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60-637: The composition of the Iskandarnameh was influenced by earlier Persian compositions, such as the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi . The Iskandarnameh is known through one manuscript, located in the private collection of Sa‘īd Nafīsī in Tehran . The manuscript was likely composed between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The initial and final part of the known manuscript is missing. Various clear erasures and rewritings are present. The copyist claims that

120-439: A terminus ante quem for the dating of the text as well. An edited version of the manuscript was published by Īraj Afshār first in 1964, and then again in 2008 to correct weaknesses in the earlier edition. The first substantial academic work done on the Iskandarnameh text by William Hanaway, published in his PhD dissertation in 1970. Alongside the Iskandarnameh , he studied four other pre-Safavid works of Persian prose romances:

180-497: A Persian tradition. Some of the biographies of Ferdowsi are now considered apocryphal, nevertheless this shows the important impact he had in the Persian world. Among the famous biographies are: Famous poets of Persia and the Persian tradition have praised and eulogized Ferdowsi. Many of them were heavily influenced by his writing and used his genre and stories to develop their own Persian epics, stories and poems: The candle of

240-581: A formal (closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there is a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse . In a run-on (open) couplet, the meaning of the first line continues to the second. The word "couplet" comes from the French word meaning "two pieces of iron riveted or hinged together". The term "couplet" was first used to describe successive lines of verse in Sir P. Sidney's Arcadia in 1590: "In singing some short coplets, whereto

300-475: A market a few days before and glued to the doorframe. The text of the couplets is often traditional and contains hopes for prosperity. Other chunlian reflect more recent concerns. For example, the CCTV New Year's Gala usually promotes couplets reflecting current political themes in mainland China . Some duilian may consist of two lines of four characters each. Duilian are read from top to bottom where

360-523: A reference to the Muslim invaders who despoiled Zoroastrianism. After the Shahnameh , a number of other works similar in nature surfaced over the centuries within the cultural sphere of the Persian language. Without exception, all such works were based in style and method on the Shahnameh , but none of them could quite achieve the same degree of fame and popularity. Some experts believe the main reason

420-423: Is a monument of poetry and historiography , being mainly the poetical recast of what Ferdowsi, his contemporaries, and his predecessors regarded as the account of Iran 's ancient history. Many such accounts already existed in prose, an example being the Shahnameh of Abu-Mansur . A small portion of Ferdowsi's work, in passages scattered throughout the Shahnameh , is entirely of his own conception. The Shahnameh

480-479: Is a round figure; most of the relatively reliable manuscripts have preserved a little over fifty thousand distichs. Nizami Aruzi reports that the final edition of the Shahnameh sent to the court of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni was prepared in seven volumes. The Shirvanshah dynasty adopted many of their names from the Shahnameh . The relationship between Shirvanshah and his son, Manuchihr, is mentioned in chapter eight of Nizami's Layla and Majnun . Nizami advises

540-623: Is an epic poem of over 50,000 couplets written in Early New Persian . It is based mainly on a prose work of the same name compiled in Ferdowsi's earlier life in his native Tus . This prose Shahnameh was in turn and for the most part the translation of a Pahlavi ( Middle Persian ) work, known as the Khwadāy-Nāmag "Book of Kings", a late Sasanian compilation of the history of the kings and heroes of Persia from mythical times down to

600-441: Is predominantly written in rhyming couplets, and Chaucer also incorporated a concluding couplet into his rhyme royal stanza. Similarly, Shakespearean sonnets often employ rhyming couplets at the end to emphasize the theme. Take one of Shakespeare's most famous sonnets, Sonnet 18 , for example (the rhyming couplet is shown in italics): In the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth-century English rhyming couplets achieved

660-571: Is the national epic of Greater Iran . Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couplets (two-line verses), the Shahnameh is one of the world's longest epic poems, and the longest epic poem created by a single author. It tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Muslim conquest in the seventh century. Iran , Azerbaijan , Afghanistan , Tajikistan and

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720-474: Is the work's turning point between mythic and historical rulers of Persia. It also represents a turning point of Persian-language representations of Alexander, from negative in pre-Islamic Zoroastrian writings to positive. After the Shahnameh introduced the Alexander Romance tradition into Persian, the genre would become popular and numerous Alexander legends would be composed in the language, with

780-574: The Dārābnāma , Fīrūzshāhnāma , Samak-i ʿayyār , and the Qissa-yi Hamza. Subsequently, only sporadic papers or encyclopedic entries have been published on the work, including those by Southgate, Rubanovich, and Hanaway. The work was also the subject of the 2006 dissertation of Venetis, who published the first English translation of the work in 2017. In 1978, Minoo Southgate produced an abridged (partial) English translation encompassing one fifth of

