This study focuses on the literary subgenre of Mirrors for Princes. A number of twelfth-century works from three genres of Old French literature are examined in order to ascertain what forms any didacticism takes, and whether the texts can be read as Mirrors for Princes. The three genres studied are epic, romance and pseudo-historical chronicle. From epic, I discuss La Chanson de Roland, Le Voyage de Charlemagne, La Chançun de Willame and Le Couronnement de Louis. Chrétien de Troyes forms the study of Mirrors for Princes in romance, and for pseudo-historical chronicle I examine Wace’s Roman de Brut. The didacticism present in the studied texts assumes two forms. The first is direct didacticism, in which the narrator or a character portrays an instruction or moral lesson through “speech”. This gives extra emphasis to the message, whether addressed directly to the audience or to another character within the narrative. The second form is indirect didacticism, which is more common in these texts. It consists of exemplary characters, their actions, behaviour and reputations. The Mirrors for Princes aspects of these texts provide not only examples of successful kings, but also of excellent vassals and queens. The mirrors for the women involve virtuous characteristics, where they fulfil their wifely and noble duties. They are addressed to regents and queens consort more so than to queens regnant, who were uncommon figures in the twelfth century. As well as providing examples and lessons on what is optimal behaviour for the ruling class, there are characters who supply examples of behaviour that is to be avoided. With these ignoble characters, common methods of transmitting the didactic messages are through their lasting reputation, the consequences of their actions, or the nature of their deaths. The study concludes that the examined texts can be read as Mirrors for Princes, despite most of them not being originally conceived as belonging to this subgenre. Lessons for vassals, noblemen and noblewomen, queens and kings are present to varying extents throughout these works using both forms of didacticism outlined above.

This report examines the legacy of “mirrors for princes” literature, or advice literature for kings, in Iranian political thought, particularly in the modern period. While most scholars have studied ‘mirrors’ literature as a predominantly medieval phenomenon, this report argues that the genre and the ideals of kingship it articulates continued to flourish well into the modern period in Iran. Through an analysis of themes found both in the medieval Persian texts and the ‘mirrors’ composed in the Safavid and Qajar periods, this report demonstrates a remarkable continuity in the genre and in the ideology of kingship throughout centuries of dynastic and structural changes in Iran. Moreover, although the genre of ‘mirrors’ appears to have faded with the Qajar dynasty, this report shows how its ideology of kingship continued to influence the rhetoric of political legitimacy in the Pahlavi period. Muhammad Reza Shah in particular relied on the office of the king and his duties of executing justice and protecting Islam to justify both the necessity of the monarchy and his right to the throne. / text

