Public Lecture by Professor Katharina Mommsen (Stanford University)
Title: Goethe and 1001 Nights
Date & Time: Wednesday 3 December 2008 at 7:00pm
Venue: School of Oriental and African Studies, 10 Thornhaugh Street, London
WC1H 0XG, Lecture hall G3 (ground floor)
Organized by the SOAS Near & Middle Department and Iran Heritage Foundation
Abstract:
It has been rightly said that, with the exception of the Bible, few books
exist which have so widely circulated through the Western world since the
18th century as the collection of narratives from the Near and Middle East
known under the name of 1001 Nights. A substantial part of the tales in the
1001 Nights can be traced back to Sassanian and Pahlavi sources like Hezâr
Afsân. Hardly anyone in the Western world has not at least once in life read
these stories with pleasure and interest and is indebted to them for a host
of many colored, fairy-like impressions. The 1001 Nights had also indirect
effect through Western writers because its narrative power and incomparable
abundance of motifs and figures of fantasy influenced their writings. For
centuries, numerous writers of Western nations have received inspiration
from this Eastern collection of narratives and have borrowed thematic
materials for their novels, dramas, operas, poetic works, screen plays,
movies, ballets, and TV shows. Thus the 1001 Nights have become one of the
inexhaustible fountain-heads of the arts. There is still a lot of
comparative literary work to be done to reveal the immense impact of the
Eastern art of story telling on Western writers through this collection
which was translated in almost every language. Here a fertile field for
research still exists. Katharina Mommsen’s lecture will give an example of
the creative influence which the 1001 Nights exercised upon Germany’s
greatest poet and writer Goethe (1749-1832), particularly on the 2nd part of
his best known masterpiece Faust.
About the speaker:
Katharina Mommsen is Professor emerita (Endowed Chair of Literature) at
Stanford University, California. She was born in Berlin and educated at
the Universities of Berlin, Freiburg, Mainz, and Tübingen where she received
her PhD in 1956. She began her academic career at the age of 24 as a Goethe
researcher at the German Academy of Scienes in Berlin and started her
teaching career at the Free University of Berlin in 1962, held guest
professorships at the University of Gießen, the Technische Universität
Berlin, the State University of New York at Buffalo, Carleton University in
Ottawa, Canada, the University of California at San Diego. She received,
among other awards, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, a Research
Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, an Order of Merit First
Class of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Golden Goethe Medal of the
International Goethe Society in Weimar. She is an Honorary Member of the
American Association of Teachers of German, Honorary Fellow of the
Alexander von Humboldt Association of America, a Corresponding Member of
the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung in Darmstadt, of the Akademie
der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, the Berliner Wissenschaftliche
Gesellschaft, and the University of London School of Advanced Study,
Katharina Mommsen is the author of over 120 publications, including a dozen
books about Goethe (including Goethe und 1001 Nacht, Goethe und die
arabische Welt, Goethe und der Islam). For further information please see:
www.katharinamommsen.org
Enquiries:
Dr Nima Mina
University of London
School of Oriental and African Studies
Faculty of Languages & Cultures
Near & Middle East Department
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG - United Kingdom
Tel + 44 (0) 20 7898 4315
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http://www.soas.ac.uk
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