In “The Shahnameh as World Literature”, author Dick Davis makes some points that I do not agree with. He claims that the Shahnameh is the “sole indigenous literary source” of Persian legends and mythology. But this seems unlikely, as before Persian manuscripts came into fashion they, like many civilizations at the time, shared hundreds of stories orally (23). Davis also kept relating the Persian epic to other Western epics, which I think is a biased point of view as a Western man. If Shahnameh was truly world literature wouldn’t have been relatable to Eastern epics as well, such as from China or Japan? The author seems to limit himself in his focus on comparison solely to Western/European epics. I suppose it’s important to consider what is defined as World Literature. It seems to be a more nationalist story of the perils of solely Persian people, not an intersection of many cultures. If the only thing that makes it worldly is it’s fame, does Davis suggest that written world is the only true indicator of an educated nation? Shahnameh seems concerned only with preserving its own culture, rather than relating its stories to a larger collective. Davis also makes a lot of assumptions about the works author, Ferdowsi. He claims Ferdowsi wrote his poem with “explicit references to the evils of Arab conquest” (25). This is a major claim, stating that a historical figure converted to Islam actually was against the spread of Islam in the pre-islamic Persian state. What weakens this argument even further is Davis’ lack of evidence to backup his claim. Perhaps Ferdowsi was writing about an individually evil character, not insinuating that all Arabs were evil. To me, it is always a red flag if an author makes such a monumental claim without substantial evidence, like a passage from the poem or other possibilities from more experts. His certainty is unnerving, leading me to debt the rest of his claim
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.