This course is a weekly seminar on various aspects of text and text-transmission in Persian cultural areas. Various modes of transmissions and physical aspects of the manuscript will be analysed. A large part of this course will be devoted to reading manuscripts, teaching students how to decipher various orthographies and handwritten texts. The main objective of this course is to familiarize the students with the variety of the rich manuscript tradition. Each session consists of two hours. For each seminar, students are required to read in advance selections from secondary literature and to prepare several passages from a manuscript. Students are expected to give two presentations on a specific topic from the overview. For the final assignment of this course students are required to transcribe and prepare a critical text edition of one folio from a given title.
Timetable
For the most recent update of the timetable please click here.
Method of instruction
Seminar.
Required reading
See ‘Overview’.
Examination
Paper and presentations.
Information
Dr G.R. van den Berg, dr. Asghar Seyed-Gohrab
Matthias de Vrieshof 4, Witte Singel 25, room 109B ( 31 (0) 71- 527 22 87;
Blackboard/webpage
Blackboard
www.persianstudies.nl
Overview
The programme is provisional and subject to change.
1. Orality and written culture in the Iranian areas
Bruijn, J.T.P. de, ‘Poets and Minstrels in Early Persian Literature’, in Transition Periods in Iranian History: Actes du Symposium de Fribourg-en-Brisgau (22-24 mai 1985) Studia Iranica Cahier 5, Paris 1987, pp. 15-23.
Lewis, F., ‘The Modes of Literary Production: Remarks on the Composition, Revision and “Publication” of Persian Texts in the Medieval Period” in Persica: Annual of the Dutch-Iranian Society, XVII, 2001, pp. 69-83.
Richard, F., Le livre persan, Paris 2003.
Yamamoto, K., The Oral Background of Persian Epics, Leiden/Boston 2003.
2. Physical aspects of Persian manuscripts; Orthography, palaeography and types of handwriting
J.J. Witkam, in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, under Nuskha.
W.l. Hanaway; B. Spooner, Reading Nasta’aliq: Persian and Urdu hands from 1500 to the present, Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 1995.
3. Reading manuscripts I: Sana’i’s Seyr al-`ebad
J.T.P. de Bruijn, _Of Piety and Poetry. The Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Hakim Sanâ’i of Ghazna. _Brill, Leiden 1983.
Manuscripts of different periods will be introduced and analysed.
4. Reading manuscripts II: Sana’i’s Seyr al-`ebad
For secondary literature see seminar 3 above.
Manuscripts of different periods will be introduced and analysed.
5. Reading manuscripts III: Fayzi’s Markaz al-advar
M. Rahman in the Encyclopaedia Iranica, under fayzi, Abu’l-Fayz.
Manuscripts of different periods will be introduced and analysed.
6. Reading manuscripts IV: Fayzi’s Markaz al-advar
For secondary literature see seminar 5 above.
Manuscripts of different periods will be introduced and analysed.
7. Reading manuscripts V: the transmission of Ferdowsi’s Shah-nama
Davis, D., “Interpolations to the Text of the Shahnameh: An Introductory Typology” in Persica: Annual of the Dutch-Iranian Society, XVII, 2001, pp. 35-49.
Davis, D., “The Problem of Ferdowsi’s sources” in Journal of the American Oriental Society, 116.1, 1996, pp. 48-57.
Yamamoto, K., The Oral Background of Persian Epics, Leiden/Boston 2003.
8. Persian miscellanies: the Safina of Tabriz
Afshar, “Nuskha-yi bargardan-i ‘Safina-yi Tabriz’” in Nameh-ye Baharestan, vol. iii, No. 2, Autumn-Winter 2002-03, p. 529;
N. Pourjavady, “Erfan-e asil-e Irani dar ‘Safina-ye Tabriz’” in Nama-yi baharistan, 1379/2000, vol. i, no. 2, pp. 59-84.
9. Reading manuscripts VI: various medieval treatises
J.T.P. de Bruijn in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, under Mukhtarat, 2. in Persian literature.
A.A. Seyed-Gohrab, “A Treasury from Tabriz: a Fourteenth-Century Manuscript Containing 209 Works in Persian and Arabic” in Persica: Annual of the Dutch-Iranian Society, No. 19, Leuven: Peeters, 2003, 125-64.
10. Persian illuminated manuscripts
Grabar, O. and Robinson, C., Islamic Art and Literature, Princeton 2001.
Hillenbrand, R. (editor) Shahnama: The Visual Language of the Persian Book of Kings, Edinburgh 2003.
Simpson, M.S., The Illustration of an Epic: The Earliest Shahnama Manuscripts, New York 1979.
Simpson, M.S., Persian Poetry, Painting and Patronage: Illustrations in a Sixteenth-century masterpiece, Washington 1998.
11. Persian miniature paintings
Brend, B., Perspectives on Persian Painting: Illustrations to Amir Khusrau’s ‘Khamsah’, London 2003.
Grabar, O., Mostly Miniatures – An Introduction to Persian Painting, Princeton; Oxford, 2000.
O’Kane, B., Early Persian Painting: Kalila and dimna Manuscripts of the Late Fourteenth Century, London 2003.
Swietochowski, M.L., Illustrated Poetry and Epic Images. Persian Painting of the 1330’s and 1340’s, New York 1994.
12.Preparing text editions
Most, G.W. (ed.), Editing Texts, Göttingen 1998.
Khaleghi-Motlagh, Dj., Notes on the Shahnameh, New York / Costa Mesa 2001.
Mahdavi, M. Amin, ‘“Genetically Modified Corpus” or “Critical Edition”? The Shahnama Genome Project’, Persica, No. XIX, 2003, 1-32.
Remarks
Registration via U-twist.