By Mahmoud Omidsalar (auth.)
This publication considers the various Western interpretations of The Shahnameh - Iran's nationwide epic, and argues that those interpretations are usually not purely methodologically unsuitable, yet also are extra revealing of Western issues and anxieties approximately Iran than they're in regards to the Shahnameh.
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Additional resources for Poetics and Politics of Iran’s National Epic, the Shāhnāmeh
Sample text
It is difficult to believe a scenario that has literate Sassanid society, possessed of a rich body of epic lore and ruled by an educated aristocracy15 who thrived on gore and glory, end up doing nothing with its heroic tales for nearly three centuries, in spite of these tales’ suitability as political and military propaganda. Moreover, such a scenario implies that the Iranian nobility of the Sassanid period had no interest in associating itself with the kings and heroes of ancient lore, either for reasons of vanity or political expediency.
The idea that medieval Europe was economically, intellectually, and culturally less advanced than the Muslim Middle East is a matter of consensus Sha¯hna¯meh and the West ● 21 among most medievalists. For instance, in his revised edition of his classic work on medieval Europe, The Civilization of the Middle Ages (1993), Norman F. Cantor, who can hardly be accused of lacking in nuance, says substantially the same thing: Compared to the Moslem countries, western Europe appears as an underdeveloped area.
An empire of the size and complexity of the Sassanid Empire could not administratively survive by “oral tradition” alone, any more than could its only rival, the Roman Empire. There is a great deal of evidence scattered through the early Arabic texts that establishes the high level of literacy in the pre-Islamic Persian society. This vast data, however, remains largely unexplored. To return to our main point, it may be demonstrated that at the time when most Europeans, including much of the nobility of Europe, were illiterate or at best subliterate, most of the professional classes, aristocrats, and not a small number of the general public and the military personnel in the Middle East could read, and many could also write.