840-499: The Modern Persian language today is more or less the same language as that of Ferdowsi's time over 1000 years ago is due to the very existence of works like the Shahnameh , which have had lasting and profound cultural and linguistic influence. In other words, the Shahnameh itself has become one of the main pillars of the modern Persian language. Studying Ferdowsi's masterpiece also became a requirement for achieving mastery of

900-528: The Persian literary tradition , particularly by the Shahnameh , which probably explains the fact that he named all of his sons after Shahnameh characters. Dickson and Welch suggest that Ismail's Shāhnāma-i Shāhī was intended as a present to the young Tahmasp . After defeating Muhammad Shaybani's Uzbeks , Ismail asked Hatefi , a famous poet from Jam (Khorasan) , to write a Shahnameh -like epic about his victories and his newly established dynasty. Although

960-717: The Qarakhanid dynasty in Central Asia calling itself the 'family of Afrasiyab' and so it is known in the Islamic history." Turks, as an ethno-linguistic group, have been influenced by the Shahnameh since advent of Seljuks . The Seljuk sultan Toghrul III is said to have recited the Shahnameh while swinging his mace in battle. According to Ibn Bibi , 1221 the Seljuk sultan of Rum Ala' al-Din Kay-kubad decorated

1020-496: The Shahnameh is relatively short, amounting to some 2100 verses or four percent of the entire book, and it narrates events with the simplicity, predictability, and swiftness of a historical work. After an opening in praise of God and Wisdom, the Shahnameh gives an account of the creation of the world and of man as believed by the Sasanians . This introduction is followed by the story of the first man, Keyumars , who also became

1080-513: The Shahnameh teaches a wide variety of moral virtues, like worship of one God; religious uprightness; patriotism; love of wife, family and children; and helping the poor. There are themes in the Shahnameh that were viewed with suspicion by the succession of Iranian regimes. During the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah , the epic was largely ignored in favor of the more abstruse, esoteric and dryly intellectual Persian literature. Historians note that

1140-460: The kural venpa metre from which the title of the work was derived centuries later. Each Kural couplet is made of exactly 7 words—4 in the first line and 3 in the second. The first word may rhyme with the fourth or the fifth word. Below is an example of a couplet: In Hindi , a couplet is called a doha , while in Urdu , it is called a sher . Couplets were the most common form of poetry between

1200-459: The Šāh-nāma are quite popular, and the stories of Rostam and Sohrāb , or Bījan and Maniža became part of Georgian folklore. Farmanfarmaian in the Journal of Persianate Studies : Distinguished scholars of Persian such as Gvakharia and Todua are well aware that the inspiration derived from the Persian classics of the ninth to the twelfth centuries produced a 'cultural synthesis' which saw, in

1260-477: The Šāh-nāma that is no longer extant. ... The Šāh-nāma was translated, not only to satisfy the literary and aesthetic needs of readers and listeners, but also to inspire the young with the spirit of heroism and Georgian patriotism. Georgian ideology, customs, and worldview often informed these translations because they were oriented toward Georgian poetic culture. Conversely, Georgians consider these translations works of their native literature. Georgian versions of

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1320-488: The 12th and 18th Centuries, in Hidustani. Famous poets include Kabir , Tulsidas and Rahim Khan-i-Khanan . Kabir (also known as Kabirdas) is thought to be one of the greatest composers of Hindustani couplets. The American poet J. V. Cunningham was noted for many distichs included in the various forms of epigrams included in his poetry collections, as exampled here: Deep summer, and time passes. Sorrow wastes To

1380-565: The 20th century. A single sheet from the former was sold for £904,000 in 2006. The Baysonghori Shahnameh , an illuminated manuscript copy of the work (Golestan Palace, Iran), is included in UNESCO 's Memory of the World Register of cultural heritage items. Couplet In poetry, a couplet or distich is a pair of successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre . A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In

1440-478: The Persian language by subsequent Persian poets, as evidenced by numerous references to the Shahnameh in their works. Although 19th-century British Iranologist E. G. Browne has claimed that Ferdowsi purposefully avoided Arabic vocabulary, this claim has been challenged by modern scholarship, specifically Mohammed Moinfar, who has noted that there are numerous examples of Arabic words in the Shahnameh which are effectively synonyms for Persian words previously used in

