Jean-Paul Sermain (Université de Paris-III, Sorbonne Nouvelle) "A Western Vision of Oriental Women:  Antoine Galland’s Translation of the Thousand and One Nights." Tuesday, April 17, 4:00pm UCEN, Harbor Room

The manuscript of the Thousand and One Nights, as discovered by their first translator Antoine Galland (1646-1715),  depicts female characters who are subjected to the constraints of Arab society and Islam,  and who overcome these constraints thanks to their intelligence, energy and moral conscience. For Galland, such a representation was incompatible both with the literary canon and the social norms of his time. 18th century French women had achieved a high degree of cultural refinement and social prominence and were allowed a great degree of freedom. Galland’s adaptation reflects this, in effect acclimating the Oriental women of the Nights to the French code of civility. Galland’s Western vision of Oriental women gives us access to three key issues of the Thousand and One Nights: the status of women in islamic cultures, Classicism’s translation aesthetics which advocates the appropriation of the original, and more generally the debate over Orientalism.

Jean-Paul SERMAIN (PhD, 1982, Doctorat d’Etat, 1992) is Professor of French Literature at the Université de Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle. An ENS alumnus, Sermain is a specialist of 18th century French literature, the aesthetics of Classicism and fairy tales. His books include Rhétorique et roman au 18e siècle (1985), Marivaux, Cervantes et le roman post critique (1999), Métafictions (1670-1730), la réflexivité dans la littérature d'imagination (2002) and Le Conte de fées du classicisme aux Lumières (2005). His recent work on the Thousand and One Nights includes the critical edition of Antoine Galland’s pioneering translation (2004). Sponsored by the Series in Contemporary Literature, the Department of Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies, the Comparative Literature Program, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.