Aladdin

Aladdin in the Magic Garden, an illustration by Max Liebert from Ludwig Fulda's Aladin und die Wunderlampe[1]

Aladdin (/əˈlædɪn/; Arabic: علاء الدين‎, ʻAlāʼ ad-Dīn, IPA: [ʕalaːʔ adˈdiːn]) is a folk tale of Middle Eastern origin. It is one of the tales in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights ("The Arabian Nights"), and one of the best known—but it was not part of the original Arabic text, being added in the 18th century by Frenchman Antoine Galland, who attributed the tale to Syrian storyteller Youhenna Diab.

Since it first appeared in the early 18th century "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp" has been one of the best known and most retold of all fairy stories.

Plot summary

The Sorcerer traps Aladdin in the magic cave.

The story is often "re-told" with variations – the following is a precis of the Burton translation of 1885.[2]

Aladdin is an impoverished young ne'er-do-well, dwelling in "one of the cities of China". He is recruited by a sorcerer from the Maghreb, who passes himself off as the brother of Aladdin's late father, Mustapha the tailor, convincing Aladdin and his mother of his good will by pretending to set up the lad as a wealthy merchant. The sorcerer's real motive is to persuade young Aladdin to retrieve a wonderful oil lamp from a booby-trapped magic cave. After the sorcerer attempts to double-cross him, Aladdin finds himself trapped in the cave. Aladdin is still wearing a magic ring the sorcerer has lent him. When he rubs his hands in despair, he inadvertently rubs the ring and a jinnī (or "genie") appears who releases him from the cave so that he can return to his mother – still carrying the lamp. When his mother tries to clean the lamp, so they can sell it to buy food for their supper, a second far more powerful genie appears who is bound to do the bidding of the person holding the lamp.

With the aid of the genie of the lamp, Aladdin becomes rich and powerful and marries Princess Badroulbadour, the sultan's daughter (after magically foiling her marriage to the vizier's son). The genie builds Aladdin and his bride a wonderful palace, far more magnificent than the sultan's.

The sorcerer hears of Aladdin's good fortune, and returns; he gets his hands on the lamp by tricking Aladdin's wife (who is unaware of the lamp's importance) by offering to exchange "new lamps for old". He orders the genie of the lamp to take the palace, along with all its contents, to his home in the Maghreb. Aladdin still has the magic ring and is able to summon the lesser genie. The genie of the ring cannot directly undo any of the magic of the genie of the lamp, but he is able to transport Aladdin to the Maghreb where, with the help of the "woman's wiles" of the princess he recovers the lamp and slays the sorcerer, returning the palace to its proper place.

The sorcerer's more powerful and evil brother plots to destroy Aladdin for killing his brother by disguising himself as an old woman known for her healing powers. Badroulbadour falls for his disguise and commands the "woman" to stay in her palace in case of any illnesses. Aladdin is warned of this danger by the genie of the lamp and slays the imposter. Everyone lives happily ever after, Aladdin eventually succeeding to his father-in-law's throne.

Sources

Known along with Ali Baba as one of the "orphan tales", the story was not part of the original Nights collection and has no authentic Arabic source, but was incorporated into the book Les Mille et Une Nuits by its French translator, Antoine Galland.[3]

John Payne quotes passages from Galland's unpublished diary: recording Galland's encounter with a Maronite Syrian scholar from Aleppo, Youhenna Diab. According to Galland's diary for March 25, 1709, he met the man he called "Hanna", who had travelled from Aleppo to Paris with Paul Lucas, a celebrated French traveller. Galland's diary reports that his translation of "Aladdin" was made in the winter of 1709–10. It was included in his volumes ix and x of the Nights, published in 1710. Payne also records the discovery in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris of two Arabic manuscripts containing Aladdin (with two more of the "interpolated" tales). One was written by a Syrian Christian priest living in Paris, named Dionysios Shawish, alias Dom Denis Chavis. The other is supposed to be a copy Mikhail Sabbagh made of a manuscript written in Baghdad in 1703. It was purchased by the Bibliothèque Nationale at the end of the nineteenth century.[4]

As part of his work on the first critical edition of the Nights, Muhsin Mahdi has shown[5] that both these manuscripts are forgeries—"back-translations" of Galland's text into Arabic.[6][7]

Setting

The opening sentences of the story, in both the Galland and the Burton versions, set it in China and imply, at least, that Aladdin is Chinese.[8] On the other hand, there is practically nothing in the rest of the story that is inconsistent with an Arabian or Middle Eastern setting. For instance, the Sultan is referred to as such rather than being called the "Emperor", as in some re-tellings, and the people in the story are Muslims: their conversation is larded with devout Muslim platitudes. A Jewish merchant buys Aladdin's wares (and incidentally cheats him), but there is no mention of Buddhists or Confucians (or other distinctively Han Chinese people).

