A Phenomenology of the Middle Eastern Frame-Tale Collections
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5617/jais.10120Abstract
The frame tale is a fascinating device of storytelling, whether oral or literary. The Middle Eastern frame-tale collections differ in nature from most corresponding collections in the Western literatures that are the subject of many of the existing historical and theoretical discussions. First and foremost, all of the Middle Eastern frame-tale collections are of considerable antiquity and owe their existence to the creativity of authors whose identity is lost in the mist of time. Although their diligent composition betrays the conscious hand of an intellectually gifted author, even the documented precursors of Middle Eastern frame-tale collections in the ancient Indian literatures can hardly be connected to an author known by name. Moreover, over the long history of their international dissemination, they have come to be regarded as products of popular tradition. And second, the same assessment applies to the tales the collections embed. While it remains speculative to which extent these tales themselves derive from oral or popular tradition, many of them have become part of popular tradition, whether as embedded constituents of their respective frame tales or as separate tales.
My considerations begin with an assessment of the Middle Eastern frame tales and frame-tale collections in terms of a focused definition. Although frame tales might at times embed only a single tale, my special interest is with the large collections that embed several, sometimes many, tales. I then proceed to discuss the phenomenology of the frame tales, their functional potentials, and the special relation between a given frame tale and its embedded tales. As I will repeatedly point out in my presentation, it is particularly this relation that deserves more attention than it has previously attracted.
Key words: Frame-tale, Embedding and embedded tales, The Thousand and One Nights, Kalīla wa-Dimna, The Seven Sages, Khurāfa
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