A presente dissertação se propôs a analisar quatro fabulários, tendo como fio condutor dessa escolha o Kalla e Dimna, fabulário árabe do século VIII d.C. Partindo desta obra, os estudos se orientaram tanto às suas origens, que remontam à compilação indiana Pañcatantra, datada do século I d.C. e que teve entrada no mundo árabe, bem como aos seus frutos, o Livro do tigre e do raposo e O leão e o chacal Mergulhador, dois fabulários árabes produzidos, respectivamente, nos séculos IX d.C., XI d.C. e XII d.C. e que tiveram, em relação aos anteriores, menor disseminação. Os dois primeiros fabulários tratam de uma série de temas que podem atender às normas mais gerais de decoro na sociedade, sendo que o Pañcatantra chega até mesmo a ser classificado como um tratado sobre a conduta em manuais de literatura sânscrita. Entre esses temas diversos, é notável o espaço privilegiado dado às relações políticas e aos seus trâmites. Os outros dois livros, embora inseridos na mesma tradição, deixam de lado aspectos mais gerais da convivência e passam a se deter apenas nos temas especificamente políticos. No que se refere a esse assunto em comum, é possível perceber uma série de elementos recorrentes nos quatro fabulários, entre eles, o fato de que todos tratam das vicissitudes das relações entre poder e saber, personificada em personagens-tipo que ora se aproximam, ora se afastam, mas que se mantém atrelados a uma estrutura que os molda conforme os resultados que almeja atingir. Além disso, foram estudadas as estruturas que, no caso, se apoiam na maior parte das vezes em narrativas-quadro ou prólogos-moldura a partir dos quais se desenvolvem subnarrativas e outros elementos que nos possibilitaram, ao término do estudo, apontar o que há de particular na universalidade a que se propõem os fabulários. / This dissertation aims to analyze four collections of fables, choosing as the central work from which further analysis will stem the Kalla and Dimna, an Arab collection of fables dating from the VIII century A.D. From this starting point, these studies were furthered by revisiting its origins in the Panchatantra, an Indian compilation of fables from the I century A.D. that left its marks on the Arab world, as well as its developments in the books that directly follow its legacy, the Livro do tigre e do raposo and O leão e o chacal Mergulhador, two arab collections of fables dating, respectively, to the IX century A.D. and the XI and XII century A.D. which had, however, far less dissemination than the last two works here cited. The first two collections develop around a variety of subjects relating to rules regulating manners in a broader sense, to the point that the Panchatantra has been classified as a treatise on manners in Sanskrit literature manuals. Between the diversity of subjects broached, the privileged attention given to political relations and their formalities is readily noticeable. The two other works, though part of the same literary tradition, set aside more general or day-to-day aspects of good manners to focus exclusively on political relations and political conduct. Regarding this shared thematic, a number of recurring elements can be identified, one of many being the fact that all of them deal with the specifics of the relationship stabilished between power and knowledge, personified in character types that alternate between approaching and distancing themselves from one another, but that are always attached to a structure that moulds them according to the results it desires. Beyond that, the narrative structures of the works were studied they usually make use of frame narratives or frame prologues from which further subnarratives are developed along with other elements that made it possible, at the end of this study, to point towards the particularities of the universality that the collections of fables undertake as their purpose.

A presente dissertação se propôs a analisar quatro fabulários, tendo como fio condutor dessa escolha o Kalla e Dimna, fabulário árabe do século VIII d.C. Partindo desta obra, os estudos se orientaram tanto às suas origens, que remontam à compilação indiana Pañcatantra, datada do século I d.C. e que teve entrada no mundo árabe, bem como aos seus frutos, o Livro do tigre e do raposo e O leão e o chacal Mergulhador, dois fabulários árabes produzidos, respectivamente, nos séculos IX d.C., XI d.C. e XII d.C. e que tiveram, em relação aos anteriores, menor disseminação. Os dois primeiros fabulários tratam de uma série de temas que podem atender às normas mais gerais de decoro na sociedade, sendo que o Pañcatantra chega até mesmo a ser classificado como um tratado sobre a conduta em manuais de literatura sânscrita. Entre esses temas diversos, é notável o espaço privilegiado dado às relações políticas e aos seus trâmites. Os outros dois livros, embora inseridos na mesma tradição, deixam de lado aspectos mais gerais da convivência e passam a se deter apenas nos temas especificamente políticos. No que se refere a esse assunto em comum, é possível perceber uma série de elementos recorrentes nos quatro fabulários, entre eles, o fato de que todos tratam das vicissitudes das relações entre poder e saber, personificada em personagens-tipo que ora se aproximam, ora se afastam, mas que se mantém atrelados a uma estrutura que os molda conforme os resultados que almeja atingir. Além disso, foram estudadas as estruturas que, no caso, se apoiam na maior parte das vezes em narrativas-quadro ou prólogos-moldura a partir dos quais se desenvolvem subnarrativas e outros elementos que nos possibilitaram, ao término do estudo, apontar o que há de particular na universalidade a que se propõem os fabulários. / This dissertation aims to analyze four collections of fables, choosing as the central work from which further analysis will stem the Kalla and Dimna, an Arab collection of fables dating from the VIII century A.D. From this starting point, these studies were furthered by revisiting its origins in the Panchatantra, an Indian compilation of fables from the I century A.D. that left its marks on the Arab world, as well as its developments in the books that directly follow its legacy, the Livro do tigre e do raposo and O leão e o chacal Mergulhador, two arab collections of fables dating, respectively, to the IX century A.D. and the XI and XII century A.D. which had, however, far less dissemination than the last two works here cited. The first two collections develop around a variety of subjects relating to rules regulating manners in a broader sense, to the point that the Panchatantra has been classified as a treatise on manners in Sanskrit literature manuals. Between the diversity of subjects broached, the privileged attention given to political relations and their formalities is readily noticeable. The two other works, though part of the same literary tradition, set aside more general or day-to-day aspects of good manners to focus exclusively on political relations and political conduct. Regarding this shared thematic, a number of recurring elements can be identified, one of many being the fact that all of them deal with the specifics of the relationship stabilished between power and knowledge, personified in character types that alternate between approaching and distancing themselves from one another, but that are always attached to a structure that moulds them according to the results it desires. Beyond that, the narrative structures of the works were studied they usually make use of frame narratives or frame prologues from which further subnarratives are developed along with other elements that made it possible, at the end of this study, to point towards the particularities of the universality that the collections of fables undertake as their purpose.