China's ethnic makeup has long included Muslim groups, including large populations of the Hui people whose origins go back to Silk Road travellers. In addition, large communities of Muslim Chinese have been known since the Tang Dynasty, as well as Jewish communities. Some have even suggested that the intended setting may be Turkestan (encompassing Central Asia and the modern Chinese province of Xinjiang).[9]

For all this, speculation about a "real" Chinese setting depends on a knowledge of China that the teller of a folk tale (as opposed to a geographic expert) might well not possess.[10]

Adaptations

Adaptations vary in their faithfulness to the original story. In particular, difficulties with the "Chinese" setting are sometimes resolved by giving the story a more typical Arabian Nights background.

Books

Pantomimes

An 1886 theatre poster advertising a production of the pantomime Aladdin.

In the United Kingdom, the story of Aladdin was dramatised in 1788 by John O'Keefe for the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.[11] It has been a popular subject for pantomime for over 200 years.[12]

The traditional Aladdin pantomime is the source of the well-known pantomime character Widow Twankey (Aladdin's mother). In pantomime versions, changes in the setting and story are often made to fit it better into "China" (albeit a China situated in the East End of London rather than Medieval Baghdad), and elements of other Arabian Nights tales (in particular Ali Baba) are often introduced into the plot. One version of the "pantomime Aladdin" is Sandy Wilson's musical Aladdin, from 1979.

Since the early 1990s Aladdin pantomimes have tended to be influenced by the Disney animation. For instance, the 2007/8 production at the Birmingham Hippodrome starring John Barrowman featured songs from the Disney movies Aladdin and Mulan. Disney Theatricals itself produced a Broadway-style musical in Seattle in 2011, and another musical premiered in Toronto in 2013 and then opened on Broadway in 2014.

Other Musical theatre

New Crowns for Old, a 19th-century British cartoon based on the Aladdin story (Disraeli as Abanazer from the pantomime version of Aladdin offering Queen Victoria an Imperial crown (of India) in exchange for a Royal one).

Films

Animated

  • The 1926 animated film The Adventures of Prince Achmed (the earliest surviving animated feature film) combined the story of Aladdin with that of the prince. In this version the princess Aladdin pursues is Achmed's sister and the sorcerer is his rival for her hand. The sorcerer steals the castle and the princess through his own magic and then sets a monster to attack Aladdin, from which Achmed rescues him. Achmed then informs Aladdin he requires the lamp to rescue his own intended wife, Princess Pari Banou, from the demons of the Island of Wak Wak. They convince the Witch of the Fiery Mountain to defeat the sorcerer, and then all three heroes join forces to battle the demons.
  • Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp is a 1939 Popeye the Sailor cartoon.
  • The 1959 animated film 1001 Arabian Nights starring Mr. Magoo as Aladdin's uncle and produced by UPA.
  • The animated feature Aladdin et la lampe merveilleuse by Film Jean Image was released in 1970 in France.[15] The story contains many of the original elements of the story as compared to the Disney version.
  • Aladdin and the Magic Lamp was a rendition in Japanese directed by Yoshikatsu Kasai, produced in Japan by Toei Animation and released in United States by The Samuel Goldwyn Company in 1982.
  • Aladdin, the 1992 animated feature by Walt Disney Feature Animation (possibly currently the best known re-telling of the story). In this version several characters are renamed or amalgamated (for instance the Sorcerer and the Sultan's vizier become one character named Jafar, while the Princess is re-named Jasmine), have new motivations for their actions (the Genie of the Lamp only grants three wishes and desires freedom from his role) or are simply replaced (a magic carpet fills the place of the Ring Genie in the plot, while a royal "magic ring" is used by Jafar to find Aladdin). Names from and elements of the 1940 live-action The Thief of Bagdad are borrowed (for instance, the names "Jafar" and "Abu" and the Sultan's delight in toys. Also, the physical appearances of the Sultan and Jafar greatly resemble their counterparts in the 1940 film). The setting is moved from China to the fictional Arabian city of Agrabah, and the structure of the plot is simplified.
  • Aladdin by Golden Films was released directly on video in 1992.

