جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh » در نشریات گروه « ادبیات و زبان ها »

The story of Jamshid and Zahhak is the primary cornerstone of distinguishing Iranian identity from other identities. For the first time in this story, Ferdowsi deals with differentiation and represents the identity and independent geography and also unique components of Iran and Iranian kings. Despite of dualities like Iranian king’s kiani far and Zahhak's demonic temper as the main line of differentiation of Iranian identity, this distinction has shown itself especially in the context of geography and territorial identity. like distinction of Iran from other lands such as Arabia or India.Regarding the importance of this story in shaping the subsequent events and the story line in Iran's national epic, the main purpose in which this article is written on is to explain and represent the components of Iran's territorial identity in the story of Jamshid and Zahak through the use of Van Dijk's discourse analysis method. using the mentioned method, selected verses from the story were analyzed and explained by use of discourse strategies. Based on this, the results of this research show that the selected verses from the story of Jamshid and Zahhak match the Iranian identity against the non-Iranian identity to the land and territorial distinction, which can be considered as a part of the process of identification of Iranians.

Modern historicism is one of the theories in the field of literary criticism and one of the sub-branches of post-structural criticism, which was founded by Steven Greenblatt in the late seventies and early eighties. Contrary to traditional historicism, which speaks of the one-sided influence of history on literature, modern historicism believes in the two-sided influence of literature and history on each other. In this research, relying on library and documentary studies and with an analytical-descriptive approach, we have tried to examine the story of Qubad Pirouz in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh based on the criticism of modern historicism, identify and analyze its discourses, and finally get a new meaning from it. Based on the obtained results, it can be said that there are five discourses in Qabad's story, whose conflict with each other forms the basis of the narrative and moves it forward. The identified discourses are: Qabad, Blash, Sokhrai, Mazdak and Mobdan discourses. Each of these discourses gain power in a period of time and are placed in the center; But the amount of friction is such that they are pushed from the center to the margins again. All in all, in this research, an effort has been made to get a new understanding of the story by analyzing the relationships between the discourses and shedding light on the dark corners of the story.

The fusion of human life with non-human and nature in the era of myth and prehistory was such that man took the first steps in the way of knowing and interacting with his environment. He had a mysterious view of the natural world and saw his life as tied to the survival of other creatures. Natural epics speak of such a world. Considering the changes that have taken place in the relationship between man and nature and the change in the attitude and view of man towards nature and other creatures, this question can be asked about the works of adaptation of natural epics: to what extent did the adaptor The original has been consistent and to what extent has it been used in the narrative in accordance with the view and thought and even the environmental needs of today's man?In this research, with a descriptive-comparative method and with an ecological approach, to describe and compare the relationship between man and nature in the story of Kiyomarth of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and its adaptation; That is, the first king of the world, by Mohammad Reza Yousefi, and we have answered this question. The obtained result showed that in the story of Kiyomarth of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, an interactive view between man and nature can be observed. Kiyomarth is a wise and wise Pasha, with whom humans and non-humans live peacefully. They learn religion and rituals from him, and their only enemy is the devil who tries to disrupt the harmonious system of man and nature

Mohammad ibn-e Soleiman Tonekaboni, a jurist of the Qajar era and the author of the famous book Qesas al-Olama had read Ferdowsi's Shahnameh rigorously and paid special attention to it. Shavahed-e Farsi, a book he wrote on rhetorical figures derived from the Shahnameh and his own poems. Furthermore, he composed at least one religious epic poem on the subject of the events of Karbala, which is called Hamle-ye Hoseinieh. It can be said that all Persian epic poems written after the Shahnameh were influenced by this noble work of Ferdowsi and Tonekaboni's work is no exception in this regard. Hamle-ye Hoseinieh has not been published so far and a lot is unsaid about it. After a complete review of the only known manuscript of Hamle-ye Hoseinieh, this article tries to investigate its various aspects and determine its strengths and weaknesses and its merit. In addition to a brief biography of Tonekaboni, the obscurities in introducing his works are discussed. It can be implied that the manuscript of Hamle-ye Hoseinieh was a draft. One of the significant aspects of this manuscript is the recording of the pronunciation of some words, which provides interesting information about their different pronunciations. Among the issues discussed in this article are determining the time when this poem was composed and its sources, the method of Tonekaboni in narrating the events of Ashura and the distortions involved, evaluating the work from the perspective of epic features, the influence of the Shahnameh on it, and the way the figures of speech are used.

Psychoanalytic criticism is one of the important and efficient methods in understanding and analyzing the hidden layers of literary and artistic texts, which is used to reach deeper concepts and analyze minds. Based on the principles and laws of psychoanalysis, this type of criticism shows a wide field of current desires, wishes, actions and failures in human life. Characterizing in a symbolic way and presenting a symbolic model of a human being with all the moods, feelings and desires and customary and moral prohibitions that can surround him. Also, the expression of the human type, as a transcendent being, and on the other hand, the capacities in the characters and the symbolic structure of the text, make Jung's archetypal psychoanalytical critique suitable for this text. The detailed and comprehensive processing of Froud's character and the complete description of the actions of characters such as Tos, Giv, Bijan, Takhar, Jarira and Bahram based on their behavior, speech and detailed description of events and situation pave the way for Jung's archetypal psychoanalytic critique to offer a new reading of the text.

