An Intertextual Reading of A Thousand and One Nights: a Locus for the Convergences of the Literature of the East and the West

Nowadays, various definitions for intertextual readings have emerged in the sphere of comparative literature. But the common grounds between them are the conviction that intertextual readings have lots of potentialities. Based on this approach, the artistic manifestation of literary works can be classified and the relation and reciprocal reaction between them can be examined. In fact, an intertextual approach can exceed the limits of studying the effects literary texts have upon one another and speak of a new role for the reader as an influential agent in creating new meanings in the literature of the world. While offering a detailed description of intertextual reading, the present paper tried to show how this approach was a penetrating approach on the memory of literature, through observing the different and various versions of A Thousand and One Nights, specifically in French Literature. It was a research on the essence, scope and objectives which made literature a reference in itself. And finally, it was a study of the factors which prevented literature to merely rewrite previous texts and guided them towards works which bore no similarity to their original source.