1500-566: The Shahname inscribed on the walls of Konya and Sivas . When we take into consideration domestic life in the Konya courts and the sincerity of the favor and attachment of the rulers to Persian poets and Persian literature, then this fact [i.e., the importance of Persian influence] is undeniable. Shah Ismail I (d.1524), the founder of the Safavid dynasty of Iran, was also deeply influenced by

1560-675: The age of heroes, extending from Manuchehr's reign until the conquest of Alexander the Great . This age is also identified as the kingdom of the Kayanians , which established a long history of heroic age in which myth and legend are combined. The main feature of this period is the major role played by the Saka or Sistani heroes who appear as the backbone of the Empire. Garshasp is briefly mentioned with his son Nariman , whose own son Sam acted as

1620-577: The areas of Central Asia beyond the Oxus up to the 7th century (where the story of the Shahnameh ends), was generally an Iranian-speaking land. According to Richard Frye , "The extent of influence of the Iranian epic is shown by the Turks who accepted it as their own ancient history as well as that of Iran ... The Turks were so much influenced by this cycle of stories that in the eleventh century AD we find

1680-430: The argument goes, is largely his effort to preserve the memory of Persia's golden days and transmit it to a new generation, so that, by learning from it, they could acquire the knowledge needed to build a better world. Although most scholars have contended that Ferdowsi's main concern was the preservation of the pre-Islamic legacy of myth and history, a number of authors have formally challenged this view. This portion of

1740-409: The copyist of his own antigraph (Abd-al-Kâfi ebn-Abi’l-Barakât) had access to several copies of the text, including the original. Mahmud of Ghazni is explicitly mentioned by the text, thus providing a terminus post quem for the composition of the text at minimum. One of the named copyists in the tradition may be known, Ebn-Abi’l-Barakât, who is known to have lived in the 12th century, thus providing

1800-401: The couplet form. Couplets can also appear as part of more complex rhyme schemes , such as sonnets . Rhyming couplets are one of the simplest rhyme schemes in poetry. Because the rhyme comes so quickly, it tends to call attention to itself. Good rhyming couplets tend to "explode" as both the rhyme and the idea come to a quick close in two lines. Here are some examples of rhyming couplets where

1860-579: The earliest stages of written secular literature in Georgia, the resumption of literary contacts with Iran, "much stronger than before" (Gvakharia, 2001, p. 481). Ferdowsi's Shahnama was a never-ending source of inspiration, not only for high literature, but for folklore as well. "Almost every page of Georgian literary works and chronicles [...] contains names of Iranian heroes borrowed from the Shahnama " (ibid). Ferdowsi, together with Nezāmi , may have left

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1920-620: The early Middle English period through the imitation of medieval Latin and Old French models. The earliest surviving examples are a metrical paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer in short-line couplets, and the Poema Morale in septenary (or "heptameter") couplets, both dating from the twelfth century. Rhyming couplets were often used in Middle English and early modern English poetry. Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales , for instance,

1980-465: The end of this great history And all the land will talk of me: I shall not die, these seeds I've sown will save My name and reputation from the grave, And men of sense and wisdom will proclaim When I have gone, my praises and my fame. Another translation of by Reza Jamshidi Safa: Much I have suffered in these thirty years, I have revived the Ajam with my verse. I will not die then alive in

2040-461: The epic was left unfinished, it was an example of mathnawis in the heroic style of the Shahnameh written later on for the Safavid kings. The Shahnameh 's influence has extended beyond the Persian sphere. Professor Victoria Arakelova of Yerevan University states: During the ten centuries passed after Firdausi composed his monumental work, heroic legends and stories of Shahnameh have remained

2100-460: The first king after a period of mountain-dwelling. His grandson Hushang , son of Siamak , accidentally discovered fire and established the Sadeh Feast in its honor. Stories of Tahmuras , Jamshid , Zahhak , Kawa or Kaveh , Fereydun and his three sons Salm , Tur , and Iraj , and his grandson Manuchehr are related in this section. Almost two-thirds of the Shahnameh are devoted to

2160-522: The first line starts from the right. Tamil literature contains some of the notable examples of ancient couplet poetry. The Tamil language has a rich and refined grammar for couplet poetry, and distichs in Tamil poetry follow the venpa metre. One of the most notable examples of Tamil couplet poetry is the ancient Tamil moral text of the Tirukkural , which contains a total of 1330 couplets written in

2220-457: The four main bodies of world literature. Goethe was inspired by Persian literature, which moved him to write his West-Eastern Divan . Goethe wrote: When we turn our attention to a peaceful, civilized people, the Persians, we must—since it was actually their poetry that inspired this work—go back to the earliest period to be able to understand more recent times. It will always seem strange to

