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The Shahnameh: The Persian Epic as World Literature
The Shahnameh, an epic poem recounting the foundation of Iran across mythical, heroic, and historical ages, is the beating heart of Persian literature and culture. Composed by Abu al-Qasem Ferdowsi over a thirty-year period and completed in the year 1010, the epic has entertained generations of readers and profoundly shaped Persian culture, society, and politics. For a millennium, Iranian and Persian-speaking people around the globe have read, memorized, discussed, performed, adapted, and loved the poem.In this book, Hamid Dabashi brings the Shahnameh to renewed global attention, encapsulating a lifetime of learning and teaching the Persian epic for a new generation of readers. Dabashi insightfully traces the epic’s history, authorship, poetic significance, complicated legacy of political uses and abuses, and enduring significance in colonial and postcolonial contexts. In addition to explaining and celebrating what makes the Shahnameh such a distinctive literary work, he also considers the poem in the context of other epics, such as the Aeneid and the Odyssey, and critical debates about the concept of world literature. Arguing that Ferdowsi’s epic and its reception broached this idea long before nineteenth-century Western literary criticism, Dabashi makes a powerful case that we need to rethink the very notion of “world literature” in light of his reading of the Persian epic.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 8, 2019
About the author
Hamid Dabashi
66 books189 followersBorn on 15 June 1951 into a working class family in the south-western city of Ahvaz in the Khuzestan province of Iran, Hamid Dabashi received his early education in his hometown and his college education in Tehran, before he moved to the United States, where he received a dual Ph.D. in Sociology of Culture and Islamic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.
He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Max Weber’s theory of charismatic authority with Philip Rieff (1922-2006), the most distinguished Freudian cultural critic of his time.
Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, the oldest and most prestigious Chair in his field. He has taught and delivered lectures in many North and Latin American, European, Arab, and Iranian universities. He is a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, as well as a founding member of the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University.
He has written 20 books, edited 4, and contributed chapters to many more. He is also the author of over 100 essays, articles and book reviews in major scholarly and peer reviewed journals on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, medieval and modern Islam, comparative literature, world cinema, and the philosophy of art (trans-aesthetics). A selected sample of his writing is co-edited by Andrew Davison and Himadeep Muppidi, The World is my Home: A Hamid Dabashi Reader (Transaction 2010).
Hamid Dabashi is the Series Editor of Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World for Palgrave Macmillan. This series is putting forward a critical body of first rate scholarship on the literary and cultural production of the Islamic world from the vantage point of contemporary theoretical and hermeneutic perspectives, effectively bringing the study of Islamic literatures and cultures to the wider attention of scholars and students of world literatures and cultures without the prejudices and drawbacks of outmoded perspectives.
An internationally renowned cultural critic and award-winning author, his books and articles have been translated into numerous languages, including Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Danish, Arabic, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Urdu and Catalan.
In the context of his commitment to advancing trans-national art and independent world cinema, Hamid Dabashi is the founder of Dreams of a Nation, a Palestinian Film Project, dedicated to preserving and safeguarding Palestinian Cinema. He is also chiefly responsible for opening up the study of Persian literature and Iranian culture at Columbia University to students of comparative literature and society, breaking away from the confinements of European Orientalism and American Area Studies.
A committed teacher in the past three decades, Hamid Dabashi is also a public speaker around the globe, a current affairs essayist, and a staunch anti-war activist. He has two grown-up children, Kaveh and Pardis, who are both Columbia University graduates, and he lives in New York with his wife and colleague, the Iranian-Swedish feminist, Golbarg Bashi, their daughter Chelgis and their son Golchin.
He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Max Weber’s theory of charismatic authority with Philip Rieff (1922-2006), the most distinguished Freudian cultural critic of his time.
Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, the oldest and most prestigious Chair in his field. He has taught and delivered lectures in many North and Latin American, European, Arab, and Iranian universities. He is a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, as well as a founding member of the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University.
He has written 20 books, edited 4, and contributed chapters to many more. He is also the author of over 100 essays, articles and book reviews in major scholarly and peer reviewed journals on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, medieval and modern Islam, comparative literature, world cinema, and the philosophy of art (trans-aesthetics). A selected sample of his writing is co-edited by Andrew Davison and Himadeep Muppidi, The World is my Home: A Hamid Dabashi Reader (Transaction 2010).
