Heidi Anne Heiner's Blog, page 100

The Goat and the Princess: Arabian Nights and Beauty and the Beast

Since I posted about a new book about Arabian Nights earlier today--see New Book: Scheherazade's Children: Global Encounters with the Arabian Nights--I thought I would offer another Beauty and the Beast post, this time for a tale with a complicated history, "The Goat and the Princess; or The Forty Goats and the Goat Riding a Goat."

The tale is an Egyptian ATU 425D: The Vanished Husband tale, a rarer Animal Bridegroom tale type; there are only three examples in my book. I translated the tale for Beauty and the Beast Tales From Around the World and I don't believe the tale has ever been published in English translation before. Well, sort of. From my introduction to the tale:

Originally collected and published in a French language collection of tales, Contes Populaires Inédits de la Vallée du Nil by S. E. Yacoub Artin Pacha, “Les Quarante Boucs et le Bouc Chevauchant sur le Bouc” was appropriated and embellished by J. C. Mardrus for his translation of Les Mille et Une Nuits (1899-1904). Mardrus’ version of The Arabian Nights was a commercial success and was translated into English by Powys Mathers in 1923. Scholars now dismiss Mardrus’ Arabian Nights as inaccurate and fanciful despite the consensus that the stories, while not Arabian Nights tales, are beautifully told.

Through this appropriation, the tale known as “The He Goat and the King’s Daughter” in Mathers’ translation, is commonly known as an Arabian Nights Beauty and the Beast story. The tale, while collected in Egypt, was not from any Arabian Nights manuscripts and is thus erroneously identified as such. The Mardrus/Mathers version changes some elements of the tale, the most significant and compelling is the participation of the princess’s mother, who takes the place of the vizier in the original, as a more active advisor. The religious tones are also embellished with many references to Allah that do not exist in the original.

The following is a new English translation of the original tale from Contes Populaires Inédits de la Vallée du Nil. For comparison, an English language version of the Mardrus/Mathers tale can be found in A Thousand and One Nights, Vol. 4, published by Routledge.

This is the second time I've translated a tale from Contes Populaires Inédits de la Vallée du Nil by S. E. Yacoub Artin Pacha for a SurLaLune volume. I also translated "The Magic Jar" for Cinderella Tales From Around the World for the same reasons--it's Egyptian but not an Arabian Nights story.

And Mardrus/Mathers pulled the same trick with "The Ninth Captain's Tale," but the source for that tale was Contes Arabes Modernes, Volume 1 by Guillaume Spitta-Bey. I translated the tale from Spitta-Bey and it appears as "The Story of the Prince in Love" in Sleeping Beauties: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales From Around the World (Surlalune Fairy Tale). You can read my earlier post about Sleeping Beauty, The Ninth Captain's Tale, and The Arabian Nights.

New Book: Scheherazade's Children: Global Encounters with the Arabian Nights

Scheherazade's Children: Global Encounters with the Arabian Nights by Philip F. Kennedy (Editor) , Marina Warner (Editor) was released last month and is a great new addition to any Arabian Nights library. I am far from being a scholar of Arabian Nights but I dabble in the tales like almost anyone who delves into folklore regularly.

The Arabian Nights is so very fascinating from its history, cultural influence, and questionable sources. For example--and this I learned when working on Bluebeard Tales From Around the World (Surlalune Fairy Tale Series)--Bluebeard is so often portrayed with a turban and Oriental appearance thanks to the Arabian Nights influence upon theatre as well as the similarities between Bluebeard and the frame story of Scheherazade from Arabian Nights, namely a wife killer. One of the essays in this new book discusses this is greater detail, "Scheherazade, Bluebeard, and Theatrical Curiosity," by Elizabeth Kuti. Essentially, Arabian Nights' popularity helped inspire Orientalism in the theatre and thus a famous play of Blue-beard, or Female Curiosity by George Colman and Michael Kelly in 1798 portrayed the French serial wife killer with an Oriental flare. And the play influenced several plays that followed as well as illustrators although no references in the texts, such as Perrault's, provide that description. I oversimplify but those are the essentials.

That, and so much more, is waiting to be read in this volume. I'm providing the book description and the table of contents below but you can also read part of the introduction through the Look Inside feature on Amazon.