In this research, Froud's story was evaluated based on Jung's psychoanalytical theory, and all types of archetypes were criticized based on the quality of occurrence and the process of individuality, and were evaluated with the analytical-descriptive method that is the basis of this theory.

In the section of archetypes, the archetype of the hero, according to Froud's characteristics and actions, he is the archetype of the hero who seeks the comprehensiveness of his archetype. At the beginning of his future, he is an inexperienced hero and has not yet faced the different aspects of his personality; But little by little, it approaches increasing self-awareness. Where it settles on top of the mountain and this stable represents the hero's growing self-awareness; Also, Jarireh, Froud's mother is the archetype of wise mother, with whose advice Froud gets out of the confusion in the confrontation with the Iranian army, who plays the role of his unconscious wise mother who tries to set goals for the hero and guide him to the main path of independence. Bahram, the archetype of wise oldman, is the patron of Froud during the story. Takhar is the archetype of the mask, everything is accompanied by Jarira as Froud's consultant But it also has bad intentions; He does not fully introduce Bahram and even encourages Froud to kill Rioniz with wrong guidance. Regarding the archetype of the shadow, we can mention Tos Rionis, Lego, Zersp, Bijan, that the main hero, Froud, after facing these shadows, is suspended and actually enters his unconscious.

The results of the research show that the archetypes of wise old man, wise mother, shadow, mask and anima are used in these stories and the archetype of shadow has a high frequency; Also, the archetypes used in the story represent the hero's effort to travel the path of tomorrow. An attempt that does not reach the goal and the hero of story fails to follow this path.

Various editions of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh have been attempted over the past two hundred years to bring the epic closer to what Ferdowsi originally penned. Despite these efforts, the valuable verses, numerous appended couplets, and various other flaws persist in this epic masterpiece. The absence of ancient manuscripts emphasizes the need to consider alternative methods in correcting Shahnameh. One such approach is self-correction, considering elements such as similes, metaphors, interpretations, and their equivalents. This method can rectify many discrepancies. In this article, the second hemistich of the couplet “kherad chon shaved kehtar-e kam o rashk /Chonan dan ke divane khanad pezeshk (When wisdom becomes less than desire and envy, know it like a physician who considers someone insane)” is corrected and analyzed based on the proverb “Hasad [rashk] dardist bi-darman (Envy is an incurable pain)” and the recurrence of this proverb in other verses of Shahnameh and Persian literary texts, presented as “Chonan dan ke daroo na-danad pezeshk (Know that, like a physician who does not know the remedy)”.

A character is a collection of psychological characteristics and psychological characteristics are expressing the psychological differences and  similarities of people with each other. The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi is a work, that the great attention to the character has been paid to. What distinguishes Ferdowsi from other authors is the attention to the psychological and acting characters who are appropriate to the subject of the epic. consciously utilization of symbols indicates an action which is so important and it is related to the psychology. In addition, human also created unconscious and conscious symbols and in order to figure out the function of human’s mind well, we require to achieve those symbols inevitably. This study is conducted by using (descriptive-analytical-comparative) methods and employing library data. This study attempts to investigate symbolic characters who are in the story of Keykhosrow’s Great battle with psychological approach of Carl Gustav Jung.  Since Shahnameh of Ferdowsi is a national epic of Iranian, it has roots in their ethnic and national unconsciousness and this property provides the ability to investigate it based on Jung’s view. The most important result of this present study is: shadow, evil side is incompatible and vile of the human’s psyche and caught in the darkness of inside is realizing the shadows. In order to liberate from shadow, we require to know the dark sides of our character by having a reflection on our inner self. In the process of individualism (self-regulation) with the awareness of true self, the darkness of shadows moves away and individual reaches the true self.

Social features are the elements or constituents of a community, without which it is not possible to analyze that community. Shahnameh is important as a work arising from cultural, historical, and social heritage. The richness of this work and its importance are so much that many historical and epic epopees have been written by imitating it, and Tabrizi’s Shahanshah Nameh is an example of them. Making an investigation into the social components in these two works not only leads to the clarification of the ritual of life from Ferdowsi's lifetime to the end of the Mongol rule, but also clarifies the similarities and differences of the social components in these two works. No research has been conducted on this topic so far and the existing cases have only investigated some social components in the Shahnameh. The author seeks to prove the hypothesis that king is the main person of the country in these two works. The results of the research show that the people in the Shahnameh are aware and involved in the politics of their country, but they submit to coercion and bullying in Shahanshah Nameh and do not have any roles in determining their fate. This indicates the suffocating atmosphere of the Mongols' rule during the writing of Shahanshah Nameh. In addition, Shahanshah Nameh is similar to Shahnameh in components such as customs, celebration and mourning customs, and some war customs, but the ones such as the ruling style of kings, social justice, and public awareness are different in these two books.

