Today on the BBC.com homepage — ‘The Book That Defines Iranians’, REORIENT Editor
Today on the BBC.com homepage — ‘The Book That Defines Iranians’, REORIENT Editor @joobinbekhrad’s story about the ‘Shahnameh’ (‘Book of Kings’), Iran’s national epic - http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180810-the-book-of-kings-the-book-that-defines-iranians. We’ve also included the link in our bio. Image: a statue of Ferdowsi in Tehran. .‘Completed by Abolqasem Ferdowsi in the early eleventh century, the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) is not only a literary masterpiece, but also a book that has for centuries helped define Iran and the Iranian peoples, as well as safeguard the existence of the Persian language. Consisting of over 50,000 rhyming couplets, it is the longest poem ever written by a single author. It is not an epic about a single defining event, a fantastical voyage, or a particular pair or star-crossed lovers or arch-rivals, as is the case with many national epics. Although certainly brimming with the aforementioned, the Shahnameh is an epic centred around the very essence and soul of Iran; and, while ancient Iran is its chief object, the book’s messages are timeless, and in many cases may well have been written for humanity as a whole.’.#iran #iranian #persian #shahnameh #ferdowsi #literature (at Iran) -- source link
#iranian#persian#shahnameh#ferdowsi#literature