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Narration of Violence or Violence of Narration: Bahram Beyzaie's The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad and The One Thousand and First Night
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Abstract
Bahram Beyzaie is one of the most distinguished Iranian playwrights. Beginning his career in the early 1960s and still working, he is considered as a playwright who has always been looking for discovering and inventing non-classic and non-western narrative templates. To fulfill this purpose, he has made considerable use of classic Iranian literary sources, among which the One Thousand and One Nights and Ta'ziyeh texts are special cases. By analyzing Beyzaie's two plays, Hashtomin Safar-e Sandbad (The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad, 1964) and Shab-e Hezar-o Yekom (The One Thousand and First Night, 2003), which were produced within a forty-year period, this article attempts to highlight some of Beyzaie's methods of narration, particularly in relation to violence.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Iranian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 5: Special Issue: Bahram Beyzaie's Cinema and Theater , September 2013 , pp. 737 - 752
- Copyright
- Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2013
Footnotes
The article was translated by Ms Esmat Sheikholeslami. The translation has been revised and reconstructed for publication by Saeed Talajooy.
References
1 Explaining the ritual elements of his films, Beyzaie states, “All the rituals I have used have their origin in actual external practices, some of which still exist while some others have disappeared.” See Ghokasian, Zaven, Goftogu ba Bahram Beyzaie [Interview with Bahram Beyzaie] (Tehran, 1999), 95–6.Google Scholar
2 Ghokasian, Interview, 7.
3 See Samini, Naghmeh, Nezam-ha-ye Revayati dar Motun-e Ta'ziyeh [Narrative Systems in Ta'ziyeh Texts], Namayesh Proceedings (Isfahan, 2007).Google Scholar
4 Todorov, Tsvetan, Butiqa-ye Nasr [The Poetics of Prose], Persian trans. Ganjipour, A. (Tehran, 2009), 33.Google Scholar
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8 Todorov, Butiqa-ye Nasr, 54.
9 Zizek, Violence, 39. The story of He/Other/Enemy is, in fact, the account of his life. Zizek continues with this: “One thing that never ceases to surprise the naïve ethical consciousness is how the very same people who commit terrible acts of violence towards their enemies can display warm humanity and gentle care for members of their own group. Isn't it strange that the same soldier who slaughtered innocent civilians was ready to sacrifice his life for his unit?” See Zizek, Violence, 40–41).
10 Zizek, Violence, 50.
11 Zizek, Violence, 62.
12 One of the best examples in this case is the story of Qamar-al-Zaman and the Jeweler.
13 Zizek, Violence, 47.
14 Ibn Ziyad, Imam Hassan's enemy, writes about himself: “The universe bore no bastard like me/The mine of tyranny and oppression/The fountain of infamy and corruption.” See Salehirad, Hassan, ed., Majales-e Ta'ziyeh [Ta'ziyeh Plays] (Tehran, 2011), 356.Google Scholar
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35 Here the play also reflects on pre-Islamic rituals, as the Iranian guard says: “Haven't you seen the act of reciting Mani's Martyrdom, which the believers enact and he comes to life every time with it”. See Beyzaie, The One…, 51. Most rituals which involve reviving a martyred god mark a similar belief: as a god or a hero martyred in a distant past is revived in the imagination of the participants. Rituals of this type may be considered to be the prototypes of ta'ziyeh which once more demonstrates Beyzaie's concern with ta'ziyeh in this play.
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