Connotation or the indirect expression has been of crucial significance regarding literary criticism and rhetorical studies and aesthetics; so that, to be thoroughly perceived, needs an intense consideration beyond the lexical levels or verses and sentences, and what should be studied are the structure and the whole context of the work and the minor and the main elements of a work concerning the main constituent context. In this structural study, the narrative element has an important role; and only by applying a minute research on the components of the narrative structure and the correlation of these components with themselves and with the whole text in several aspects like connotation, an appropriate result could be achieved. Some of these above-mentioned constituent components and elements of the text are considered as lexical and syntactical layers (linguistic field), image: simile, metaphor, and allegory (rhetorical field), and drama (dramatic field) that are engaging in creating implemented meaning.Although the connotation is observed in different layers in Ferdowsi's poetry, insisting on the vocabulary and semantic layers this study has investigated the connotative meaning of Narges dožam (the sad narcissus) in the introduction of the Rostam and Esfandiar story finally had demonstrated this of eyes, crown, and drunkeness has three implicit meanings and the obtained results illustrate the consistency of the narrative context.

The lexical difficulties in the Shahnameh extend beyond obsolete words. There are also words that, despite their apparent clarity, have unidentified semantic changes leading to misunderstandings among the editors and commentators, as well as Persian lexicographers. In this article, the authors focus on one of these words in the story of Rostam and Sohrab. They begin by reviewing different readings and interpretations of a verse containing the word in question in the most distinguished editions and commentaries of the text. By examining the various meanings of the verb gaštan (with prepositions ba, bā and sō̆y-i), and the word āward in the Shahnameh, as a key to understanding the verse, they recognize a neglected meaning of the word āγāz, that is “intention, purpose,” and support their argument by identifying two other instances in the same text. The authors argue that this āγāz is nothing more than a semantic transformation of the well-known āγāz, and is unrelated to the word āwāz, which seemingly was a rare variety of āγāz, and also appears several times in the Shahnameh in the compound preposition bar āwāz-i, meaning “in pursuit of, after”. The semantic change of āγāz took place through the following way: “to begin (to do)” → “to embark upon (to do)” → “to intend to”. This unknown meaning of āγāz has not been recorded in any of the modern Persian dictionaries.

