Shahnameh of Ferdowsi

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.6 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2012

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the epic poem the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, the 'Book of Kings', which has been at the heart of Persian culture for the past thousand years. The poem recounts a legendary history of Iran from the dawn of time to the fall of the Persian Empire in the 7th century and serves, in a sense, as a creation myth for the Persian nation.

The Shahnameh took Ferdowsi thirty years to write and, consisting of over 50,000 verses, is said to be the longest poem ever written by a single author. Laced with tragedy, Ferdowsi's epic chronicles battles, romances, family rifts and Man's interior struggle with himself. Although the stories may not always be true they have a profound resonance with Iranians even today, and the poem has been referred to as both the 'encyclopaedia of Iranian culture' and the identity card of the Persian people.

With:

Narguess Farzad Senior Fellow in Persian at SOAS, University of London

Charles Melville Professor of Persian History at Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge

Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis Curator of Middle Eastern Coins at the British Museum

Producer: Natalia Fernandez.

Transcript

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0:45.6	Hello over 1,000 years ago in 10 10 a.D. The Persian poet
0:50.6	Fadoci finished Phadzi finished writing his epic poem the Charminae or book of kings.
0:57.4	It had taken him 30 years to complete and consisting of some 50,000 verses it's the longest
1:02.2	poem ever written by a single author.
1:04.7	The dose's aim was to narrate the history of the world from a Persian perspective from the
1:08.4	beginning of time up until the Arab conquest in the seventh century and to preserve the myths and legends of days gone by.
1:15.6	It's a sweeping masterpiece full of battles and bloodshed, kings and queens, love and hate, heroes and
1:20.1	villains, but the Charminae is more than just a storybook, more than just a poem. Indeed, it's sometimes described
1:25.8	as the Encyclopedia of Iranian Culture and the identity card of the Persian people. Today, Charmane occupies a place at the heart of Iranian culture,
	...

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