Creativity in the Iranian National Tradition
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 1977 Naqqāli and Ferdowsi: Creativity in the Iranian National Tradition Mary Ellen Page University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons, and the Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Page, Mary Ellen, "Naqqāli and Ferdowsi: Creativity in the Iranian National Tradition" (1977). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1531. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1531 This dissertation by Mary Ellen Farr, née Mary Ellen Page, was received in Oriental Studies, a department that no longer exists at Penn and was folded into the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies departments in the 1990s. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1531 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Naqqāli and Ferdowsi: Creativity in the Iranian National Tradition Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations First Advisor William L. Hanaway Subject Categories Comparative Literature | Near and Middle Eastern Studies | Near Eastern Languages and Societies Comments This dissertation by Mary Ellen Farr, née Mary Ellen Page, was received in Oriental Studies, a department that no longer exists at Penn and was folded into the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies departments in the 1990s. This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1531 NAQQALI AND FERDOWSI: CREATIVITY IN THE IRANIAN NATIONAL TRADITION Mary Ellen Page A DISSERTATION in Oriental Studies Presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Pennsylvani in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Docto of Philosophy. 1977 Supervisor of Dissertation Gfaduate Group Chairman Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78-6630 PAGE, Mary Ellen, 1948- NAQQALI AND FERDOWSI: CREATIVITY IN THE IRANIAN NATIONAL TRADITION. University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D., 1977 Literature, comparative University Microfilms international,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 © 1977 MARY ELLEN PAGE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many pepole have assisted me in the various stages of this study; unfortunately I cannot hope to include them all here. I owe much to the guidance of my professors at the University of Pennsylvania in the Departments of Oriental Studies and Folklore and Folklife, for their continued direction in the past years. To Professor William L. Hanaway, Jr. of the Department of Oriental Studies, I must express my particular thanks, for initially stimulating my interests in this direction and then having the patience and courage tlC CGIltllLIluc his guidance through each step to the end. Without his constant comments and advice, this study would not have been possible. I must also thank Professors Dan Ben-Amos of the Department of Folklore and Folklife, Hamid Mahamadi of the Oriental Studies Department and Thomas Naff of the Middle East Center for their help throughout this study. To my fellow students in the Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania, I extend my gratitude for their encouragement and personal interest through the final stages of the study. My fieldwork in Iran during the academic year 1974-1975 was supported by a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship. To the Fulbright Commission, and in particular Mrs. Pari Rad of Teheran, I express my thanks for both economic and personal assistance during that year. My thanks go to the faculty of the Department of National iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv Development of Pahlavi University for their assistance during the year 1974-1975, and also to Mr. David Marsden, whom I met there, of the University of Swansee, Wales, for his encouragement and kind assistance during my fieldwork and after. I must also extend my gratitude to Dr. M. Khaleqi of the Ministry of Arts and Cultures, Teheran, and Mr. Kojuri of the Ministry of Arts and Cultures, Shiraz for answering my questions regarding storytelling and for generally making my way through my fieldwork easier. For their aid in helping me to deal with the oral material, I want to thank Miss Mitra Protoa of Shiraz, Iran, Mr. Hoshang Rahnema of the University of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Khalil Zanuzi of Portland State University, Portland, Oregon. To my mother and to my sister, who also helped in the final preparation of the manuscript, I would like to express my continued gratitude for their support through these years. Finally I must say an especial thanks to my husband, Grant Farr, who has been of constant aid and comfort to me from the very first. There are no words to express my profound gratitude and admiration for the storytellers who allowed me to work with them in Iran. In particular, I must mention Habib Allah Izadkhasti and cAli jSanakhan, who spent hours with me, answering questions and explaining their art. I hope this study does some justice to their lively talent and creativity. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I Introduction 1 II Historical Background 14 III ' The Storyteller and HisSetting 29 IV The Performance 55 V Relationships Between Oral and Written Materials 1 23 A. The Shahnama, the Tumar and the Story 123 B. Genre 152 C. The Sources of the Iranian National Legend 152 D. Conclusions 213 VI Conclusions 223 Appendices 233 Index 500 Bibliography , 309 V Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I Introduc tion Around the year 1000 A.D. Abu '1-Qasem Ferdowsi wrote a verse epic called the Shahnama [Book of KingsJ."*" In this epic Ferdowsi set down the Iranian past, legendary and historical, drawing upon much pre-Islamic material to explain the legendary history of Iran from the beginnings of the world to the Arab conquest in 636 A.D. Ferdowsi's work has probably been the focus of more research than any other single work in Persian literature and has come to dominate the o study of the national tradition. Much research has been concerned with tracing Ferdowsi's motifs, reaching back into the pre-Islamic 3 Zoroastrian tradition to find antecedents, examining the way in which Ferdowsi's version excels in presentation,^ or how it repre sents historical reality.-’ At the same time there has always been the knowledge that Ferdowsi's version of the Shahnama is only one version of material of which many other versions exist. Some scholars have been interested in examining written works from the medieval period which expand upon the Shahnama stories. The tracing of story lines or motifs has been of great concern.** Recently a few people have become interested in the fact that the national tradition is still being retold and reworked. These scholars have directed their attention to the oral literature of 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 Iran. One of these scholars, Abu ’1-Qasem Anjavi, has published a collection of Shahnama stories which he recorded from lay story tellers around Iran.^ Even while he is publishing alternate versions of the Shahnama stories, Anjavi declares himself a firm believer in O the greater value of Ferdowsi's work. He makes no real attempt to explain why such stories abound or what relationship they have with the written tradition. Much of the attitude toward the collection of these texts reflects the judgment of Theodor NBldeke about the medieval epics which were written after Ferdowsi's version of the Shahnama: It is a common opinion, that a great deal of popular epic tradition has been preserved in those poems. It might sound a little bold, if I flatly deny that and declare the contents of those narratives to be essen tially a free fancy of the respective authors.9 Furthermore, all the concern with the collection of variants of Shahnama stories, coupled with the veneration which Ferdowsi has received, implies that there is a correct version of the Shahnama (probably Ferdowsi1s) and that any other version is the result of imperfect knowledge on the part of uneducated raconteurs.^ The mass of research centering on variants ignores the fact that the national tradition exists only in its being reworked and reinterpreted, so that popular versions are as valid and meaningful as written versions, and need not be merely corruptions of an ideal (written) text. Once the reworking of the tradition ceases to be meaningful to the audience, the tradition will disappear despite written versions.^ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 Virtually no research on Iran exists which comments upon the storyteller’s role in his society or the cultural values of story telling-^ or which attempts to come to terms with the relationship of the oral and written stories of the Shahnama. One study, cen tering on the professional storyteller, was done by Forud Ismail- Begi. Unfortunately, the study amounts to little more than a very superficial, and somewhat romantic, description of storytelling in modern