Abstract
Literary criticism is the analysis of the text's semantic layers based on theories that are mostly drawn from other fields of the humanities. The new historicism, which was established by Stephen Greenblatt in the late 1970s and early 1980s, is one of the most current theories in this area. Modern historicism holds that literature and history both have an impact on one another, in contrast to conventional historicism, which speaks of the one-sided influence of history on literature. Modern historians contend that literature does more than just reflect history; rather, the link between history and literature is dialectical rather than reflective. Based on current historicism, library, and document studies, and using a descriptive-analytical approach, this study has looked into and analyzed the story of Fereydoun and Zahak, and has offered a new interpretation of it. According to the study's findings, the conflict between the Iranian discourse and the non-Iranian discourse (Fereydoun and Kaveh) in this story is driven by power, which ultimately leads to the dominance of the Iranian discourse. The characters of this story are each representative of discourse in the story community. Iranian discourse is on the margins and out of power at first, while non-Iranian discourse is dominant and in power. However, by the end of the story, the situation has changed. The plot is driven by the conflict between Iranian and non-Iranian discourse on power.
The story in question was composed as a poem in one of the most sensitive historical situations, that is, the time when the Arab element thought itself superior to Iran and Iranians. The ideological pressures from the Arabic discourse have become more sophisticated throughout this time, and they now want to marginalize the Iranian discourse, which takes the shape of the Shu'ubiyya movement. The space for Shu'ubiyya's Iranian discourse has been constrained by these restrictions from the Baghdad-based authority and its close allies in Iran, notably the Ghaznavid empire. In such a circumstance, Ferdowsi uses the story of Fereydoun and Zahak, which is rich in elements of battle and resistance, to rekindle Iranians' spirit of battle and resistance against the notion of Arab superiority. This story reflects the struggle between Iranian discourse (Feryedoun and Kaveh) and non-Iranian discourse (Zahhak); the struggle that existed during Ferdowsi's period and the Shu’ubiyya movement has been in conflict with what was against Iran and Iranians. Freyedoun, an Iranian aristocrat, is related to Jamshid. Zahak pulled Jamshid down from the kingdom and killed him. Since then, Fereydoun and all other Jamshidis have lost their position in the society and privileges. Fereydon's fight against Zahak is motivated by three different reasons, considering the fact that Zahak also murdered his father Abtin and the Bermaye cow that Fereydon fed on as a child. The reasons were 1) national motivation (saving Iran from the oppressive non-Iranian element), 2) class motivation (restoring the social position and privileges of the Jamshidian class), and 3) personal motivation (taking revenge on Zahhak for murdering Abtin and Barmayeh cow). As a patriotic Iranian, Fereydoun finds Zahak's existence intolerable and feels it is his national responsibility to rebel against the foreign, alien, and oppressive forces that have imposed themselves on Iran.
In this study, an effort is made to analyze the Fereydoun and Zahhak battle story in Shahnameh using modern historicism and to provide a novel interpretation of it. The research is based on new theories and schools, text analysis, and criticism. By using library and documentary studies, as well as descriptive and analytical approaches, we have attempted to offer a novel interpretation of the text under discussion and respond to the following research questions: 1) What are the dominant (in power) and marginal (outside of power) discourses, and what is their connection to power? 2) Why did Ferdowsi favor a particular discourse? 3) What was the reason for it and how did this favoritism occur? 4) What is the relationship and similarity between the story of Fereydoun and Zahak with the history of Ferdowsi's time? 5) What genre and group are the target audience of the story? And 6) what is the intertextual relationship of this story with other Persian literary texts?
Research The study's findings demonstrate that the struggle between the Iranian discourse (represented by Fereydoun and Kaveh) and the non-Iranian discourse in this story is motivated by a desire for power which ultimately leads to the dominance of the Iranian discourse. The characters of this story are each representative of discourse in the story community. Other discourses are on the margins and outside of power, but Zahak's discourse is dominant and in power. The effort and struggle between these marginal discourses to gain power and the center gave rise to the story, and these conflicts between the marginal discourses and the dominant discourse (Zahak) serve as its driving force. The element of conflict in the story is represented through disobedience, rebellion, and war. As a poet, Ferdowsi has clearly taken the side of the marginal discourses centered on Fereydoun. Ferdowsi is inclined toward the usage of positive adjectives and phrases. He sets his supported discourses apart from other discourses in this way.
Discussion of Results and Instead of focusing on the characters' specific historical actions, this story attempts to explore the universal nature of man by narrating the behavior of the characters in a way that makes the reader think about the historical patterns of the members of their society or even the general nature of mankind. As a result, any autocratic, murderous, and cruel dictator may be likened to Zahhak, and every person fighting for liberation from tyranny can be compared to Kaveh. In addition, there are similarities between the characters in the story and historical figures from Ferdowsi's era that are worthy of consideration and come about as a result of how we interpret the story. For instance, Zahhak and the Abbasid caliphs are comparable in terms of race, autocracy, and animosity toward the Iranian race. In other words, the murder, repression, and brutality of the Abbasid caliphs have been demonstrated in the form of the myth of Zahhak. Additionally, there are similarities between Abu Mansour Abd al-Razzaq and Abtin in the Zahhak stories; both of them were murdered by Iranians and are of Iranian ancestry and royal descent. That is, Abtin was murdered by Zahhak Tazi and Abu Mansour by Abul Hasan Simjur of Arabic descent. Additionally, both of their children seek revenge; Fereydon rises against Zhahak, and Mansour, the son of Abu Mansour Abd al-Razzaq, rises against Simjurians and Samanians, and is murdered in this manner.

In the modern system of criticism and analysis of works, the meaning of the text depends on the discovery of the relationships between the subject and the pre-texts, the implicit and explicit memories of the work, as well as the metatextual components that give birth to it; intertextual analysis forms its theoretical basis and methodology. Among the theorists of this method, Roland Barthes allows the audience to get new and creative interpretations and meanings by the arrangement of the texts and the discovery of the overt and covert layers of the works in each other. On the other hand, between history and literature, in addition to commonalities and philosophical confrontations, there are hidden links and emerging meanings; one of the examples of which can be found in the systematic connection between Juvayni's historiography in Jahangushay and Ferdowsi's epic writing in Shahnameh. Therefore, adopting a descriptive-analytical approach, this research tries to discover a new meaning in why Jahangushay history was created in relation to its dominant pre-text, Shahnameh. Considering the relationships between aspects and dimensions of the influence in the formation of some structural elements, the comparative explanation of the literary perspective, and the analysis of the identity and motivational categories of the texts in relation to each other, one can conclude that in his historiography, not only was Juvayni influenced by Ferdowsi's technique and method, but in a confrontational system, he has tried to recreate a text on the level of the Shahnameh and revive a national epic in prose form.

Modality is a semantic and grammatical category for the demonstration of the realis and irrealis worlds. It is the expression of speakers’ beliefs and mental realities on the proposition and its content evaluation. Palmer divides modality into ‘propositional modality’ and ‘event modality’. The propositional modality includes two modes of ‘epistemic’ and ‘evidential’, and the event modality consists of ‘deontic’ and ‘dynamic’ modes. Every language uses various grammatical and semantic modal operators in transforming concepts. In the present study, we investigated the linguistic modal structures and markers as well as the meaning and context in the three stories of Shahnameh (i.e. Fereydun’s Monarchy, Battle of Rostam and Esfandiyar, and Yazdegerd’s Monarchy) based on Palmer’s theory. Different modes of modality include speculative, assurance, conditionals, all types of reports, necessity, commissive and threat, wishes and fears, presuppositions, interrogative and negative statements, implication and assertion in the structures like perceptual and cognitive verbs, prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, allusion, and in the sentences expressing a general and acceptable concept such as idioms. Here, considering the setting is very important in conveying concepts of modality. The linguistic devices in these three stories are divided into three groups based on their frequencies: verbs (56%); nouns, adjectives, and adverbs (27%); and prepositions (17%).

