Narration of Violence or Violence of Narration: Bahram Beyzaie's The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad and The One Thousand and First Night

Abstract

Bahram Beyzaie is one of the most distinguished Iranian playwrights. Beginning his career in the early 1960s and still working, he is considered as a playwright who has always been looking for discovering and inventing non-classic and non-western narrative templates. To fulfill this purpose, he has made considerable use of classic Iranian literary sources, among which the One Thousand and One Nights and Ta'ziyeh texts are special cases. By analyzing Beyzaie's two plays, Hashtomin Safar-e Sandbad (The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad, 1964) and Shab-e Hezar-o Yekom (The One Thousand and First Night, 2003), which were produced within a forty-year period, this article attempts to highlight some of Beyzaie's methods of narration, particularly in relation to violence.

Notes

¹Explaining the ritual elements of his films, Beyzaie states, “All the rituals I have used have their origin in actual external practices, some of which still exist while some others have disappeared.” See Zaven Ghokasian, Goftogu ba Bahram Beyzaie [Interview with Bahram Beyzaie] (Tehran, 1999), 95–6.

²Ghokasian, Interview, 7.

³See Naghmeh. Samini, Nezam-ha-ye Revayati dar Motun-e Ta'ziyeh [Narrative Systems in Ta'ziyeh Texts], Namayesh Proceedings (Isfahan, 2007).

⁴Tsvetan Todorov, Butiqa-ye Nasr [The Poetics of Prose], Persian trans. A. Ganjipour (Tehran, 2009), 33.

⁵Slavoj Zizak, Violence: Six Side Ways Reflections, Persian trans. A. Paknahad (London, 2008), 49–62.

⁶Todorov, Butiqa-ye Nasr, 33.

⁷Todorov, Butiqa-ye Nasr, 65.

⁸Todorov, Butiqa-ye Nasr, 54.

⁹Zizek, Violence, 39. The story of He/Other/Enemy is, in fact, the account of his life. Zizek continues with this: “One thing that never ceases to surprise the naïve ethical consciousness is how the very same people who commit terrible acts of violence towards their enemies can display warm humanity and gentle care for members of their own group. Isn't it strange that the same soldier who slaughtered innocent civilians was ready to sacrifice his life for his unit?” See Zizek, Violence, 40–41).

¹⁰Zizek, Violence, 50.

¹¹Zizek, Violence, 62.

¹²One of the best examples in this case is the story of Qamar-al-Zaman and the Jeweler.

¹³Zizek, Violence, 47.

¹⁴Ibn Ziyad, Imam Hassan's enemy, writes about himself: “The universe bore no bastard like me/The mine of tyranny and oppression/The fountain of infamy and corruption.” See Hassan Salehirad, ed., Majales-e Ta'ziyeh [Ta'ziyeh Plays] (Tehran, 2011), 356.

¹⁵See Mia Irene Gerhardt, The Art of Story-telling: A Literary Study of The Thousand and One Nights (Leiden, 1963), 237–38. See also Naghmeh Samini, Eshq o Sho'badeh [Love and Magic] (Tehran, 2000), 302–3.

¹⁶Bahram.Beyzaie, Hashtomin Safar-e Sandbad [The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad] (Tehran 1964), 16–17.

¹⁷Beyzaie, The Eighth, 29.

¹⁸Beyzaie, The Eighth, 55.

¹⁹Beyzaie, The Eighth, 127.

²⁰Walter Benjamin, “Naqd-e Khoshunat” [Critique of Violence], Qanun va Khoshunat [Law and Violence], Persian trans. Omid Mehregan and Morad Farhadpour (Tehran, 2008), 175.

²¹Benjamin, “Critique,” 176–8.

²²Beyzaie, The Eighth, 31.

²³Beyzaie, The Eighth, 80.

²⁴Masoud Safiri, Kalbodshekafi-ye Khoshunat [Dissection of Violence] (Tehran, 2000), 86.

²⁵Benjamin, “Critique,” 205.

²⁶Beyzaie, The Eighth, 75.

²⁷Beyzaie, The Eighth, 97.

²⁸Bahram Beyzaie, Riyshehyabi-ye Derakht-e Koha [Genealogy of the Ancient Tree] (Tehran, 2004), 88–91.

³⁰Bahram Beyzaie, Shab-e Hezar o Yekom [The One Thousand and First Night] (Tehran, 2004), 18.

²⁹Of course, Beyzaie does not concern himself with offering good examples when it comes to the type of stories the two daughters have invented for the King. The one story that Shahrnaz and Arnavaz recount for Zahhak is among the advisory stories which the minister tells Shahrzad in One Thousand and One Nights to change her mind about going to the King's bedroom. But these stories fail to influence Zahhak as they failed to influence Shahrzad. We should remember that most of Shahrzad's stories are not advisory, but function to create a world of characters.

³¹Beyzaie, Genealogy, 18.

³²Beyzaie, The One, 45.

³⁴Beyzaie, The One, 19.

³³Mohammad Rezaie Rad, “Goftar-ha-ye Adami-Shekl” [Human-Shaped Utterances], Nashrieh-ye Honarha-ye Namayeshi, no. 2 (2003): 25.

³⁵Here the play also reflects on pre-Islamic rituals, as the Iranian guard says: “Haven't you seen the act of reciting Mani's Martyrdom, which the believers enact and he comes to life every time with it”. See Beyzaie, The One…, 51. Most rituals which involve reviving a martyred god mark a similar belief: as a god or a hero martyred in a distant past is revived in the imagination of the participants. Rituals of this type may be considered to be the prototypes of ta'ziyeh which once more demonstrates Beyzaie's concern with ta'ziyeh in this play.

³⁶Beyzaie, The One…, 63.

³⁷Bahram Beyzaie, Namayesh dar Iran (Tehran 1965, republished 2003), 114.

³⁸Beyzaie, The One, 78.

³⁹Beyzaie, The One, 82.

⁴⁰Beyzaie, The One, 98.

⁴¹Zizek, Violence, 21.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Naghmeh Samini

Naghmeh Samini is Assistant Professor of Dramatic Literature at the University of Tehran. The article was translated by Ms Esmat Sheikholeslami. The translation has been revised and reconstructed for publication by Saeed Talajooy.