Erin and Iran: Cultural Encounters between the Irish and the Iranians

by H. E. Chehabi (Editor), Grace Neville (Editor)

Overview

In Erin and Iran, ten essays by North American and European scholars discuss parallel themes in and interactions between Irish and Iranian cultures. In the first section three essays explore common elements in pre-Christian Irish and pre-Islamic Iranian mythologies, common elements that have often been pointed out by scholars of Indo-European mythology but rarely examined in detail. In the following section four essays address literary subjects, ranging from medieval romances such as Tristan and Isolde and Vis and Ramin to twentieth-century novels such as James Joyce’s Ulysses and Simin Daneshvar’s Savushun. In the last section three nineteenth-century travelogues are presented, two written by Irish travelers to Iran and one written by an Indo-Persian traveler to Ireland. Together, these studies constitute the first-ever collection of articles dealing with cultural encounters between the Irish and the Iranians.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674088283
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	10/26/2015
Series:	Ilex Series , #16
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

H. E. Chehabi is Professor of International Relations and History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University.

Grace Neville is Professor Emeritus of French at University College Cork.

Table of Contents

Contributors vii

Introduction xi

1 The "Conqueror Worm" in Irish and Persian Literature Joseph Falaky Nagy 3

2 Building Bulls and Crafting Cows: Narratives of Bovine Fabrication from Iran, Ireland, and In-between John McDonald 14

3 Parallel Heroic Themes in the Medieval Irish Cattle Raid of Cooley and the Medieval Persian Book of Kings Olga Davidson 36

4 A Trout in the Milk: Vis and Ramin and Tristan and Isolde Dick Davis 47

5 "From Hafiz": Irish Orientalism, Persian Poetry, and W.B. Yeats Oliver Scharbrodt 57

6 Joycean Modernism in a Nineteenth-Century Qur'an Commentary?: A Comparison of the Bab's Qayyum al-asma" with Joyce's Ulysses Todd Lawson 79

7 Sharing Poetic Sensitivity and Misery: Encounters of Iranians with the Irish in Travel Writings and Fiction M. R. Ghanoonparvar 119

8 An Indo-Persian in Ireland, anno 1799: Mfrza Abu Taleb Khan H. E. Chehabi 129

9 An Irish Visitor to the Court of the Shah of Persia in 1835: Extract from the Unpublished Diary of Sir Francis Hopkins of Athboy David James 156

10 An Irishwoman in Tehran, 1849-1853: Identity, Religion, and Empire Brendan McNamara 172

Bibliography 187