Shahnameh was a great book, I feel like it’s a comprehensive history of Persia that follows the lineage of kings. It’s so much more than this because it includes the ladies who loved these kings. Mythology fills the pages at the beginning. Ethics, battles and evolving relationships fill the remaining pages.

Scholar reflects bringing medieval Persian verse to the West
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Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings
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Dr. Dick Davis, "Warriors, Sufis, Princesses, Dervishes: The Complexities of Persian Culture."
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I'm still thinking about re-uploading this one because I didn't do this book justice. I struggled with being inclusive towards everyone & may have been unfair to the Shahnameh as a result. I find there's strong Islamaphobia/anti-Middle Easterners around a lot these days. So I tried to be inviting to the anti folks because perhaps this book could help them to understand the people after reading the history.

My comments about racism could be misleading. :( I'm referring to what Persian folks would consider a huge omission in their text. The Introduction calls it "Episode of the Twelve Champions, the Davazdah Rokh, which occurs during Kay Khosrow's war against Turan." And and Iranian author, "Golshiri claimed that this episode is the heart of the poem." Davis removed this section because it can be viewed as "embarrassingly ethnocentric in its triumphalism." So he removed it to give space to other stories. In his introduction, he specifically lists wanting to keep the stories of Seyavash & also Esfandyar.

For his sources while working on the translation, he primarily used
* Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh (5 volumes, New York, 1988-1997)

When the details weren't covered in the oldest manuscripts, he turned to the
* Moscow Edition, edited by Bertels (9 Volumes, Moscow, 1966-1971)

It seems like the Moscow Edition is the most comprehensive source that he used. He also lightly relied on two other sources for Esfandyar story & for some descriptive details, respectively.
*Azizollah Jovayni's Hemaseh-ye rostam o esfandyar (Tehran, 1995)
* Jules Mohl (reprinted Paris, 1976)

With all of this, I still think it's a good one for an introduction to Persian Lit, in English anyway. It certainly covers tonnes of generations, so expanding to more editions would be a great idea. I certainly want to find an English translation for the part that was removed. And I'd love to compare the differences with you for the translation you go with.

Overall, I enjoyed this book immensely & in Davis' lectures, he shows such a strong passion for Persian culture & their literature. Though, you could be absolutely right. Perhaps, he may have censored when compiling this. Maybe idealizing the culture or wanting to show Persians in a good light for an introduction.

It's certainly heavily abridged because of how much it's reduced. Because the poetry is rendered out into prose, it certainly could be an adoption as well. A lot is lost because of space limitations. :( So picking and choosing some stories to read in an unabridged format I think would be beneficial.

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