Shahnameh is one of the greatest epic works in Iran and the world. This wonderful work has influenced greatly the other nations’ poets and authors, particularly, French literary figures and intellectuals. This analytic – descriptive paper first talks about t
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Shahnameh is one of the greatest epic works in Iran and the world. This wonderful work has influenced greatly the other nations’ poets and authors, particularly, French literary figures and intellectuals. This analytic – descriptive paper first talks about translating of Shahnameh, then studies its effect on the works of Hugo, Lamartine and Coppée. Among the numerous Persian literature’s masterpieces, Shahnameh more than other works, has been the focus of attention and interest of the French. This interest was so great that it made the French orientalists translate this work. Louis Langlès, the French orientalist, was the first literary figure who translated some parts of Shahnameh into French. After Langlès, Jacques de Wallenbourg, another orientalist from Austria, translated Shahnameh. But his death in 1806 left the translation unfinished. Jules Mohl was the only translator who could translate the whole Shahnameh into French, after forty years of effort. The translation of Shahnameh brought about a great change in the works of French poets and authors, especially in Romantic and Parnass school poets. Hugo composed Legend of Centuries, also he entered a large number of Shahnameh’s couplets in his Orientals. Lamartine created Life of Great Men and Coppée composed «The Two Tombs», one of the most famous poems of his Complete works. Carrying out this research and the researchs like this, help us to contemplate our past generations works with a new viewpoint, to recognize the important exploitable elements of our literature, and also to see the great writers of our country in the mirror of the other nations.
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