Due to the fact that most of the works written in the field of "farr" are focused on its literal meaning, its derivatives and mythological manifestations, and also because the concept of "Farr" in our time is the basis of many topics of modern physics, including luminous aura, energy chakras and it is energy therapy, in the review of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, the historical roots of "Farr" and its various forms are less mentioned in connection with the manifestations of cosmic energy. The authors, looking at the concept of "Farr" and its characteristics, with a descriptive-analytical method and a library approach They have investigated the metamorphosis of "Farr" and its connection with cosmic energies, how it has appeared in today's world issues and what are its main sources? What are the types and interpretations of "Farr" and today's manifestations, and what is the reflection of "Farr" in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. This article aims to investigate the material and spiritual forms and incarnations of "farr" and its connection with cosmic energy, and to analyze and investigate its transfer from the Mehri religion to the Avesta and then from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh to the present age. Some of the researches that have been written in connection with the theoretical foundations of this article in the field of cosmic energy include books on traditional cosmology and modern science, the quantum ideas of Rumi, the quantum world, research in Iranian mythology, Yashta, Farrah Ezadi in the ancient Iranian monarchy. and the article "Farah, this magical and heavenly force". The conducted research shows that human beings are surrounded by a subtle energy called aura of energy. In the past, this subtle energy, especially in the area of the head chakra, was known as "farr", and it is the most important discipline that connects humans to the beyond; At first, the donors of the "farr" were Mehr and Apam Nepat, and "farr" belonged to the sun and water, but after Zoroastrianism came into use, Ahura Mazda became the donors of the "farr" and fire became its main element. In the Shahnameh, "farr" is the main pillar and the fundamental element and in its incarnations it is transformed into an alive creature or objects and manifests itself in the form of strength and talent in the form of beauty, wisdom and power or mysterious objects. The appearance of the "farr" in Mehri religion, Avesta and Shahnameh is a luminous aura, and the appearance of the "farr"  has been attributed to tangible signs and forms, for example, in the Avesta, it is the bird of Verghan and Ghorm, and... after that in the Shahnameh, it is called Simorgh, Homa, A deer, a horse, a Jahanbin Cup, a ring, etc., and also the effect that this energy had on the head chakra and made the aura of energy  around the head brighter, they called Shamse, Crown, Dastar, Dihim, etc. as well as the effect that this energy had on the head chakra and made the aura of energy around the head more luminous, were like Shamse, Taj, Dastar, Dihim, etc., of course, in the Shahnameh, "Farr" is a divine gift, and sometimes it shines in the form of light from the faces of kings, etc., and sometimes it is manifested in the form of a divine thought in finding secrets and breaking magic.

Surrealism is automatic writing, inscribing and writing freely, i.e. without the dominance of intellect; it is the expression of inductive thought without the supervision of wisdom and regardless of any artistic or ethical oversight. It can be said that this school is the result of the growth of psychology in the 20th century and, hence, psychological encounters with literature. Surrealists called the relationship between mind and the real thing the objective accident. The effects and instances of this objective crash which is based on reality will be clearly seen in epics as its echoes are woven into the mythological, epic and literary structure of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. The purpose of this article is examining the surrealistic explanation of the dream and prediction of reality and objective crash in Ferdowsi''''''''s Shahnameh through an analytical, descriptive approach, which has been reviewed and explained. The main question of this research is the frequency of the objective accident index and its differences with the surreal elements of dreams and predictions. Research findings indicate that the application of sleep and dreams are 17 times, star counting and predicting 35 times and passing through the reality or objective accident 9 times, as a completely surrealistic indicator in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Objective accidents on characters such as Siavash, Goodarz, Keikhosro, Afarsiab, Katayun, Yazdgerd, Khosrowparviz and Yazdgerd, the last Sasanian king. The realization of the dream of these people and seeing it with one’s eyes is the same difference between sleep and dreams and predictions with an objective accident in Shahnameh.

In rich and epic texts, there is a broker or mediator who guides the main characters in the face of difficulties and promotes their growth in physical and psychological dimensions. In today's world, this role is intended for helpers in their daily lives. The key to resembling brokers and helpers is helping people in need. This study, which uses library resources and a descriptive-analytic approach, explores the role of Zale and Roodabeh in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, with an approach to Sindhokht's personality and the theoretical foundations of individual assistance. The results of the research show that the main mission of Sindhokht in the story is to ensure the connection between Zal and Roodabeh and to provide the necessary background for the birth of Rustam and the direction of the epic path. He has also prevented the formation of a bloody battle between the Iranians and the Kabulis, with a detailed personality and the pathology of the problem and crisis. In this story, the reinterpretation of the Siddiqui relatives illustrates the significant presence of women in transgender and social currents. Sindhokht represents a dynamic and influential woman in organizing interpersonal and social relationships. In addition to Sindhokht, another woman at the beginning of the story brings Zal and Rudaba together and ties them together.

