Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:06:03.549Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reformulation of Shahnameh Legends in Bahram Beyzaie's Plays

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Saeed Talajooy
Saeed Talajooy*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay explores Bahram Beyzaie's inter-paradigmatic reformulations of Iranian dramatic forms and Shahnameh legends in plays which highlight the voice of the periphery against the center and imbue these narratives with motifs that relate them to the present. The essay first reviews Beyzaie's work with the Shahnameh and then examines the Shahnameh cycle of Jamshid and Zahhak to provide the context for in-depth analyses of Azhdahak (1959), Karnameh-ye Bondar-e Bidakhsh (The Account of Bondar the Premier, 1996), and the first episode of Shab-e Hezar-o-Yekom (The One Thousand and First Night, 2003) in which Beyzaie reconstructs the cycle of Jamshid and Zahhak.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 5: Special Issue: Bahram Beyzaie's Cinema and Theater , September 2013 , pp. 695 - 719
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2013

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.)

References

1 Rancière, Jacques, The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, trans. Rockhill, Gabriel (London, 2004), 12–13.Google Scholar

2 See Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais and His World, trans. Iswolsky, Helene (Cambridge, MA, 1968).Google Scholar

3 For more, see Beyzaie, Bahram, Namayesh dar Iran (Tehran, 1965).Google Scholar

4 Mew, James, “The Modern Persian Stage,” The Fortnightly Review LIX, no. 8 (June 1896): 905–6.Google Scholar

5 Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Sheridan, Alan (New York, 1995), 30.Google Scholar

6 Amiri, Nushabeh, Jedal ba Jahl (Tehran, 2009), 25–6.Google Scholar

7 Masterman, Margaret, “The Nature of a Paradigm,” in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. Lakatos, Imre and Musgrave, Alan (Cambridge, 1979), 65.Google Scholar

8 See Bahram Beyzaie and Hamid Amjad, “From the Land of the Pure, in Search of the Lost Origin” Iranian Studies (current issue).

9 For references to Hezar Afsan, see Ebn-e Nadim, Alfehrest (986 AD), Persian trans. Mohammad Reza Tajaddod (Tehran 1967), 538–41; and Mas'udi, , Morvvej o-Zahab va Ma'aden al-Johar (947 AD), Persian trans. Payandeh, Abolqasem (Tehran, 1977), 610–11.Google Scholar

10 Ferdowsi, Abolqasem, The Shahnameh, ed. Motlagh, Djalal Khaleghi (New York, 1987), 43: 33–4.Google Scholar

11 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 51: 170.

12 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 44: 60–74, 51: 171–4.

13 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 52: footnotes 2 and 19.

14 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 57: 38–41.

15 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 58: 54–68.

16 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 68–9: 219–20.

17 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 70: 236–43.

18 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 127: 610.

19 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 71: 265–8 and 73: 307–10.

20 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 80: 403–9.

21 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 82: 420–36

22 Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, 83: 452–5.

23 Dinvari, Ahmad, Akhbar-o-Tteval, Persian trans. Damghani, Mahmoud Mahdavi (Tehran, 1995), 30–31.Google Scholar

24 Tabari, Mohammad Jarir, Tarikh-e Tabari (915), Vol. I, Persian trans. Abolqasem. Payandeh (Tehran, 1973), 138–42.Google Scholar

25 Mirkhond, Mohammad, History of the Early Kings of Persia, trans. Shea, David (London, 1832), 130–34.Google Scholar

26 Hosein, Abdorrahim Zaker, Adabiyat-e Siyasi-ye Iran dar Asr-e Mashrutiat (Tehran, 1998), 446, 475.Google Scholar

27 See Ahmad Shamlu, “Haqiqat Cheqadr Asibpazir Ast,” Adineh, no. 47 (July 1990): 6–11.

28 Yadgar-e Zariran is a Middle Persian text commemorating Zarir as a sacrificial hero. Though its extant version was written in the 1300s, scholars date it back to the third century AD. For the text, see Bahar, Mehrdad, Pajhuheshi dar Asatir-e Iran (Tehran, 2002), 262–77.Google Scholar See also Mary Boyce, “Ayādgār i Zarērān,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ayadgar-i-zareran (accessed June 15, 2011). Some scholars have argued that it is a pre-Islamic play of ta'ziyeh type. See, for instance, Samini, Naghmeh, Tamashakhaneh-ye Asatir (Tehran, 2008), 165–78.Google Scholar

29 Beyzaie, Bahram, “Azhdahak,” in Divan-e Namayesh (Tehran, 2001), 10–11.Google Scholar

30 Foucault, Discipline, 27.

31 Hamid Amjad, “Interview with Bahram Beyzaie,” Simia 2 (Winter 2008): 256–62.

32 Foucault, Discipline, 33–4, 170–71, 195–230.

33 Beyzaie, Bahram, “Karnameh-ye Bondar-e Bidakhsh,” Divan-e Namayesh (Tehran, 2001), 67.Google Scholar

34 Plato, “Book II” in The Republic, trans. Benjamin Jowett (Published by the Internet Classics Archives) at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.3.ii.html (accessed 12 July 2012).

35 Beyzaie, “Karnameh-ye,” 58–61.

36 Beyzaie, “Karnameh-ye,” 72.

37 Beyzaie, Bahram, Shab-e Hezar-o-Yekom (Tehran, 2003), 43–4.Google Scholar As with other cases in Beyzaie's works, this echoes an actual event, involving Abdollah Ebn-e Taher (R. 828–44), the Taherid ruler of Khorasan and a Middle Persian manuscript of Vameq and Azra. See Samarqandi, Dolatshah-e, Tazkerat-o-Shoara, ed. Brwone, Edward (Cambridge, 1900), 30.Google Scholar

38 Jurich, Marilyn, Schehrazade's Sisters: Trickster Heroines and Their Stories in World Literature (Westport, CT, 1998).Google Scholar

39 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 8.

40 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 6.

41 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 8–9.

42 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 9.

43 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 10. For the origin of Beyzaie's suggestion, see Ebn-e Balkhi, Farshameh (ca. 1110) (Tehran, 2005), 11.

44 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 11.

45 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 13.

46 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 15.

47 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 15–16.

48 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 19.

49 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 23.

50 See Beyzaie, Bahram, Rishehyabi Derakht-e Kohan (Tehran, 2004), 83–116.Google Scholar

51 Benjamin, Walter, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” in Illuminations, trans. Zone, Harry (New York, 1969), 261.Google Scholar

52 Bar On, Bat-Ami, “Marginality and Epistemic Privilege,” in Feminist Epistemologies, ed. Alcoff, L. and Potter, E. (London, 1993), 88 and 96.Google Scholar

53 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 22–4.

54 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 28–9.

55 Beyzaie, Shab-e, 34–5.