The Oral Background of Persian Epics: Storytelling and Poetry.

• Author: Venetis, Evangelos
• Position: Book review

The Oral Background of Persian Epics: Storytelling and Poetry. By KUMIKO YAMAMOTO. Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures. Leiden: BRILL, 2003. Pp. xxiv + 191.

The issue of the sources that Firdawsi employed for the compilation of the Shahnama (Book of Kings) has been discussed extensively and has always sparked much controversy amongst scholars. This ongoing debate focuses on whether the poet relied more (or even thoroughly) on the oral or literary traditions of his time. Yamamoto's book must be seen as an important contribution to this debate, viewing the poem as a result of considerable oral influence, though without considering the oral factor as the only source, or as superior to the literary tradition, for Firdawsi's account. Yamamoto highlights the importance of the oral tradition by analyzing both the poem itself and the influence of the Shahnama on the so-called Persian epic cycle, i.e., the epic potential and prose accounts which were produced in subsequent centuries, through a consideration of Abu Mansur 'Ali b. Ahmad Asadi's Garshaspndma (c. 1064-66 C.E.).

The main body of the book is divided into five chapters. The first discusses problems of a technical nature concerning oral tradition and the issue of the Shahnama's origins. Yamamoto also reviews the so-called Oral Formulaic Theory (OFT), one of the key theories of "oral literature." In the second chapter the author deals with the influence of oral tradition on a written account. She refers to Persian storytelling (naqqali) and defines the so-called "Oral Performance Model" (OPM). The OPM consists of formal and thematic criteria based on various features of oral performance which, according to the author, result from several observations of naqqali.

The third chapter refers to the possible indirect influence of the oral tradition on the Shahnama, based on internal and external evidence. Yamamoto thinks that there are a considerable number of stereotypical sentences and statements in the Shahnama, an indication that these are signs of possible oral and/or written sources. She also provides a useful historical framework of the role of naqqali in the Ghaznavid period. The author's aim is to apply the OPM to the Shahnama (chapter four) and to develop her own theory on this issue. In particular she applies the OPM to a story from the poem, suggesting that the story is divided into various (hypothetical) installments. She also claims that the application of a number of...