Scheherazade's Nonverbal Narratives

Abstract

AbstractAlthough a great deal of research and criticism has been done on The Thousand and One Nights, very little is done on its nonverbal narrative components. While speech and, later, writing make up the communication system between the audience and the story teller, there is much that is left for the reader to imagine in terms of non-speech acts, icons, mysterious inscription, specific dishes, paintings, and talismanic means that operate as narrative components of great nonverbal efficacy. It is the purpose of this reading to study some of these, while leaving "The City of Brass" and Sindabad tales until later. At a later stage, I also will read these as communication systems in relation to the classical Arabic theories of semiotics and rhetoric.