SOURCE: Gerhardt, Mia I. “Structure.” In The Art of Story-Telling: A Literary Study of the Thousand and One Nights, pp. 377-416. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1963.

In the following essay, Gerhardt studies the motifs, character descriptions, use of dialogue, and structure of The Arabian Nights, noting that it is difficult for a non-Arabist to easily understand the structural nuances of this work.

If we define structure, in the largest sense, as the manner in which the material is arranged and presented, it follows at once that not all structural aspects of the 1001 Nights lend themselves to being adequately studied by anyone who is not an Arabist. The basic material of story-telling is words; the choice and arrangement of words, which is what we call, strictly, style, can be duly appreciated only in the original language of a literary work and by one thoroughly familiar with that language. Consequently...