Metamorfozy Szeherezady. Studium porównawcze angielskich przekładów Księgi tysiąca i jednej nocy
Scheherazade’s Metamorphoses: English Translations of The Thousand and One Nights – A Comparative Study

Summary/Abstract: This article constitutes a comparative study of three nineteenth-century translations of The Thousand and One Nights, by John Payne (1882), Edward William Lane (1883) and Richard Francis Burton (1885). The Thousand and One Nights has not only been translated into many European languages, but it has also appeared in contemporary prose, music, art and, last but not least, fi lm. The article argues that the polyphony and diversity of the English translations of The Nights result from numerous literary and cultural metamorphoses of the book. Moreover, the article discusses the trajectories of interrelations between the source text/ the Eastern culture/ the Other and the target text/ Western culture/ the Same. The comparative analysis of the English translations indicates that The Thousand and One Nights has undergone a process of mythologization, which is also noticeable in Polish culture, since readers of Polish translations or adaptations of the book as well as some of translators and academics erroneously perceive this collection of various stories as “The Fairy Tales” of The Thousand and One Nights.

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