2280-455: The greater region influenced by Persian culture such as Armenia , Dagestan , Georgia , Turkey , Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan celebrate this national epic. The work is of central importance in Persian culture and Persian language . It is regarded as a literary masterpiece, and definitive of the ethno-national cultural identity of Iran. Ferdowsi started writing the Shahnameh in 977 and completed it on 8 March 1010. The Shahnameh

2340-504: The historians that no matter how many times a country has been conquered, subjugated and even destroyed by enemies, there is always a certain national core preserved in its character, and before you know it, there re-emerges a long-familiar native phenomenon. In this sense, it would be pleasant to learn about the most ancient Persians and quickly follow them up to the present day at an all the more free and steady pace. Sargozasht-Nameh or biography of important poets and writers has long been

2400-794: The king's son to read the Shahnameh and to remember the meaningful sayings of the wise. According to the Turkish historian Mehmet Fuat Köprülü : Indeed, despite all claims to the contrary, there is no question that Persian influence was paramount among the Seljuks of Anatolia . This is clearly revealed by the fact that the sultans who ascended the throne after Ghiyath al-Din Kai-Khusraw I assumed titles taken from ancient Persian mythology , like Kai Khosrow , Kay Kāvus , and Kai Kobad ; and that Ala' al-Din Kai-Qubad I had some passages from

2460-521: The leading paladin of Manuchehr while reigning in Sistan in his own right. His successors were his son Zal and Zal's son Rostam , the bravest of the brave, and then Faramarz. Among the stories described in this section are the romance of Zal and Rudaba , the Seven Stages (or Labors) of Rostam , Rostam and Sohrab , Siyavash and Sudaba , Rostam and Akvan Div, the romance of Bijan and Manijeh ,

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2520-462: The main source of the storytelling for the peoples of this region: Persians, Kurds, Gurans, Talishis, Armenians, Georgians, North Caucasian peoples, etc. Jamshid Giunashvili remarks on the connection of Georgian culture with that of Shahnameh : The names of many Šāh-nāma heroes, such as Rostom-i , Thehmine, Sam-i , or Zaal-i , are found in 11th- and 12th-century Georgian literature. They are indirect evidence for an Old Georgian translation of

2580-535: The most enduring imprint on Georgian literature (...) Despite a belief held by some, the Turanian of Shahnameh (whose sources are based on Avesta and Pahlavi texts) have no relationship with Turks . The Turanians of the Shahnameh are an Iranian people representing Iranian nomads of the Eurasian Steppes and have no relationship to the culture of the Turks. Turan, which is the Persian name for

2640-745: The most significant works owing much to the Shahnameh . These include the anonymous Iskandarnameh , the Iskandarnameh of Nizami , the Ayina-i Iskandari of Amir Khusrau , and others. Illustrated copies of the work are among the most sumptuous examples of Persian miniature painting . Several copies remain intact, although two of the most famous, the Houghton Shahnameh and the Great Mongol Shahnameh , were broken up for sheets to be sold separately in

2700-464: The now-lost Chihrdad , as sources as well. Many other Pahlavi sources were used in composing the epic, prominent being the Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan , which was originally written during the late Sassanid era and gave accounts of how Ardashir I came to power which, because of its historical proximity, is thought to be highly accurate. The text is written in the late Middle Persian, which

2760-408: The one halfe beginning, the other halfe should answere." While couplets traditionally rhyme, not all do. Poems may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets in iambic pentameter are called heroic couplets . John Dryden in the 17th century and Alexander Pope in the 18th century were both well known for their writing in heroic couplets. The Poetic epigram is also in

2820-462: The original text. The first complete English translation of the text was published by Venetis in 2017. Shahnameh The Shahnameh ( Persian : شاهنامه , romanized :  Šāhnāme , lit.   'The Book of Kings', modern Iranian Persian pronunciation [ʃɒːh.nɒː.ˈme] ), also transliterated Shahnama , is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c.  977 and 1010 CE and

2880-459: The reign of Khosrow II (590–628). The Khwadāy-Nāmag contained historical information on the later Sasanian period, but it does not appear to have drawn on any historical sources for the earlier Sasanian period (3rd to 4th centuries). Ferdowsi added material continuing the story to the overthrow of the Sasanians by the Muslim armies in the middle of the seventh century. The first to undertake

2940-478: The sense as well as the sound "rhymes": On the other hand, because rhyming couplets have such a predictable rhyme scheme, they can feel artificial and plodding. Here is a Pope parody of the predictable rhymes of his era: Regular rhyme was not originally a feature of English poetry: Old English verse came in metrically paired units somewhat analogous to couplets, but constructed according to alliterative verse principles. The rhyming couplet entered English verse in

