Vis and Ramin - Hardcover

Fakhraddin Gorgani

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1933823178 ISBN 13: 9781933823171

Publisher: Mage Publishers, 2008

Synopsis

Vis and Ramin (Mage Publishers; $45; 576 pages) is one of the world's great love stories. It was the first major Persian romance, written between 1050 and 1055 in rhyming couplets. This remarkable work has now been superbly translated into heroic couplets (the closest metrical equivalent of the Persian) by the poet and scholar Dick Davis.

Vis and Ramin had immense influence on later Persian poetry and is very probably also the source for the tale of Tristan and Isolde, which first appeared in Europe about a century later.

The plot, complex yet powerfully dramatic, revolves around royal marital customs unfamiliar to us today. Shahru, the married queen of Mah, refuses an offer of marriage from King Mobad of Marv but promises that if she bears a daughter she will give the child to him as a bride. She duly bears a daughter, Vis, who is brought up by a nurse in the company of Mobad s younger brother Ramin. By the time Vis reaches the age of marriage, Shahru has forgotten her promise and instead weds her daughter to Vis s older brother, Viru. The next day Mobad s brother Zard arrives to demand the bride, and fighting breaks out, during which Vis s father is killed. Mobad then bribes Shahru to hand Vis over to him. Mobad s brother Ramin escorts Vis to her new husband and falls in love with her on the way. Vis has no love for Mobad and turns to her old nurse for help. . . .

Told in language that is lush, sensual and highly inventive, Vis and Ramin is a masterpiece of psychological perceptiveness and characterization: Shahru is worldly and venal, the nurse resourceful and amoral (she will immediately remind Western readers of the nurse in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet), Vis high-spirited and determined, Ramin impetuous and volatile. And the hopeless psychological situation of Vis s husband, Mobad, flickers wearily from patience to self-assertion to fury and back again.

The origins of Vis and Ramin, are obscure. The story dates from the time of the Parthians (who ruled Persia from the third century bce to the third century ce), and certainly existed in oral and perhaps written form before the eleventh century Persian poet Fakhraddin Gorgani composed the version that has come down to us.

About this title

About the Author:

Very little is known with any certainty about GORGANI. His name suggests that he (or his family) was from the town of Gorgan to the east of the Caspian, and his frequent references to Gorgan in Vis and Ramin perhaps confirm this. He wrote his great romance, Vis and Ramin, in Isfahan, at some time between 1050 and 1055, when he was a member of the retinue of the local ruler.

DICK DAVIS lived for eight years in Iran (1970 78), as well as for periods in Greece and Italy. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor of Persian at Ohio State University. He is also a noted poet and is considered the greatest translator of Persian poetry.

Review:

MIGHT BE ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS I HAVE EVER READ:
Dick Davis has refreshed the classic verse form of the English epic--iambic pentameter couplets--and brought a very non-Western poem into the Western canon. His accomplishment is such that one wonders what might have happened to Western literature if Persia had triumphed at the Battle of Salamis. Vis & Ramin may not be the truest or greatest epic ever written, but it is the sexiest, and at times I could not help thinking that Davis’ translation might be one of the most beautiful things I had ever read. --Mark Jarman, The Hudson Review.

AN ASTONISHINGLY BEAUTIFUL AND POWERFUL POEM. . .
I can't think of a modern metrical translation of a long poem that is more natural and readable, that is never embarrassing either as translation or as aesthetically effective verse. --Philip White, author of The Clearing.

LOVE ON THE ROOF
One of the most extraordinary and fascinating love narratives produced anywhere in the medieval world, Islamic or Christian....Excellent introduction makes a convincing case for Vis and Ramin being the source for Tristan and Isolde....New translation by the poet Dick Davis, widely regarded as our finest translator of Persian poetry, in heroic couplets....This wonderful work should win Gorgani the Western audience he richly deserves.
--Times Literary Supplement.

A MASTERPIECE of both its author's and its translator's arts.
--Booklist, Ray Olson.

FULL OF STRIKING CHARACTERS AND SITUATIONS. . .The translation is delightful and should remain the standard English version for a long time. . .This important volume should be part of any collection. . .Highly recommended.
--Choice

About this edition

• Publisher: Mage Publishers
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1933823178
• ISBN 13: 9781933823171
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 576