Epic and National Self-Consciousness: The Case of Shahnameh | ||
| The International Journal of Humanities | ||
| Article 3, Volume 21, Issue 1, 2014, Pages 45-72 PDF (165.68 K) | ||
| Author | ||
| Ali Sadeghi* | ||
| Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Isfahan | ||
| Abstract | ||
| This paper aims to explore the relationship between epic poetry and national self-consciousness and in particular study how Shahnameh may be analyzed from this angle. What is the relationship between the Shahnameh and the Iranian national self-consciousness? What can one say about the Iranian national self-consciousness on the basis of this text? What does the text reveal about the Iranian identity? A related question should also be answered, is the Shahnameh an epic? This is not a pedantic question concerned merely with definitions and labels. As will become clear, an epic reveals a great deal about the national consciousness of the people to whom it belongs (or who belong to it); to identify a poem as an epic, is to be making an important statement about the national consciousness of a people. The question of whether the Shahnameh is an epic or not is hence far from a pedantic one. It takes us right into the heart of Iranian national consciousness | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Shahnameh; national self-consciousness; epic poetry; Iran | ||
|
Statistics Article View: 183 PDF Download: 152 |
||
| Number of Journals | 45 |
| Number of Issues | 2,196 |
| Number of Articles | 24,877 |
| Article View | 28,781,344 |
| PDF Download | 18,604,088 |