A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, Now

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.5
Word count
867K words
Chapters
87

Tags

English Originals Folk LiteratureWorld Classics Legendary LivesAdventure JourneyDesire and FateFantasy ImaginationClassical TranslationStory CollectionTraditional AestheticsEclectic ReadingExotic CultureFolk Customs

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, NowAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: PJ: Language and Literatures: Oriental languages and literatures, Release Date: Apr 17, 2016

Editor's review

This book is an English literal translation of The Arabian Nights, part of the Project Gutenberg free eBook collection. Its value lies not in the novelty of the stories themselves but in its "literal" approach: the translator tends to stay close to the original syntax and rhetoric, preserving the repetition, nesting, and colloquial traces of Oriental narrative, allowing readers to glimpse how the stories change texture in the process of being rendered into English. For readers familiar with popular retellings, this version offers a plainer, less polished reading experience and is also convenient for comparative study of the collection's narrative structure and translation strategies. The electronic edition is easily accessible and suitable as classroom supplementary material or a comparative text for translation studies. It should be noted that the literal style may result in lengthy sentences and reduced readability, and since this is an English-only text without bilingual comparison, readers should adjust their expectations for fluency.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Start with one or two familiar stories, then compare with popular retellings to appreciate the difference between literal and free translation.
  2. Keep pen and paper to note recurring narrative formulas and observe the structural features of oral literature.
  3. There is no need to read page by page; select stories by unit and focus on the syntax and word choice of one tale at a time.
  4. For translation study, select passages for back-translation practice and compare with the original.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
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  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87

FAQ

How is this version different from common storybooks of The Arabian Nights? Its distinguishing feature is "literal translation": the English stays closer to the original syntax and rhetoric, preserving repetition and colloquial traces. It reads less smoothly than popular retellings but is better suited for observing the original narrative form of the stories and the translator's approach.
Can I read this book if my English is average? You can try, but be prepared. The literal text has longer sentences and plain wording, with no annotations or bilingual comparison. It is advisable to start with short tales, use a dictionary as you go, and not aim for speed.
Is this book suitable for translation research? It is suitable as comparative material. The literal version shows how much of the original structure the translator preserves, making it easy to compare with free translations and retellings. However, the book has no translator's notes or annotations, so deeper analysis requires other research materials.

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About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.