Stranger magic : charmed states and the Arabian nights

Our foremost theorist of myth, fairytale, and folktale explores the magical realm of the imagination where carpets fly and genies grant prophetic wishes. __Stranger Magic__ examines the profound impact of the __Arabian Nights__ on the West, the progressive exoticization of magic, and the growing acceptance of myth and magic in contemporary experience. Main description: Our foremost theorist of myth, fairytales, and folktales explores the magical realm of the imagination where carpets fly, objects speak, dreams reveal hidden truths, and genies grant prophetic wishes. Stranger Magic examines the wondrous tales of the Arabian Nights, their profound impact on the West, and the progressive exoticization of magic since the eighteenth century, when the first European translations appeared. The Nights seized European readers' imaginations during the siècle des Lumières, inspiring imitations, spoofs, turqueries, extravaganzas, pantomimes, and mauresque tastes in dress and furniture. Writers from Voltaire to Goethe to Borges, filmmakers from Raoul Walsh on, and countless authors of children's books have adapted its stories. What gives these tales their enduring power to bring pleasure to readers and audiences? Their appeal, Marina Warner suggests, lies in how the stories' magic stimulates the creative activity of the imagination. Their popularity during the Enlightenment was no accident: dreams, projections, and fantasies are essential to making the leap beyond the frontiers of accepted knowledge into new scientific and literary spheres. The magical tradition, so long disavowed by Western rationality, underlies modernity's most characteristic developments, including the charmed states of brand-name luxury goods, paper money, and psychoanalytic dream interpretation. In Warner's hands, the Nights reveal the underappreciated cultural exchanges between East and West, Islam and Christianity, and cast light on the magical underpinnings of contemporary experience, where mythical principles, as distinct from religious belief, enjoy growing acceptance. These tales meet the need for enchantment, in the safe guise of oriental costume A Note on the Text Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction Part I. Solomon the Wise King Story 1. The Fisherman and the Genie Chapter one. Master of Jinn Story 2. The City of Brass Chapter two. Riding the Wind: The Flying Carpet I Story 3. Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peri Banou Chapter three. A Tapestry of Great Price: The Flying Carpet II Part II. Dark Arts; Strange Gods Story 4. The Prince of the Black Islands Chapter four. The Worst Witch Chapter five. Egyptian Attitudes Story 5. Hasan of Basra Chapter six. Magians and Dervishes Story 6. A Fortune Regained Chapter seven. Dream Knowledge Part III. Active Goods Chapter eight ‘Everything You Desire to Know about the East ...’ Story 7. The Greek King and Doctor Douban Chapter nine. The Thing-World of the Arabian Nights Story 8. Abu Mohammed the Lazy Chapter ten. The Word of the Talisman Story 9. Marouf the Cobbler Chapter eleven. The Voice of the Toy Chapter twelve. Money Talks Part IV. Oriental Masquerades Chapter thirteen. Magnificent Moustaches: Hamilton’s Fooling, Voltaire’s Impersonations Story 10. Rosebud and Uns al-Wujud the Darling Boy Chapter fourteen. ‘Symbols of Wonder’: William Beckford’s Arabesque Chapter fifteen. Oriental Masquerade: Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan Part V. Flights of Reason Story 12. Camar al-Zaman and Princess Badoura Chapter sixteen. Thought Experiments: Flight before Flight Chapter seventeen. Why Aladdin? Chapter eighteen. Machine Dreams Story 13. The Ebony Horse Chapter nineteen. The Shadows of Lotte Reiniger Story 14. Aladdin of the Beautiful Moles Chapter twenty. The Couch: A Case History Story 15. Prince Ardashir and Hayat al-Nufus Conclusion: ‘All the story of the night told over ...’ Glossary Abbreviations The Stories Notes Bibliography Index "Magic is not simply a matter of the occult arts, but a whole way of thinking, of dreaming the impossible. As such it has tremendous force in opening the mind to new realms of achievement: imagination precedes the fact. It used to be associated with wisdom, understanding the powers of nature, and with technical ingenuity that could let men do things they had never dreamed of before. The supreme fiction of this magical thinking is the Arabian Nights, with its flying carpets, hidden treasure and sudden revelations."--Jacket Our foremost theorist of myth, fairytale, and folktale explores the magical realm of the imagination where carpets fly and genies grant prophetic wishes. Stranger Magic explores the profound impact of the Arabian Nights on the West, the progressive exoticization of magic, and the growing acceptance of myth and magic in contemporary experience.--From publisher description