Gholam Ali Fallah,
Volume 4, Issue 10 (9-2006)
Abstract
The magnificent story of Rostam & Sohrab, which has been truly considered as one of greatest stories of the Shahnameh Epic, has attracted a wide audience of diverse status and background including serious researchers and instructors of this masterpiece. Among the one thousand verses or so, a number of verses have specially provided challenges for the interpreters of the great work of Iranian literature. Naturally, providing a full critical account of the viewpoints concerning all the challenging verses goes much beyond the scope of this paper. Hence, this paper addresses the existing critical comments on the very first two verses of the story. To this end, first, after stating the problem and briefing the background, we proceed to an evaluation of these views based on a clear typology of them prepared for the purpose of this study. Finally, we argue that there is a long way to go in order to publish a neat version of Shahnameh which is the true representation of Ferdowsi's poems. Furthermore, the existing interpretations are still far from being able to demystify the secrets of Shahnameh.
