origins of literary characters

The last years of the Sasanid empire as reflected in the Persian romantic narrative tradition

The article moves from the hypothesis that many of the poems pertaining to the Persian medieval romantic tradition in verse (XII-XV centuries) seem to narrate a love story set in one and the same period of Iranian history: the epoch of one of the last great sovereigns of the Sasanid dynasty, Khusraw II Parvīz (r. 590-628 CE), and the years immediately following his reign.

Materials for a history of the Persian narrative tradition. Two characters: Farhād and Turandot

This book gathers together two essays. The first deals with the origins of the character of Farhād, the unlucky lover of Shīrīn, who ‒ in the Persian narrative tradition ‒ digs a route through Mount Bīsutūn and accomplishes other admirable works. The essay suggests that Farhād, as we know him from long narrative poems, historical chronicles, and reports by geographers and travelers, is the issue of a conflation between the legendary character of the Master of Mount Bīsutūn and a historical personage, Farrahān, the general-in-chief of the Sasanid king Khusraw II Parvīz’s army (r.