Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:14:34.420Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Framing the Unframable in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Richard Gabri
Richard Gabri*
Affiliation:
Comparative Literature at Northwestern University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which the Shahnameh thematizes the poet's fraught relationship with language to not only complicate our overall understanding of the epic poem but also our understanding of the language which makes the poem, and the world outside the poem, intelligible. Through a close reading of some of the prologues and epilogues that frame the Shahnameh’s tales, this essay argues that rather than helping us understand how to interpret the epic's morally ambiguous tales, the frames to Ferdowsi's tales, ironically represent a narrator who is in no position to offer us any help. Of course, the poet does give us clues as to why he and consequently we are “helpless” (bichāreh) when it comes to understanding his tales, which, in its own way, can be considered helpful. What seems to hinder understanding at every turn for the poet is, paradoxically, the very language or speech (sakhon/sokhan) that makes understanding possible in the first place.

Keywords

FateHermeneuticsIronyLanguagePhilosophyPrologueSpeechTheodicyTime
Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 3: The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi as World Literature , May 2015 , pp. 423 - 441
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the ISIS 9th Biennial Iranian Studies Conference held in Istanbul, 1–5 August 2012. The author would like to thank Professor Franklin D. Lewis for helping prepare the article for publication.

References

Davidson, M. Olga. Comparative Literature and Classical Persian Poetics. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2000.Google Scholar
Davidson, M. Olga. Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings. Ithaca, NY: Mazda, 1994.Google Scholar
Davis, Dick. “The Problem of Ferdowsi's Sources.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 116, no. 1 (1996): 48–58. doi: 10.2307/606371CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferdowsi, Abu al-Qāsem. Shahnameh. Edited by Khaleghi-Motlagh, Djalal. 8 vols. New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1987–2008.Google Scholar
Ferdowsi, Abu al-Qāsem. Shāhnāmeh-ye Ferdowsi: Tashih-e Enteqādi, Moqaddameh-ye Tahlili, Nokteh-hā-ye Nowyāfteh. Edited by Jeyhuni, Mostafā. 5 vols. Isfahan: Goruh-e Enteshārāt-e Shāhnāmeh-pazhuhi, 1379/2001.Google Scholar
Ferdowsi, Abu al-Qāsem. Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings. Translated by Dick Davis. New York: Penguin Classics, 2006.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987.Google Scholar
Khaleghi-Motlagh, Djalal [Jalāl Khāleqi-Motlaq]. “Jahān shenāsi-ye Shāhnāmeh.” Irānshenāsi 1 (1350/1971): 55–70.Google Scholar
Khaleghi-Motlagh, Djalal. Notes on the Shāhnāmeh. 4 vols. New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 2001–2008.Google Scholar
Kierkegaard, Søren. Either/Or: A Fragment of Life. Translated by Alastair Hannay. London: Penguin Books, 2004.Google Scholar
Melville, Charles, and Abdullaeva, Firuza. “Shahnama: the Millenium of an Epic Masterpiece.” Iranian Studies 1, no. 43 (2010): 1–11.Google Scholar
Minorsky, Vladimir. “The Older Preface to the Shāhnāma.” In Studi orientalistici in onore de Giorgio Levi Della Vida, vol. 2: 159–179. Rome: Istituto per l'Oriente, 1956. Reprint: Vladimir Minorsky, Iranica: Twenty Articles. Hertford, UK: University of Tehran, 1964.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “On Truth and Lie in a Nonmoral Sense.” In On Truth and Untruth: Selected Writings. Translated by Taylor Craman. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Thought, 2010.Google Scholar
Omidsalar, Mahmoud. Poetics and Politics of Iran's National Epic, the Shāhnāmeh. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.Google Scholar
Plato, . Cratylus. Translated by C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999.Google Scholar
Schiller, Friedrich. On the Aesthetic Education of Man. Translated by Snell, Reginald. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1954.Google Scholar