Although the epic of Freydūn in Shahnameh and the tragedy of King Lear are created in different time and location, they have remarkable and significant similarities that they could be compared. In this article the data is collected in documentation method, and the research is done in descriptive and comparative method and the dissimilarities are explained according to mythological approach because it seems that what makes Freydūn differ from king Lear comes from mythological belief of these two cultures. Freydūn is a hero whose origin comes from gods, he has ahuric wisdom and he knows the fate from the beginning therefore he makes the best decision and gives the best country to his best son but king Lear is not so. His decision doesn’t come from the wisdom and it depends to a test which he couldn’t be able to determine the authenticity of its result.
At the end of story Fereydūn has patient for taking revenge and conquest of goodness to evil that at last it happens but King Lear tragedy ends to the ruin of the whole family all the good ones and bad ones. And we think that this tragic end depends to the King Lear’s first unfair decision and if he makes the appropriate choice, the end of this story will differ.
Freydūn’ character doesn’t change throughout the epic he is a wise man that has some signs from gods but Lear is not the same. It seems that all events happened for changing Lear from a king to an old wised man.

This research is done in descriptive and comparative metod and the data is collected in documentation method. The dissimilarities are explained according to mythological approach. It seems that although the similarities between these two stories are remarkable but the differences are important because it shows the origin beliefs in different nations and knowing these origins could help us to understand the stories and the purpose of the creator much better.

Freydūn is the first prototype of heroes in Shahnameh that we could find the sign of myth in his story. He is the hero that binds Zahhāk in Damavand and receives Farrah of Jamshid. He divides his kingdom between his three sons and it causes two older brothers kill their young brother, Iraj. Iraj’s grandson- Manuchihr- revenges and kills Salm and Tūr. We could see the signs of myth in this story and it could be said that Freydūn has traces of Indo-Iranian gods.  
In King Lear tragedy we could also see the traces of Greek mythology somewhere e.g. Lear mentions Apollo or calls his daughter as a Satan or tells that he binds to a fiery wheel that it refers to Ixion myth. Ixion myth could be interpreted as an ambition without responsibility which it is true about King Lear character in this tragedy. He wants to keep his glory without responsibility. The theme of this story and Ixion myth are the same: ingratitude, killing the relatives, suffering and punishment.
There are similarities between these two stories which causes to attract the researcher’s attention. In both we could see that fate and prediction plays an important role, kings decide to divide his kingdom between his children, there are some challenges. Both kings have three children that the youngest one is the good one who is killed by two old ones. Both kings died in natural death. The theme of these two stories is the battle between evil and goodness.
On the other hand, there are some remarkable differences in these two stories that show their diversity origins. Freydūn gives the best section of his kingdom to his best child but Lear doesn’t do so. He makes a test and since he is not satisfied from his youngest daughter’s test result, he  deprives her from inheritance. The important theme in this tragedy is that the king’s fellows understand the honesty of youngest daughter but king himself is not so wise for getting it therefore he is deceived by his old daughters. The reader of this tragedy could result that all disasters that happen are the consequence of Lear’s fault.
On the other hand, Lear’s character is changed through the story but Freydūn is not so. It seems that in the beginning Lear is not aware of his court and after all events he becomes an old wised man. That is not the same about Freydūn, he is a wise man through the story and all that happens to him and his family come from the destiny that he couldn’t change it and he knows this fact.
Another subject which could be mentioned as a difference between these two stories is the process of revenge in both. In Freydūn’s story we could see the patient of him for taking revenge. Iraj’s grandson -Manuchihr- takes revenge and becomes king of Iranshahr so the good members of royal family continue the kingdom. It resembles the ancient Iranian myths that although there are some battles between goodness and evil and through these battles some good ones are killed and destroyed but at last Ahura-mazda and his forces are victorious. But in Lear story all the members are killed and in the end of story we would see the ruin of the whole royal family.

The theme of both stories is the battle between evil and goodness but there are some differences that it shows the dissimilarity between their origins.
Freydūn is a hero that has some ahūric signs. He does well as a father and king from the beginning of story. It seems he has an ahūric wisdom, so he decides to do the best. The end of story he is an old wised man as the beginning. He divides his kingdom between his sons wisely although he is aware the hatred between their sons. We could see the destruction of evil and triumph of goodness at the end of story.
But in the king Lear we would see that he makes a bad decision, in the beginning, according to a test that he couldn’t distinguish its authencity, so it seems that the sad ending of the story is the result of his decision. Lear’s character changes through the story. He becomes a wise man at the end of story and could distinguish the evil ones from the good ones. At the End of King Lear tragedy both good ones and bad ones are dead and no one from the royal family remains that could continue the kingdom.It seems that suffering and punishment in this story come from the Greek mythology.
So we could see although there are many similarities between these two stories, there are some differences that comes from the different myths which their roots are there.