And having a name like Marina Warner attached to it helps to keep the price down, too, making the book much more affordable for personal libraries unlike so many similar scholarly texts on Arabian Nights and folklore in general. It's a wondrous cycle that--the bigger the name on the cover, the more anticipated sales and bigger print run, leading to a lower price which makes the book more readily available to personal and public, not just academic libraries. Which in turn makes the name recognition on the cover even greater. Deservedly so. I'm grateful when that happens. More exposure for a topic I love!

Book description:

Scheherazade’s Children gathers together leading scholars to explore the reverberations of the Arabian Nights tales across a startlingly wide and transnational range of cultural endeavors. The contributors, drawn from a wide array of disciplines, extend their inquiries into the book’s metamorphoses on stage and screen as well as in literature—from India to Japan, from Sanskrit mythology to British pantomime, from Baroque opera to puppet shows. Their highly original research illuminates little-known manifestations of the Nights, and provides unexpected contexts for understanding the book’s complex history. Polemical issues are thereby given unprecedented and enlightening interpretations.

Organized under the rubrics of Translating, Engaging, and Staging, these essays view the Nights corpus as a uniquely accretive cultural bundle that absorbs the works upon which it has exerted influence. In this view, the Arabian Nights is a dynamic, living and breathing cross-cultural phenomenon that has left its mark on fields as disparate as the European novel and early Indian cinema. While scholarly, the writers’ approach is also lively and entertaining, and the book is richly illustrated with unusual materials to deliver a sparkling and highly original exploration of the Arabian Nights’ radiating influence on world literature, performance, and culture.

Philip F. Kennedy is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and Comparative Literature at New York University, and Vice Provost for Public Programming for the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute.

Marina Warner is Professor of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex and Fellow of the British Academy. Her most recent book, Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights, won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

And here is the Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction 1
Philip F. Kennedy and Marina Warner

Part I: Translating

1 The Sea-Born Tale: Eighteenth-Century English
Translations of The Thousand and One Nights and the
Lure of Elemental Difference 27
Ros Ballaster

2 Re-Orienting William Beckford: Transmission, Translation,
and Continuation of The Thousand and One Nights 53
Laurent Châtel

3 The Collector of Worlds: Richard Burton, Cosmopolitan
Translator of the Nights 70
Paulo Lemos Horta

Part II: Engaging

4 The Porter and Portability: Figure and Narrative in the Nights 89
Elliott Colla

5 The Rings of Budur and Qamar al-Zaman 108
Wendy Doniger

6 White Magic: Voltaire and Galland’s Mille et une nuits 127
Roger Pearson

7 The Arabian Nights and the Origins of the Western Novel 143
Robert Irwin

8 “A Covenant for Reconciliation”: Lane’s Thousand and
One Nights and Eliot’s Daniel Deronda 154
Paulo Lemos Horta

9 Translating Destiny: Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s
“Tale of the 672nd Night” 172
Dominique Jullien

10 Borges and the Missing Pages of the Nights 195
Philip F. Kennedy

11 The Politics of Conversation: Denis Diderot, Elio Vittorini,
Manuel Puig, Masaki Kobayashi, Vasily Grossman 218
Katie Trumpener

12 Sindbad the Sailor: Textual, Visual, and Performative
Interpretations 243
Ferial J. Ghazoul

Part III: Staging

13 The Arabian Nights in British Pantomime 265
Karl Sabbagh

14 The Arabian Nights in Traditional Japanese Performing Arts 274
Yuriko Yamanaka

15 “Nectar If You Taste and Go, Poison If You Stay”:
Struggling with the Orient in Eighteenth-Century
British Musical Theater 282
Berta Joncus

16 Scheherazade, Bluebeard, and Theatrical Curiosity 322
Elizabeth Kuti

17 The Takarazuka Revue and the Fantasy of “Arabia” in Japan 347
Tetsuo Nishio

18 Thieves of the Orient: The Arabian Nights in
Early Indian Cinema 362
Rosie Thomas

Afterword: My Arabian Superheroine 395
Alia Yunis

List of Stories 401

Selected Bibliography 409

About the Contributors 429

Index 435

The illustrations appear in two groups, following pages 176 and 224.
For information about the illustrations, see the list of illustrations on
page ix.

Fairy Tale Manga: Dictatorial Grimoire: Cinderella (Volume 1) by Ayumi Kanou

Dictatorial Grimoire: Cinderella (Volume 1) by Ayumi Kanou was released this past September. I have to admit, I am a manga ignoramous which is sad since there are several series that use fairy tales.


