The Layered Heart : Essays on Persian Poetry is published in celebration of the poet and scholar Dick Davis, dubbed “our pre-eminent translator from Persian” by The Washington Post. Edited by Ali-Asghar Seyed-Ghorab, Associate Professor of Persian at Leiden University, the volume includes twenty-one essays about Persian culture and literature, ranging from classical Persian poetry to modern literary topics. Written by foremost scholars in the field, each of the essays is original and ground-breaking either in content or in methodology, while together they encompass a broad sweep of Iranian history, from pre-Islamic times to the present. They offer a fascinating, multi-faceted view of the Persian classics – from poetry in praise of wine, and the portrayal of love in Persian-European medieval romances, to an examination of Ferdowsi’s monumental epic, the Shahnameh, its connection with the Persian oral tradition and its later reception in Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Europe. Modern topics include an analysis of Lahuti’s letter poem to Joseph Stalin, published for the first time in Persian and English, the celebrated novel My Uncle Napoleon, and trends in poetry before and after the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Contents/Excerpt
CONTENTS
PREFACE, ix
INTRODUCTION, 1
Voyages in Literature, 21
Ehsan Yarshater (Columbia University)
LOVE, WINE & ROMANCE
Continuity and Creativity: Models of Change in Persian Poetry, Classical and Modern, 25
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak (University of Maryland)
Between the Water and the Wall: The Power of Love in Medieval Persian Romance, 55
Saeed Honarmand (Columbia University)
Wretched King Mobad Loses the War of Love, 81
Christine van Ruymbeke, (University of Cambridge)
Of Love and Loyalty: The Middle English Floris and Blancheflour and the Persian Warqa and Golshāh, 99
Asghar Seyed-Ghorab (Leiden University)
What Kind of Wine Did Rudaki Desire? Samanids’ Search for Cultural and National Identity, 127
Kamran Talattof (University of Arizona)
Song of the Cupbearer by Mohammad Sūfī Māzandarānī, 173
Paul Losensky (Indiana University)
STUDIES RELATED TO THE SHAHNAMEH
Zahhak’s Story and History, 199
Saghi Gazerani (Ohio State University)
Wrestling in the Shahnameh and Later Persian Epics, 237
H.E. Chehabi (Boston University)
Heroes, Husbands, and Rhino Hunters: Sekandar and Bahram Gur in the Shahnameh, 283
Sunil Sharma (Boston University)
Shahnameh-ye Naderi and the Revival of Epic Poetry in Post-Safavid Iran, 295
Abbas Amanat (Yale University)
From Scythia to Sistan: Reconciling the Shahnameh and Herodotus to Discover the Origins of the Rostam Legend, 319
Reza Shaghaghi Zarghamee (University of St Andrews)
On the Sources of the Shahnameh, 353
Olga M. Davidson (Boston University)
Shifting Allegiances: Primordial Relationships and How They Change in the Shahnameh, 363
Franklin Lewis (The University of Chicago)
The Shahnameh in India: Tārīkh-i Dilgushā-yi Shamshīr Khānī, 411
Charles Melville (University of Cambridge)
Kok Kohzad in Afghanistan: Local Knowledge and Shahnameh Characters, 443
Margaret A. Mills (Ohio State University)
Side-Saddle Tazmin, or, the Post-Shahnameh for Victorian Children, 473
Firuza Melville (University of Cambridge)
STUDIES ON MODERN PERSIAN LITERATURE
Poet and Ruler: The Case of Dāstān-e gol, Lahuti’s Poem for Stalin, 523
Natalia Chalisova (Russian State University of Moscow) and Leyla Lahuti (Russian State University of Moscow)
From Revolution to Silence: The Political and Literary Life of Qaysar Aminpur, 551
Fatemeh Shams (University of Pennsylvania)
Literature Beyond Borders: Modern Persian Novels in English Translation, The Case of Pezeshkzād’s My Uncle Napoleon, 589
Saeedeh Shahnahpur (Leiden University)
Astrolabe Hunting in the Punjab, 619
John Walbridge (Indiana University)
BIBLIOGRAPHY, 625
