User:Aladdin~enwiki

Aladdin

(Arabic Alâ'-ad-Dîn), in folktale, the hero of “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” in the collection of stories known in English as Arabian Nights. In most versions of the story, Aladdin is the lazy son of a poor Chinese tailor. After his father's death, he meets a magician who poses as his uncle and persuades Aladdin to retrieve a wonderful lamp from a hidden cave. When Aladdin fails to give the lamp to the magician before emerging from the cave, the magician becomes enraged and seals the cave, leaving Aladdin to die. In his misery Aladdin weeps and wrings his hands, releasing a genie from a ring the magician had given him. The genie frees Aladdin, who soon discovers that the lamp also produces powerful genies when rubbed. They grant Aladdin his every wish, and he eventually becomes immensely wealthy and marries the daughter of the sultan. The magician returns to steal the lamp, but is defeated, as is his evil brother who also tries to gain the lamp. Free of these enemies, Aladdin lives a long, happy life and succeeds the sultan to the throne.

The Aladdin tale reflects the formal, stylistic, and functional characteristics of the Märchen, or magic tale: it is adventurous, filled with the supernatural and unrealistic, has multiple episodes, and is told for entertainment. It illustrates common fairy tale themes such as the conflict between good and evil and the triumph of the weak. French writer Antoine Galland added the story of Aladdin to his 18th-century translation of Arabian Nights. Galland's text was derived from Arab oral traditions (probably Syrian), and the tale still exists in Arab folktales. The literary version of the Aladdin story is known worldwide, especially in Europe and the Americas, and has been the inspiration for many artistic works.