Book description:

Cinderella was never this dashing!

Otogi Grimm, a far-flung descendant of the renowned Grimm Brothers, has always regarded the fairy tales his ancestors concocted as pure fiction. Unfortunately for the introverted half-Japanese teen, he is about to discover that the Grimm legacy is anything but pure.

Upon receiving a posthumous letter from the dead father he never knew, Otogi transfers to a new school and moves into an abandoned mansion as part of his inheritance. There, he finds a manuscript that reveals the truth about his ancestors: the Brothers Grimm made a deal with mystical beings known as the Märchen Demons, who now have a claim on Otogi’s life. With a dashing male Cinderella as his guide, can Otogi Grimm unlock the power of the manuscript and stop the fairy tale demons before they destroy him first?

The Dictatorial Grimoire series will be at least three books with the next book, Dictatorial Grimoire: Snow White (Volume 2), slated for a January 7, 2014 release. The third volume, Dictatorial Grimoire: Red Riding Hood (Volume 3), will be released April 1, 2014, but I don't have cover art for it yet.

The Slipper and the Rose: The Story Of Cinderella [Blu-ray]

Just a reminder that The Slipper and the Rose: The Story Of Cinderella [Blu-ray] was released last month. I already own TWO DVDs of this film but darn it, I think I want the Blu-Ray since any upgrade in picture will be appreciated. This is one of my favorite renditions of Cinderella, one of the films that started me on this SurLaLune journey when I was much younger than I am now.

I still remember thinking, "Well, that makes better sense than the version in my book." And so it was one of my first exposures to a reinterpretation of a tale circa age 9 or so. Not that it takes much liberty with the tale, but we do get the prince's side of the story, too, and it's not so easy for a prince to marry a commoner either.

And as I always say, if I had a Fairy Godmother, I would want her to be Annette Crosbie.

And now I have the music stuck in my head again. Not a bad thing, it's the Sherman Brothers at their best besides their score to Mary Poppins. (I'm tempted by the new Disney "biopic"--Saving Mr Banks--just to see those scenes with the Sherman Brothers writing the songs for Mary Poppins.)

I wouldn't mind an attempt at a remake of Slipper and the Rose. My fondness for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella has grown over the years--from singing it in musical comedy class as a teen to finally seeing Julie Andrews' performance in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (1957 Television Production) to taking my niece this past September to see a local theatre production--but Slipper and the Rose will always be my favorite.

Which would you rather sing, "In My Own Little Corner" as you sweep the floor or "Tell Him Anything (But Not That I Loved Him)" as you sneak away to save the kingdom?

Although it's a close tie for me between "What A Comforting Thing To Know" and "Impossible!; It's Possible!" Either of those are my guaranteed earworms from each musical version. "Impossible" stayed in my head for weeks after seeing the Rodgers and Hammerstein version in September.

Darn it. I think I just talked myself into sneaking this under the tree for myself...

Snow White by Stella Gurney (Author), Zdenko Basic and Manuel Sumberac (Illustrators)

(US links / UK link)
Since I raved about the illustrations in today's post about the The Snow White Creativity Book: Games, Cut-Outs, Art Paper, Stickers, and Stencils (Creativity Books), I wanted to share the book with the original illustrations by Zdenko Basic and Manuel Sumberac. The book has not been published officially in the US although copies are available through third party sellers. It has been published in many languages around Europe though.

Snow White by Stella Gurney (Author), Zdenko Basic and Manuel Sumberac (Illustrators) or in the UK is just beautiful and one of my favorite renditions of Snow White. I hope an official US copy will be released someday. It was published in Europe in 2012 so I don't know if it will be.

Such as the Spanish:

(US / UK Links)
Or the French:

(US / UK Links)
Here are images from the book:


Book description:

When the queen of the land pricks her finger on a needle, the sight of her own blood makes her long for a child with skin as white as snow and lips as red as blood. But soon after little Snow White is born, death claims her poor mother and her father finds himself a new queen. Envious of her step-daughter's great beauty, the new queen orders for her to be led into the forest and killed. But by a twist of fortune, Snow White finds herself instead in the care of seven kindly dwarfs. This new circle of friends will soon prove to be her lifeline, for the queen is no fool and her evil deeds and dark magic know no bounds...