Hamid Dabashi is the Series Editor of Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World for Palgrave Macmillan. This series is putting forward a critical body of first rate scholarship on the literary and cultural production of the Islamic world from the vantage point of contemporary theoretical and hermeneutic perspectives, effectively bringing the study of Islamic literatures and cultures to the wider attention of scholars and students of world literatures and cultures without the prejudices and drawbacks of outmoded perspectives.
An internationally renowned cultural critic and award-winning author, his books and articles have been translated into numerous languages, including Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Danish, Arabic, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Urdu and Catalan.
In the context of his commitment to advancing trans-national art and independent world cinema, Hamid Dabashi is the founder of Dreams of a Nation, a Palestinian Film Project, dedicated to preserving and safeguarding Palestinian Cinema. He is also chiefly responsible for opening up the study of Persian literature and Iranian culture at Columbia University to students of comparative literature and society, breaking away from the confinements of European Orientalism and American Area Studies.
A committed teacher in the past three decades, Hamid Dabashi is also a public speaker around the globe, a current affairs essayist, and a staunch anti-war activist. He has two grown-up children, Kaveh and Pardis, who are both Columbia University graduates, and he lives in New York with his wife and colleague, the Iranian-Swedish feminist, Golbarg Bashi, their daughter Chelgis and their son Golchin.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 21, 2019
The Shahnameh is considered a masterpiece in literature. Written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi, its tales and legends span centuries with rich characters and lessons. But one would not know from reading this book.
Instead the author spends most of his time arguing about the category of "world literature" and "post colonial" languages like English, French and (apparently) German. That the reader is far removed from the previous imperial language of Middle Persian (Pahlavi). While interesting at first, the author fails to build upon & spends most of the 5 chapters telling the reader how great the Shahnameh is without actually showing so. One gets the idea that the author believes the Shahnameh is 'unassailable' & comparible to the Hebrew Bible of the Jewish people. This goes on & on with Hamid quoting almost no text except at the beginning of chapters. Stories are referred to but we have no citation. Instead, we have to trust the author almost unquestionably.
I would not recommend this book. Few good details are to be had. If the author would make a critical edition of the Shahnameh with scholarly commentary, I am in. However, until that happens, I am out.
Instead the author spends most of his time arguing about the category of "world literature" and "post colonial" languages like English, French and (apparently) German. That the reader is far removed from the previous imperial language of Middle Persian (Pahlavi). While interesting at first, the author fails to build upon & spends most of the 5 chapters telling the reader how great the Shahnameh is without actually showing so. One gets the idea that the author believes the Shahnameh is 'unassailable' & comparible to the Hebrew Bible of the Jewish people. This goes on & on with Hamid quoting almost no text except at the beginning of chapters. Stories are referred to but we have no citation. Instead, we have to trust the author almost unquestionably.
I would not recommend this book. Few good details are to be had. If the author would make a critical edition of the Shahnameh with scholarly commentary, I am in. However, until that happens, I am out.
September 15, 2019
It has been a long time since I read something that made me oscillate so much between love and hate. At an early point in this book, Dabashi proclaims that his ambition is a small book which would guide readers into the beauty of Abolqasem Ferdowsi's Ferdowsi's Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings. And there are moments, towards the middle of the book, where this book peeps out at you. When Dabashi talks about the Shanameh's text, even when I disagreed with him, it was compelling. I started daydreaming about studying under him, exploring the ideas further.
But then, the reality, which is that 80% of the book is being ranted at about World Literature, a concept which about which I neither know nor care, and told what the book is doing, even though there doesn't seem to be any space left to actually do it.
I'd still study under Dabashi in a shot if given the chance. But I'd probably skim read his books if he prescribed them :).
2019 Reading Challenge #12. A book inspired by myth/legend/folklore
But then, the reality, which is that 80% of the book is being ranted at about World Literature, a concept which about which I neither know nor care, and told what the book is doing, even though there doesn't seem to be any space left to actually do it.
I'd still study under Dabashi in a shot if given the chance. But I'd probably skim read his books if he prescribed them :).
2019 Reading Challenge #12. A book inspired by myth/legend/folklore
June 6, 2019
this book will introduce you to the magic of the shahnameh and will radically break down the centuries old misconceptions surrounding this piece of literature.. while there are some epics of conquest and some epics of empire in the ancient tradition of Greece and Rome, the shahnameh is an epic of rebellion that moves beyond the confines of western-imposed “world literature”
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews