Deceit and guile in the Iranian national epic romances

Iranian national epics are full of short and long romances and their main structure consists of love. Epic loves have basic differences with pure romances such as Leili va Majnun and Khosrow va Shirin. One of the prominent and diverse themes in the epic romances is the guile and deceit which abounds in regard to the theme. The guiles are manifested in different types in these romances and, in most cases, they do not have a negative connotation. Deceits are often carried out by faeries and women and, in some cases, by men. This paper studies the content of guile and deceit in Iran's national epic romances using descriptive-analytical as well as the library methods. The results indicate that many themes in the guile and deceit parts in romances such as feeding, intermediaries deception, hiding the name and, etc. have been used as intertextual ones. Also, the frequency of deceits exceeds in the romances compared to other parts of the epics, and guiles of women are more than men as well.
Keywords: Persian poetry, epic, love, guile and deceit
 
1.1. Introduction
Iranian national epics are full of love stories which have been mingled with the spirit of epic and have built important parts of these epics. "It might be believed that there is no accord between the violence of epic and delicacy of romance, whereas many characters of epic works have humane emotions and feelings" (Babasafri, ManuchehrI, 2013: 52). One of the most important subjects and themes in these romances is the element of deceit which is usually expressed with terms such as trick, deceit, magic, guile, solution, enchantment, knot, etc.
 
1.2 Statement of the problem and research questions
One of the common academic weak points in the field of studying epic literature is paying almost an exclusive attention to Ferdowsi's Shahnama and ignoring other heroic poetry collections after that. On the one hand, because of the epic perspective to these collections, the existing love stories in them have been ignored, and on the other hand, the existing romances in the national epics have been under the dominance of epic spirits of these works. This article tries to study the element of deceit and guile in these romances. It tries to find answers to these questions:
What are the types of deceits in the epics and who commits them?
Is the frequency of deceit in the romantic parts equal to its frequency in the other parts of national epics, or has it appeared more in these parts because of their specific atmospheres?
 
1.3. Literature
Talat Basari (1971) in her book, Women of Shahnama has evaluated the subject of love in Shahnama. Milad Jafarpur, Muhammad Kazem Kahdoi and Reza Najarian (2014) in their article titled 'A deep analysis of love and marriage in epic', have concluded that romance belongs to the nature of epic. Ali Asghar Babasafari and Kurosh Manuchehri (2013) in their article titled 'Analysis of romantic subjects in the poetical epic of Bahman Nameh, have generally studied the romantic subjects such as making an apology, request, statement of conditions, complaining, romantic stories and other subjects of this collection. About deceit and guile, Jerome and Clinton (2006) in their article titled 'The uses of guile in the Shahnama' analyzed this factor in the battles of Shahnama. Zahra Rezaee in her MA thesis titled 'The role of magic, plans, and deceit in the destiny of the heroes of Iranian national epics, has studied this subject. Also Majid Karimlu (2005) in his MA thesis titled 'Review of the proofs of deceit and guile in Shahnama', has carried out his study on this subject. However, no study has ever covered deceit and guile in the romances of Iranian national epics.
 
1.4. Conclusion
National epics are not just about war and bloodshed, but they have different types of subject matters. In this regard, romances are considered important components of Iranian national epics and are in fact in the nature of these epics. One of the remarkable subjects in these romances is deceit and artifice. The frequency of deceit in the romances is higher than its number in other parts of epics such as the tricks related to wars. Epic writers have affluently made use of this device in their romances. Some of the deceits are similar in the romances of Iranian national epics, and sometimes they have been applied according to the special subjects of the stories. Romances have specific links with deceit and trickery; perhaps, one reason could be more presence and ostentation of women in these stories, because, in these romances, most tricks are done by women. It seems that deceits and gules are not meant to show evils of individuals or groups, but they are more naturally internal parts of these epics and romances. The deceitfulness of stepmothers and fairies are some of the most beautiful parts of these romances. Stepmothers set the conditions with different tricks so the lovers can reach unite. Girls enchant heroes in the shape of fairies and sometimes use tricks to prepare the conditions for the defeat of their own fathers, and sometimes meet with their lovers in the palace without their fathers' permission.