Based on the perspective of hyper-textuality, it is possible to search for minor and hidden effects of another work in any work, and each text can be compared with similar texts. For this reason, pre-textuality finds a special place in the field of comparative analysis of texts. Some stories of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh have also a special capacity for the study of hyper-textuality, of which is the story of Noushzad, the son of Khosrow Noushin-Ravan, which is very similar to the story of Esfandiar, the famous warrior of the Shahnameh. So, this research is an attempt to explain the aspects of Ferdowsi's influence in writing Noushzad's story from Esfandiar's story using the descriptive-analytical method. Although in this research Esfandiar's story as a pretext longer than Noushzad's story as a post-text, this issue is accepted from the point of view of Genette's theory of hyper-textuality. According to the results of the research, the most important aspects of the impact of the post-text on the pre-text, which indicate the similarities between the stories studied in the current research, are: the common characteristics of the two stories characters, the same story elements (imprison, religiousity, authoritarianism, etc.), death and the images related to death, similar to Esfandiar and Noushzad.

One of the manifestations of the traditional influence paradigm in political science discussions is espionage, which, because of its tangibility and visibility, falls under the category of hard influence. In international relations, obtaining information from political, military, economic, etc. rivals have a necessary and effective role in seeking the supremacy of nations and helps them to determine fundamental strategies. Hence, the spies try to provide comprehensive information on the quality and quantity of the enemy's potential capabilities through their actions in order to be able to influence the political and military rival and to achieve the desired goals. In other words, it is possible to change political currents through the use of espionage tactics and access to vital competitors' information. In general, in international relations, the principle of power is of particular importance and is at the heart of the study of international politics. Examining the exact dimensions of the act of infiltration (espionage) in the enemy shows that power is a means to an end. The nature of a government's foreign policy goals and the skill of nations in using their capabilities to achieve foreign policy goals are directly linked to the principle of foreign influence and espionage. Hence, intrusion (espionage) is defined as a type of communication with aliens with the intention of changing or stabilizing the behavior of reciprocal forces. A government tries to influence another government or governments in various ways; because it has set specific goals for itself, the realization of which is possible by having comprehensive information on economic, political, military issues of the rival. Consequently, the process of infiltration and espionage plays a crucial role in international politics. Espionage is not an emerging phenomenon of the present century and is common in the political culture of civilizations. Of course, it must be acknowledged that the techniques used for espionage have changed over the centuries and become more sophisticated today. However, the importance of maintaining the survival of governments has always led to this issue in security and intelligence issues. Ferdowsi's Shahnameh is one of the most important epic works in Persian which narrates the efforts of the Iranian nation and the governments in this land to push back the foreigners from the borders and protect the people from the enemies.


This research has been compiled based on descriptive-analytical method and inductive method (part to whole) and to collect data and analyze it, documentary studies including books, articles, etc. have been used. Also, the statistical population of the research, Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and the sample size, include all the verses drawing on the espionage category. The general structure of the article is such that first the main concepts of the research are explained, namely influence and espionage, and in the main part, various headlines are addressed to issues such as tools, goals and motives of spies and its political and governmental positions.


