Shahnameh Epic
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 Iran into a family of small landowners. He died about 1020 or 1025.
With more than 50,000 couplets, Firdawsi's epic is of monumental size. It treats the mostly legendary history of Iran from the creation of the world and the reign of mythical kings to the end of the Sassanian dynasty and the Arab conquest of Iran in the first half of the seventh century.
The Shahnameh is based both on written records, among them an unfinished epic by the poet Daqiqi, and on oral tradition. The best-known episode of the epic is the tragic fight between Rustam, one of the epic's major legendary heroes, and his son Sohrab. After Ferdawsi completed the revised version around 1010, he presented his work to his ruler, Mahmud of Ghazna. But the latter remunerated the poet in such a miserly way that Firdawsi wrote bitter satires against the sultan.
Further Reading
Davidson, Olga M. (1994). Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Ferdowsi, Abu al-Qasim. (1967) The Epic of the Kings: Shah-Nama the National Epic of Persia by Ferdowsi. Trans. by Reuben Levy, rev. by Amin Banani. Persian Heritage Series 2. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
——. (1987) The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam: From the Persian National Epic, the Shahname of Abol-Qasem Ferdowsi. Trans. by Jerome W. Clinton. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
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