Who was the intended audience for “The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife”? Would a contemporary European have recognized this genre? What was the closest European analogue to this genre (type of literature)?

The Arabian Nights, also called One Thousand and One Nights, is a collection of stories and folk tales from West and South Asia that was compiled during the Islamic Golden Age. It took centuries to collect all of these together, and various translators, authors, and scholars have contributed. These stories trace back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian literature. These were myth based tales designed for both children and adults to enjoy.