Based on a broad survey of the reception of Firdausī’s Shāhnāma in medieval times, this dissertation argues that Firdausī’s oeuvre was primarily perceived as a book of wisdom and advice for kings and courtly élites. The medieval reception of the Shāhnāma is clearly manifested in the comments of medieval authors about Firdausī and his work, and in their use of the Shāhnāma in the composition of their own works. The production of ikhtiyārāt-i Shāhnāmas (selections from the Shāhnāma) in medieval times and the remarkable attention of the authors of mirrors for princes to Firdausī’s opus are particularly illuminating in this regard. The survey is complemented by a close textual reading of the Ardashīr cycle in the Shāhnāma in comparison with other medieval historical accounts about Ardashīr, in order to illustrate how history in the Shāhnāma is reduced to only a framework for the presentation of ideas and ideals of kingship. Based on ancient Persian beliefs regarding the ideal state of the world, I argue that Ardashīr in the Shāhnāma is represented as a Saviour of the world. Within this context, I offer new interpretations of the symbolic tale of Ardashīr’s fight against a giant worm, and explain why the idea of the union of kingship and religion, a major topic in almost all medieval Persian mirrors for princes, has often been attributed to Ardashīr. Finally, I compare the Ardashīr cycle in the Shāhnāma with nine medieval Persian mirrors for princes to demonstrate that the ethico-political concepts contained in them, as well as the portrayal of Ardashīr, remain more or less the same in all these works. Study of the Shāhnāma as a mirror for princes, as this study shows, not only reveals the meaning of its symbolic tales, but also sheds light on the pre-Islamic roots of some of the ethico-political concepts presented in the medieval Perso-Islamic literature of wisdom and advice for kings and courtiers.

Based on a broad survey of the reception of Firdausī’s Shāhnāma in medieval times, this dissertation argues that Firdausī’s oeuvre was primarily perceived as a book of wisdom and advice for kings and courtly élites. The medieval reception of the Shāhnāma is clearly manifested in the comments of medieval authors about Firdausī and his work, and in their use of the Shāhnāma in the composition of their own works. The production of ikhtiyārāt-i Shāhnāmas (selections from the Shāhnāma) in medieval times and the remarkable attention of the authors of mirrors for princes to Firdausī’s opus are particularly illuminating in this regard. The survey is complemented by a close textual reading of the Ardashīr cycle in the Shāhnāma in comparison with other medieval historical accounts about Ardashīr, in order to illustrate how history in the Shāhnāma is reduced to only a framework for the presentation of ideas and ideals of kingship. Based on ancient Persian beliefs regarding the ideal state of the world, I argue that Ardashīr in the Shāhnāma is represented as a Saviour of the world. Within this context, I offer new interpretations of the symbolic tale of Ardashīr’s fight against a giant worm, and explain why the idea of the union of kingship and religion, a major topic in almost all medieval Persian mirrors for princes, has often been attributed to Ardashīr. Finally, I compare the Ardashīr cycle in the Shāhnāma with nine medieval Persian mirrors for princes to demonstrate that the ethico-political concepts contained in them, as well as the portrayal of Ardashīr, remain more or less the same in all these works. Study of the Shāhnāma as a mirror for princes, as this study shows, not only reveals the meaning of its symbolic tales, but also sheds light on the pre-Islamic roots of some of the ethico-political concepts presented in the medieval Perso-Islamic literature of wisdom and advice for kings and courtiers.