Framing the Unframable in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh

This paper explores the ways in which the Shahnameh thematizes the poet's fraught relationship with language to not only complicate our overall understanding of the epic poem but also our understanding of the language which makes the poem, and the world outside the poem, intelligible. Through a close reading of some of the prologues and epilogues that frame the Shahnameh’s tales, this essay argues that rather than helping us understand how to interpret the epic's morally ambiguous tales, the frames to Ferdowsi's tales, ironically represent a narrator who is in no position to offer us any help. Of course, the poet does give us clues as to why he and consequently we are “helpless” (bichāreh) when it comes to understanding his tales, which, in its own way, can be considered helpful. What seems to hinder understanding at every turn for the poet is, paradoxically, the very language or speech (sakhon/sokhan) that makes understanding possible in the first place.