Roosta, Omid; Azadtabar, Fereshteh

doi:10.30465/lir.2025.49851.1916

"Freedom focused on will" and its historical policy direction in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh A case study of the story of Jamshid, Kaveh and Zahak

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

omid roosta ¹

fereshteh azadtabar ²

¹ Assistant Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Dar Al-Hikmah Institute of Higher Education, Qom, Iran

² Assistant Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran

10.30465/lir.2025.49851.1916

Abstract

Introduction
It is often assumed that legends and narratives handed down from predecessors are abstract narratives and stories absolute of human time, in which no signs of active and dynamic discourse and discursive politics can be found. Such an assumption makes the path of discourse analysis and the examination of discursive patterns in these narratives seem blocked and inept. However, with the help of many contemporary sociological and philosophical studies, the scope of literary criticism and research studies of these narratives can be expanded. Through interdisciplinary research approaches, it can be shown that many influential poets in the realm of literature, especially poetry, were not merely unconditional narrators and reporters of the knowledge of predecessors; rather, relying on their pivotal role, will, and agency in human society, and the power of creativity and creation in the realm of understanding, wisdom, and language, they envisioned a free and unexpected perspective in their narrative stories. Attention and contemplation of these perspectives, in addition to expanding the scope of literary studies and criticism, makes it possible for the literary critic and reader, who seeks the sublime nature of poetic language, to discover and explain ways to dynamize meaning and open paths for dialogue, and to show how influential poets, unlike orators and storytellers, have strengthened and made the domain of poetry fruitful using which literary and linguistic possibilities.

Materials & Methods
Based on the aforementioned, this article sought to provide a new reading of the discourse of historical politics in the Shahnameh. For this purpose, relying on theories and findings of contemporary philosophy and sociology, it examined and analyzed three relatively primary and legendary narratives of Jamshid, Kaveh, and Zahhak and identified their discursive patterns based on descriptive-analytical research methods.

Discussion & Result
The results of the research indicated that Shahnameh cannot be considered merely a collection of documented narratives and quotations from the knowledge, understanding, and sayings of predecessors; rather, Ferdowsi, by virtue of being a sage, has engaged in reading and analyzing the perspectives of his predecessors and has filled the sublime language of his poetry with categories he has created, each of which appears as an object before the understanding and wisdom of the aware reader. The main feature of these objects is that they are in empathy and fusion with the findings of sociological and philosophical perspectives, transcending the framework of cosmic time during reading and bringing the meaning of the text closer to human time, lived experience, and the reality of human social life.
In this process, the poet’s metaphor and metaphorical perspective many of these pure and abstract narratives with new concepts and significances, and in turn, direct the poetic language from the direction of the message towards the expanse of the reader’s understanding and wisdom. The result of this direction and guidance is that the text is accompanied by dialogism and wise dialogues, and a conversation begins between the horizon of the poet’s mind on one hand, and the intellectual relations, lived experience, and requirements and conditions of life recorded in the mind and wisdom of the reader on the other.
On this path, metaphor and its semantic dynamism and generativity are the poet’s best and most important linguistic wealth, leading to the birth of novel concepts and new semantic significances and relationships in poetry. But this living and dynamic language of metaphor has a solid and firm foundation which, according to the definition of philosophers, can be referred to as freedom conditioned by will; because metaphor is the pinnacle of the poet’s free-thinking and gives him the power and authority to, through the freedom arising from metaphor, exert his role as an agent and active human within the findings, experiences, and even narratives of others.
Without considering this point, the stories of the Shahnameh would be limited to reporting worn-out events in the pages of history. However, attention to the category of metaphor and the freedom conditioned by will arising from it ensures the dynamism of meaning and the vitality of discourse. Following this assurance, Ferdowsi sees every legend and Event as a form of human life and lived experience. Although time and place in legend are motionless and static, and human action is limited to changing his individual state, his poetic language, to exert will and influence within the constraints of the legend, uses metaphor to create dynamic times and places within it. Thus, the poet’s discursive politics and his freedom conditioned by will make the time and place of the legend tangible and understandable for the reader. On the other hand, by creating novel plots within the reported discourse of the legend, Ferdowsi actually elevates his individuality and wisdom as a poet beyond that of a third-person narrator and puts his historical politics into practice as a conscious and thoughtful human.
Furthermore, The freedom of The will has created the opportunity in his poetry for the reader not to see a separation and distinction between lived time and sacred time, allowing the story to merge with the legendary past. This very characteristic turns the meaning of the text into a world-text and fills the legends and myths related to Jamshid, Fereydun, and Zahhak with contemplative processes and discursive politics.

Conclusion

The aware reader finds the poet to be a person of wisdom and politics and sees his poetry as a world-text of thoughts and understandings that has not been composed without purpose and merely to record and transmit the thoughts and perspectives of predecessors. From this viewpoint, Ferdowsi’s epic poetry, known to its audience as the Shahnameh, is a composition in the form of a narrative story that tries to express the thoughts, contemplations, aspirations, and politics of humans from human society within the documented experiences of predecessors. However, these aspirations and thoughts are presented in accordance with the conditions of life and the requirements of the era; because from the perspective of literary scholars, poetry is the highest and most sublime language for explaining human thoughts, social hopes, and sufferings.

Keywords

Freedom focused on will

human time

politics of history

Ferdowsi'

s Shahnameh. The story of Jamshid

Kaveh and Zahak

Subjects

Literary interdisciplinary research

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