The Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, by the Persian poet Abu al-Qasim Firdawsi, is Iran's national epic and one of the great epics of world literature. Abu al-Qasim (who used the pen name Firdawsi) was born around 920 CE near Tus in northeastern...

Shāhnāmé, or Shāhnāma (Persian: شاهنامه )(alternative spellings are Shahnama, Shahnameh, Shahname, Shah-Nama, etc.), "The Book of Kings" , is an enormous poetic opus written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi around 1000 CE and is the national...

Abolqasem Ferdowsi Shahnameh, translated by Dick Davis. Viking, 886 pages, $45 Beware of the man with just one book. Having seen what Osama bin Laden's misinterpretation of a single text has inspired, many fear single-minded Islamists going nuclear in Iran. Fortunately for...

The Oral Background of Persian Epics: Storytelling and Poetry. By Kumiko Yamamoto. (Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures 26. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Pp. xxiv+191. Appendices, bibliography, index.) Sunset of Empire: Stories from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. Vol. 3. Trans. Dick Davis. (Washington, D.C.:...

In the following essay, Davis studies the plot and themes of the Shah-Nama, focusing in particular on the Sasanian bias of the later portions of the text, including the story of Seyavash. Davis observes that the authority of God and King in the text are of major importance, but are exceeded in significance by the authority of the father over the son.

In the essay below, Davidson analyzes the oral tradition from which Ferdowsi drew the Shah-Nama and in which the text figured as a recitation piece. Davidson contends that the Shah-Nama was shaped by the creativity of its oral tradition.

In the essay that follows, Wickens examines the portion of the Shah-Nama dedicated to the Sasanid period of Iran's history, offering a synopsis of this section and emphasizing its dramatic form and themes.