The Snow White Creativity Book

(US / UK links)
Of the three creativity books I am featuring today, this is my favorite: The Snow White Creativity Book: Games, Cut-Outs, Art Paper, Stickers, and Stencils (Creativity Books). Or if you are in the UK, here's your link. And, no, it's not because it is Snow White. If you've been reading here, that is not one of my absolute favorite fairy tales although I have great affection for it.

My love for this creativity book comes from the illustrations, which were adapted from a picture book of Snow White illustrated by Zdenko Basic and Manuel Sumberac. The picture book illustrated by Basic and Sumberac is not published in the US yet, but it is available in several languages around Europe, all of which are also accessible in the US through third party sellers. I'll post more about that book next. For now, back to the Creativity book. I have images to share...

All of the books I've featured today have stickers, but for this book, I have images of the sticker pages. Very charming! I also think the activity pages in this edition are the best designed of all the fairy tale related books, although they are all fine and fun. This book has the additional charm of the illustrations for inspiration.


Book description:

The classic fairytale Snow White always inspires young imaginations, so it's the perfect inspiration for a highly imaginative Creativity Book from Barron's. Kids will relive the wonder of the story as they help the dwarves dig for jewels, create their own magic mirror reflection, find the differences between two magical pictures, and more.

Barron's imaginatively interactive Creativity Books are great for keeping kids occupied anytime.Their features include:

Games, puzzles, and fun-to-answer quizzes
Sticker sheets and an illustrated fold-out page for sticker decorating
Stencil sheets and pages for coloring
Special pull-out art paper and art projects to complete
High quality pages and spiral binding to handle heavy usage

Each Creativity Book has a distinctive theme to capture the imaginations of boys and girls. Illustrations on virtually every page include 40 pages in color.

More books in the series, not all will be highlighted on the blog:

 
 

The Fairytale Creativity Book

(UK Link / US edition in 2014)
The Fairytale Creativity Book is the second book of three in the Creativity series I am sharing today. Those are UK links because the book is not available in the US yet.

Good news though! It is scheduled for a March 2014 release. Which makes me happy because it is my second favorite and I know I will be sharing it with my niece soon. Here's a link to the US edition: The Fairy Tale Creativity Book: Games, Cut-Outs, Art Paper, Stickers, and Stencils! (Creativity Books).

These are also available in Australia, so check your booksellers if you live in that region.


Book description:

The magic of fairy tales always inspires young imaginations; that makes them the perfect theme for a new Creativity Book from Barron's! Kids will relive the wonder of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, and other classic stories as they color, solve puzzles, connect-the-dots, and create sticker scenes in The Fairy Tale Creativity Book.

Barron's imaginatively interactive Creativity Books are great for keeping kids occupied anytime. Their features include:

Games, puzzles, and fun-to-answer quizzes
Sticker sheets and an illustrated fold-out page for sticker decorating
Stencil sheets and pages for coloring
Special pull-out art paper and art projects to complete
High quality pages and spiral binding to handle heavy usage

Each Creativity Book has a distinctive theme to capture the imaginations of boys and girls. Illustrations on virtually every page include 40 pages in color.

More books in the series, not all will be highlighted on the blog:


 

The Princess Creativity Book

(US / UK Links)
The Princess Creativity Book: Includes Stickers, Fold-Out Scene, Stencils, and Pretty Paper is part of a large line of Creativity books published internationally, see the UK edition here. Three of the books, including this one, draw inspiration from classic fairy tales. These are the types of books I adored as a kid and I find them tempting now. My youngest niece is nearing the perfect age for these, so they are going on my list.

I'm going to give each of the three books a separate post because I have images from each title to share and don't want to confuse the sources or books.


Book description:

Certain to please every little princess who enjoys crafts and activities, this big, fun-packed book has pictures to color, sticker sheets for decorating a gatefold sticker scene, stencils for drawing, decorated paper for fashioning crafts items, mazes and puzzles to solve, directions for making a princess crown, princess games to play with friends, and much more. Every little girl wants to be a princess, and this book encourages her with--

An Are You a Real Princess? quiz presenting questions for her to answer
Instructions for making a Royal Proclamation Poster she can attach to her bedroom door
An insert-and-press-out sheet she can use to construct models of a Princess and Prince
A Fortune Teller cut-out to predict her own magic future . . . and much more

No story about a princess is complete without a Wicked Queen, and girls will find directions for completing a Wicked Queen picture, plus more drawing activities that include designing new hairdos, solving dot-to-dot puzzles, and sketching in the missing items in Cinderella's photo album. Little girls will discover fun-to-do activities on every page of this fascinating book, along with illustrations to inspire their imaginations and stimulate their creative dreams.

