Like “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” “Aladdin” is an orphan tale that does not derive directly from Arabic manuscripts of the Arabian Nights. It first appeared in France when the Syrian monk Hanna told it, along with several other stories, to Antoine Galland in 1709. Galland then included it in his French version of the Thousand and One Nights in 1712. In other words, “Aladdin,” like “Ali Baba,” is actually a French-Syrian creation from the beginning of the eighteenth century. In contrast to “Ali Baba,” there is no written version of “Aladdin” as Hanna told it to Galland, so we cannot compare the French adaptation to its source.
The tale's basic structure is very close to a fairy tale: a poor young man, with the aid of a magic object, builds a palace more beautiful than that of the king and marries a princess; when he loses them, thanks to a second magic object, he manages to recover everything he has lost. The hero Aladdin is described as a bad sort-undisciplined, lazy, and responsible for the death of his father and the misery of his mother. At the beginning, he does no good deed that would qualify him to obtain a magic object or to marry a princess. But he is without hypocrisy; he succeeds, and in the end he becomes good and wise.
The transformation of the bad lot into a good boy seems to take place, as in an initiatory account, in an underground realm, during a symbolic death and rebirth. Initially, when Aladdin is locked up in the darkness-thirsty, famished, and ready to die-he thinks for the first time of God. When he joins his hands to pray, he unwittingly rubs the magic ring, which reveals a genie who will save him and bring him back to the light. Later in the story, in a symmetrical way, after having lost everything-full of despair and threatened by the king with death-Aladdin wants to pray to God one last time. Again he involuntarily rubs the magic ring, and the genie appears and takes him to the place where the palace and the princess have been transported. The hero, despite all of his flaws, is saved because he is able to find the right way-to act in accord with what is good. This makes him particularly human and appealing.
The international popularity of “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” is evident in the tale's broad reception and in the way its motifs-especially the genie, the magic lamp, and the magic ring-have become part of popular culture. “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” is frequently reprinted in children's picture-book format, and the story, characters, and individual motifs have been repeatedly adapted for the theater, opera, television, and film and video.