3000-506: The text. This calls into question the idea of Ferdowsi's deliberate eschewing of Arabic words. The Shahnameh has 62 stories, 990 chapters, and some 50,000 rhyming couplets, making it more than three times the length of Homer's Iliad and more than twelve times the length of the German Nibelungenlied . According to Ferdowsi himself, the final edition of the Shahnameh contained some sixty thousand distichs. But this

3060-462: The theme of regicide and the incompetence of kings embedded in the epic did not sit well with the Iranian monarchy. Later, there were Muslim figures such as Ali Shariati , the hero of Islamic reformist youth of the 1970s, who were also antagonistic towards the contents of the Shahnameh since it included verses critical of Islam. These include the line: tofu bar to, ey charkh-i gardun, tofu! (spit on your face, oh heavens spit!), which Ferdowsi used as

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3120-634: The twentieth century; contemporary poets writing in English sometimes prefer unrhymed couplets, distinguished by layout rather than by matching sounds. Couplets called duilian may be seen on doorways in Chinese communities worldwide. Duilian displayed as part of the Chinese New Year festival, on the first morning of the New Year, are called chunlian (春聯; 春联). These are usually purchased at

3180-605: The versification of the Pahlavi chronicle was Daqiqi , a contemporary of Ferdowsi, poet at the court of the Samanid Empire , who came to a violent end after completing only 1,000 verses. These verses, which deal with the rise of the prophet Zoroaster , were afterward incorporated by Ferdowsi, with acknowledgment, in his own poem. The style of the Shahnameh shows characteristics of both written and oral literature. Some claim that Ferdowsi also used Zoroastrian nasks , such as

3240-508: The walls of Konya and Sivas with verses from the Shahnameh . The Turks themselves connected their origin not with Turkish tribal history but with the Turanians of Shahnameh . Specifically in India, through the Shahnameh , they felt themselves to be the last outpost tied to the civilized world by the thread of Iranianism . Ferdowsi concludes the Shahnameh by writing: I've reached

3300-672: The wars with Afrasiab , Daqiqi 's account of the story of Goshtasp and Arjasp, and Rostam and Esfandyar . A brief mention of the Arsacid dynasty follows the history of Alexander and precedes that of Ardashir I , founder of the Sasanian Empire. After this, Sasanian history is related with a good deal of accuracy. The fall of the Sassanids and the Arab conquest of Persia are narrated romantically. According to Jalal Khaleghi Mutlaq,

3360-595: The wise in this darkness of sorrow, The pure words of Ferdowsi of the Tusi are such, His pure sense is an angelic birth, Angelic born is anyone who's like Ferdowsi. How sweetly has conveyed the pure-natured Ferdowsi, May blessing be upon his pure resting place, Do not harass the ant that's dragging a seed, because it has life and sweet life is dear. Many other poets, e.g., Hafez , Rumi and other mystical poets, have used imagery of Shahnameh heroes in their poetry. The Shahnameh 's impact on Persian historiography

3420-500: The world, For I have spread the seed of the word. Whoever has sense, path and faith, After my death will send me praise. Many Persian literary figures, historians and biographers have praised Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh . The Shahnameh is considered by many to be the most important piece of work in Persian literature . Western writers have also praised the Shahnameh and Persian literature in general. Persian literature has been considered by such thinkers as Goethe as one of

3480-627: The zenith of their prestige in English verse, in the popularity of heroic couplets . The heroic couplet was used by famous poets for ambitious translations of revered Classical texts, for instance, in John Dryden 's translation of the Aeneid and in Alexander Pope 's translation of the Iliad . Though poets still sometimes write in couplets, the form fell somewhat from favour in English in

3540-486: Was immediate, and some historians decorated their books with the verses of Shahnameh. Below is sample of ten important historians who have praised the Shahnameh and Ferdowsi: The Shahnameh contains the first Persian legend of Alexander the Great in the tradition of the Alexander Romance . Three sections of the Shahnameh are dedicated to Alexander, running over 2,500 verses in total, and Alexander's life

3600-560: Was the immediate ancestor of Modern Persian . A great portion of the historical chronicles given in Shahnameh is based on this epic and there are in fact various phrases and words which can be matched between Ferdowsi's poem and this source, according to Zabihollah Safa . Traditional historiography in Iran holds that Ferdowsi was grieved by the fall of the Sasanian Empire and its subsequent rule by Arabs and Turks. The Shahnameh ,

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