Live action

Television

Comics

  • In 1962 the Italian branch of Walt Disney Productions published the story Paperino e la grotta di Aladino (Donald and Aladdin's Cave), written by Osvaldo Pavese and drawn by Pier Lorenzo De Vita. As in many pantomimes, the plot is combined with elements of the Ali Baba story: Uncle Scrooge leads Donald Duck and their nephews on an expedition to find the treasure of Aladdin and they encounter the Middle Eastern counterparts of the Beagle Boys. Scrooge describes Aladdin as a brigand who used the legend of the lamp to cover the origins of his ill-gotten gains. They find the cave holding the treasure - blocked by a huge rock requiring a magic password ("Open sesame") to open.[24]

Manga

  • The Japanese manga series Magi is not a direct adaptation, but features Aladdin as the main character of the story and includes many characters from other One Thousand and One Nights stories. An adaptation of this comic to animation was made in October 2012.

Video games

Pachinko

See also

References

  1. ↑ Aladdin at Project Gutenberg
  2. ↑ Burton (2009) pp. 1 ff
  3. ↑ Allen (2005) pp.280-
  4. ↑ Payne (1901) pp. 13-15
  5. ↑ Irwin (1994) pp. 57-58
  6. ↑ Mahdi (1994) pp. 51-71
  7. ↑ Dobie (2008) p.36
  8. ↑ Plotz (2001) p. 148–149
  9. ↑ Moon (2005) p. 23
  10. ↑ Honour (1973) - Section I "The Imaginary Continent"
  11. ↑ Witchard (2017)
  12. ↑ "Aladdin". Archived from the original on 5 February 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-22.
  13. ↑
  14. ↑ http://www.mtishows.com/show_detail.asp?showid=000018
  15. ↑ Aladdin et la lampe merveilleuse at the Internet Movie Database
  16. ↑ "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp". Letterboxd. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
  17. ↑ The Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Catalog:Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
  18. ↑ "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
  19. ↑ Allauddin Adhbhuta Deepam at IMDb.
  20. ↑ Allavudeenum Arputha Vilakkum at IMDb.
  21. ↑ Alladin Ka Chirag at IMDb.
  22. ↑ Aladdin and the Death Lamp on IMDB.com
  23. ↑ "Dhananjaya became Aladin". Sarasaviya. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  24. ↑ Profile of Paperino e la grotta di Aladino
  25. ↑ http://www.planete-jeu.fr/Aladin-Et-La-Lampe-Merveilleuse/
  26. ↑ Beyond Expectations: Integrated Report (PDF). Sega Sammy Holdings. 2017. pp. 24 & 71.

Bibliography

  • Allen, Roger (2005). The Arabic Literary Heritage: The Development of Its Genres and Criticism. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521485258.
  • Burton, Sir Richard (2009). Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. Digireads.com Publishing. ISBN 1-4209-3193-8.
  • El-Shamy, Hasan (2004). "The Oral Connections of the Arabian Nights:". in The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781576072042.
  • Honour, Hugh (1973). Chinoiserie: The Vision of Cathay. Ican. ISBN 978-0064300391.
  • Irwin, Robert (2004). Arabian Nights, The: A Companion. Tauris Parke Paperbacks. ISBN 1 86064 983 1.
  • Littman (1986). "Alf Layla wa Layla". in Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd ed.). Brill.
  • Dobie, Madeleine (2008). "Translation in the contact zone: Antoine Galland's Mille et une nuits: contes arabes". In Makdisi, S., Nussbaum, F. (eds). The Arabian Nights in Historical Context. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199554157.
  • Payne, John (1901). Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp and Other Stories. London.
  • Plotz, Judith Ann (2001). Romanticism and the vocation of childhood. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-22735-3.
  • Mahdi, Muhsin (1994). The Thousand and One Nights Part 3. Brill. ISBN 90-04-10106-3.
  • Moon, Krystyn (2005). Yellowface. Rutgers University Press. p. 23. ISBN 0-8135-3507-7.
  • Witchard, Anne Veronica (2017). Thomas Burke's Dark Chinoiserie. Routledge. ISBN 9780754658641.

Further reading

  • Haddawy, Husain (2008). The Arabian Nights. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393331660.
  • Nun, Katalin; Stewart, Dr Jon (2014). Volume 16, Tome I: Kierkegaard's Literary Figures and Motifs: Agamemnon to Guadalquivir. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 9781472441362.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.