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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
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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

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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.

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