The spy is described as a "detective" in the Shahnameh. This word indicates that the spy in the first step must be a person who is aware of various issues and with special expertise and skill seeks to gather information from the enemy. In other words, the spy in sensitive situations must, in addition to recognizing critical points and threats and external and internal influencing factors, recognize the negative actions affecting the security of the government and the territorial integrity of the land and have a comprehensive knowledge of its details and generalities. And finally, by transferring it to its own forces, to be effective in neutralizing undesirable political events. Therefore, the spy is at the forefront of the fight against enemy threats. The tactics and tasks of the spies described in the Shahnameh have a classical approach and naturally do not have the complexities of espionage in the contemporary era. However, the results obtained through espionage are important.
Espionage and obtaining military and political information from a rival group play a role in the survival or extinction of a civilization. “Today, information is considered as one of the national resources of any country and supports any planning, policy-making and management” (Davoodi Dehaghani et al., 2018, p. 54). Spying on outsiders and gathering information is a public duty in the early stages, and spreading a culture of intelligence cooperation will protect society from all kinds of crime and threats, and deterrence should be based on gathering sources of information and their analysis. (Also see Peterson, 2005, p. 212). Information is a means to an end (See: Gill & Phythian, 2007, p. 1). Deceptive influence based on strategic deception is manipulating the audience's mentality and making computational mistakes through forging and creating information. Influential actors take a series of actions to deceive, confuse, seduce, or hasten the decision-makers to make unrealistic estimates. In fact, the purpose of deceptive influence is to deviate from the opponent's decisions by providing guided and sometimes erroneous information and forcing him to act or not to act in the national interests of his own country or to the detriment of his own interests (See: Bagheri Choukami, 2016, p. 20).
Spying and gathering information through trained manpower is difficult, time consuming, costly and dangerous, and if the mission is revealed and disclosed, it creates problems for the target country and the country of origin (Borisudi & Goodman, 2005, p. 129). Espionage in classical and traditional form is conducted based on observation and information with emphasis on human senses and creativity (see: Locker, 2001, p. 48). Human resources, considering their discernment and initiative, review and analyze situations in order to take advantage of opportunities and constantly increase their access to the goal (see: Yaghoubi & Ishaqifar, 2013, p. 12). Rostam's goal and motivation in this infiltration was to access sensitive and public information. This espionage should be considered military. “The purpose of military reconnaissance is to obtain knowledge and information about the armed forces in times of peace and war. The enemy seeks to steal the country's defense intelligence, and obtains information about the types and size of weapons, the number of armed forces, and the form of their organization, and that this type of espionage is taken into consideration in the laws of most countries” (Evera, 1992, p. 237).
One of the important issues in espionage is the ideological unity of spies. Believing in a common ideology between the spy and the organization is the surest way to get it; because with this idea, such a person considers himself obliged to serve and work with the necessary faith and commitment (see: Almjan, 1990, p. 209). The world's intelligence and counterintelligence agencies generally list four motives for espionage as money, ideology, coercion, and selfishness. No spy is potentially as useful as an ideologically motivated agent. Ideology and school are binding and permanent motives and are considered as the most stable motives. Spy, which is influenced by positive ideological motives, acts because of its commitment to a specific subject (see: Friedel, 2003, p. 39). One of the fundamental goals in the issue of infiltration is to identify the enemy’s strategy and provide appropriate solutions to deal with it. “The essence of a serious threat is the use of military force and even killing, and its target is mainly the territory or military power of the other side. The aim and intention of the enemy is mainly to secure geopolitical, political, economic and sometimes doctrinal interests” (Ahmadian, 2015, p. 40).
Spies sometimes obtained classified and vital information about the enemy's military structure. “Spying is the acquisition of classified information without the permission and knowledge of its owner. Espionage is usually an organized, transnational crime; because in it, the vital information of a country is provided to the country or other countries through an organized system and human resources” (Karimi, 2015, p. 67). Espionage is carried out with specific planning and goals to dominate predetermined interests (see: Mir Mohammadi, 2013, p. 37). Hence, the intelligence knowledge enables the prevention of crimes and security breaches and the confrontation of threats and vulnerabilities by obtaining news and information, and by mastering the peripheral issues and anticipating inaccessible events. (See: Jamshidian, 2009, p. 12). The main task of a spy is to report from within the enemy's decision-making body. (See: Nirmal & Astana, 2012, p. 229) Access to the classified and special information has always been the main key to the success of political actors (see: Security Studies Group, 2008, p. 70).


The most important manifestation of the hard influence in the Shahnameh is the preparation and acceleration of the espionage process, or in other words, the security influence in the political and military structure of the enemy. The study of espionage techniques in Shahnameh shows that the realm and scope of influence includes objective and real space. The spies’ actions to infiltrate the enemy were mission-oriented and of an intelligence and security nature. The main function of this infiltration was to gather strategic information and news, identify the weaknesses and strengths of the enemies, estimate their military tools and weapons, be aware of the geographical conditions of the camps and infiltrate key and sensitive points to facilitate the control process. The method of obtaining information was limited in a human and physical way based on positivism through observation. As a result, this infiltration has a one-dimensional and simple structure, and in this regard, the type of infiltration and espionage should be considered as a case and as an agent or spy infiltration in the target group. The human targets were spies, commanders and military elites of the enemy. Influential actors include the states involved (Iran, Turan, Rome) and the parties involved (kings and their internal opponents) who were using the capabilities of the intelligence services and achieving their security, intelligence and military objectives. The sphere of this influence in Shahnameh is of tactical-military and intelligence. Ferdowsi considers the two great qualities of "commitment" and "expertise" to be necessary for spies, and believes that by creating these two qualities, detectives will achieve great success in carrying out their missions. In general, the scope of the spies’ duties under Ferdowsi includes the following: a) obtaining information from foreign forces; b) monitoring internal social movements; c) ensuring the security of the passage or location of military and national leaders; d) making suggestions to the Shah to adopt appropriate political and military strategies and analyze them; and e) surveillance of soldiers and military leaders of local forces.

Myths are the narrators of the man’s first stories and in the later stage where man moves from the primordial thoughts towards a newer life is no longer faced with the primal questions instead answers his new needs with myth.  In epic we encounter more logical narratives of the stories.  Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh as a written heritage of Persian myths in a newer epic genre is a retelling of the narratives which in the other epic and mythological books were orally communicated.  After logical expression of the history of heroes such as Kyomarth, Hoshang, Tahmores, and Jamshid, there is a gap in the reign of Ahurian and Zahhak comes into power, and later with the coming of Feraydun, Zahhak is overthroned.  In the thousand years of Zahhak’s demonic soveriengty, the fate of Jamshid’s  and  Feraydun’s dynasty and their relationship is not clear.  On the basis of other epic and historical sources in particular Kushnameh,  the purpose of this article is to retell this narrative.  The outcome of this research is that after wondering in India and Zabolestan, Jamshid marries Khaqan’s daughter and the King of Zabol’s daughter.  From one branch, Rostam’s clan is born and from the other Feraydun’s clan.  The method of the research is descriptive analytic one.