More books in the series, not all will be highlighted on the blog:

New Book: The Captive Maiden by Melanie Dickerson

The Captive Maiden by Melanie Dickerson is the newest (and fourth) release in her inspirational fairy tale series. This time she explores Cinderella. Every time I see this cover I think of Dr. Who. I think the model looks a lot like Billie Piper. Or there was her turn in Masterpiece Theatre: Mansfield Park. But I think that prince in the background is really Dr. Who. Which would make this book REALLY interesting, yes?

But there has already been Doctor Who: A Fairytale Life, so I think we can just enjoy Dickerson's own take on the story and forget my meanderings over the cover here which I should delete but I won't. :)

Book description:

Happily Ever After ...Or Happily Nevermore? Gisela's childhood was filled with laughter and visits from nobles such as the duke and his young son. But since her father's death, each day has been filled with nothing but servitude to her stepmother. So when Gisela learns the duke's son, Valten---the boy she has daydreamed about for years---is throwing a ball in hopes of finding a wife, she vows to find a way to attend, even if it's only for a taste of a life she'll never have. To her surprise, she catches Valten's eye. Though he is rough around the edges, Gisela finds Valten has completely captured her heart. But other forces are bent on keeping the two from falling further in love, putting Gisela in more danger than she ever imagined.

And while we are here, here are her previous three books, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast retold here:

East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon by Jackie Morris

(US / UK Links)
East of the Sun, West of the Moon by Jackie Morris, both author and illustrator, was released earlier this year. I kept saving it up for when I discussed East of the Sun for the release of Beauty and the Beast Tales From Around the World. Now the book is making some "Best of Lists" for 2013.

While this book is richly illustrated, it is not a short picture book. The page count is 176! (Which makes it a bargain since it is priced like a traditional 32-40 page picture book.) Morris also takes some liberties with the story, this is not a straight retelling of the traditional tale, but her own interpretation with a different ending.

And don't miss Jackie Morris's blog entry about writing and illustrating the book at In Between the Lines.

Here are some illustrations:



About the book:

An extended version of the Norwegian fairy tale, set in the 21st century.

From the moment she saw him, she knew the bear had come for her. How many times had she dreamt of the bear... Now, here he was, as if spelled from her dreams. "I will come with you, Bear," she said. It is the beginning of an extraordinary journey for the girl. First to the bear s secret palace in faraway mountains, where he is treated so courteously, but where she experiences the bear s unfathomable sadness, and a deep mystery... As the bear s secret unravels, another journey unfolds... a long and desperate journey, that takes the girl to the homes of the four Winds and beyond, to the castle east of the sun, west of the moon. This beautiful, mysterious story of love, loyalty and above all, freedom, is inspired by fairy tale, and is magically told and illustrated by Jackie Morris.

Beautifully and lyrically written, the story develops the characterisation of the white bear, the girl and the four winds, and suggests a possible new ending, in which the girl rescues the prince, but sets him free, without the resolution of marriage at the end of the story.

Endorsed by Amnesty International.

"Jackie Morris has updated and re-imagined the tale of East of the Sun, West of the Moon for a new generation of readers, upsetting the boundaries of happy endings and asserting that heroines are not obligated to move in expected patterns" - Robin Hobb

About the author

Jackie Morris lives in a small house by the sea in Pembrokeshire, Wales, where she writes and paints. She has two children, Tom and Hannah, a small pack of dogs and a small pride of cats. Her picture books for Frances Lincoln include The Ice Bear, The Snow Leopard, Can You See a Little Bear?, The Cat and the Fiddle: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes, and How the Whale Became by Ted Hughes. East of the Sun, West of the Moon has lived somewhere in the back of her mind from the first time she ever heard it. Jackie says, "There are some stories that when you hear them for the very first time it is as if you know them, as if they are part of your soul. You then spend the rest of your life trying to understand them. This story is one of those for me."

Above and below are the endpapers for the book, those pages inside the cover. Lovely.