SOURCE: An introduction to The Tragedy of Sohráb and Rostám from the Persian National Epic, the “Shahname” of Abol-Qasem Ferdowsi, translated by Jerome W. Clinton, University of Washington Press, 1987, pp. xiii-xxv.

In the following essay, Clinton reviews the structure and themes of the Shah-Nama, observing that the work is unified by its focus on dynastic succession.

The story of Sohráb is just one small portion of the vast compilation of stories that make up the Iranian national epic commonly known as the Shahname, or Book of Kings. The Shahname traces the history of the Iranian nation from the first mythological shah, Kiumars, down to the defeat and death of the last Sassanian emperor, Yazdegerd III, at the hands of the Arab armies of Islam in the middle of the seventh century a.d.

The events narrated in the first two-thirds of the Shahname, tales both...