid-9th century, calligraphy appeared. After hundreds of years of collection, sorting, processing and supplement, it was not finalized until about16th century. Literati compile a book and publish it later.

Why is The Arabian Nights so popular?

Arabian Nights reflects the social reality of ancient Arabia and its neighboring countries in many aspects and widely, and is called the "spotless mirror" of medieval Arab society. Its people-oriented performance is as follows:

First, it profoundly reflected the sharp class opposition of the society at that time and exposed the cruelty and evil of the rulers. In the Middle Ages, the caliph brutally exploited the working people at home and pursued the policy of expansion and aggression abroad, which plunged the broad masses of the people into dire straits and caused fierce class contradictions at home. The story of fisherman, the story of death and the story of hunchback all show the resistance of working people to feudal autocratic rule and exploitation.

Second, describe the lives of working people and praise their excellent morality, wisdom and fighting spirit. In many stories, fishermen, herders, hairdressers, shoemakers, maids, woodcutter, farmers, craftsmen, porters and so on. Appeared in succession and became the positive protagonist of this story set. This kind of story is often combined with the content of exposing the evil deeds of the ruling class, which has a strong role in stimulating people's fighting spirit. The Fisherman's Story, The Story of a White Picture, The Robber of Baghdad, Alibaba and The Forty Thieves all show the kindness, alertness and wisdom of the positive hero from different angles, and reflect the rich imagination and creativity of the people.

Third, it shows the strong desire of working people to pursue a better life, especially the yearning for loyal love. The story of the dark horse, the story of Nurundin and Dilundin, and the story of Hassan, a silversmith in Basola, all condemned the evil forces in society to varying degrees, praised the loyal and single-minded love, and showed profound anti-feudal significance.

Fourthly, the story of businessmen's adventurous life and thoughts and feelings occupies an important position in Arabian Nights. Among them, the story of Simberta's voyage to the West is the most famous. It tells the story of Simboda's thrilling twists and turns in seven adventure voyages and praises his enterprising spirit.

Artistic feature

Arabian Nights is the crystallization of Arab people's artistic talent and creativity, which has the following four characteristics.

First, a strong romantic color. The author of Arabian Nights freely spreads the wings of imagination and fantasy: the omnipotent magic lamp and the Lord of the Rings; A palace built overnight; Flying carpets inside and outside the palace; A flying black horse; Fish as big as an island; A headscarf that can be invisible; A crutch that can exorcise ghosts; You can see the clairvoyance of any distant target and so on. These magical things are the crystallization of the wisdom of working people, expressing people's enterprising spirit of exploring nature, transforming society and defeating evil forces. At the same time, many stories in Arabian Nights also combine the fantasy of good wishes with the authenticity of reality wonderfully, so that romanticism and realism complement each other and produce fascinating artistic effects.

Second, the plot twists and turns bizarre, flexible and simple structure. Sometimes the story is in the sky, sometimes in the world; Sometimes with the help of gods and demons, sometimes completely following the logic of reality. A monster "bigger than a mountain" can go in and out of a small copper bottle in the shape of a gallbladder; With the magic lamp, it can build a magnificent palace overnight ... so unpredictable. The structure of Arabian Nights is ingenious, concise and flexible, creating an artistic structure form of "frame structure". The work is in the form of Scheherazade's "Telling the King", and more than 260 stories are embedded in the framework of this big story. A big story sets a small story, and the big and small stories are intertwined to form a huge story system, which makes people feel long but not redundant, miscellaneous but not chaotic, well organized and well organized, like a string of long beads, which makes people feel happy.

Third, sharp contrast. In the story, the goodness, evil, beauty and ugliness of many characters are particularly striking, forming a sharp contrast. For example, an honest and astute fisherman and a vicious and cunning devil in The Fisherman's Tale, a god of death and a cruel king who embody the people's will in The Story of Death, a wealthy businessman and a poor porter, and a witty Marci Na and a stupid robber in Alibaba and the Forty Thieves. They all highlight their own personality characteristics through comparison. The contrast is full of the author's thoughts, love and hate.

Fourthly, the language is rich, simple, fluent, natural and vivid, full of poetry and painting, which well reflects the true colors of folk literature. A Thousand and One Nights uses a wide range of rhetorical devices such as symbolism, metaphor, humor and satire. Some stories are also inserted with aphorisms, aphorisms, proverbs, short poems and so on. It constitutes the colorful features of language and greatly enhances the artistic appeal.