An Investigation of Shahnameh's Four Heroic Periods based on Archetype Theory

Archetypes are primitive mental images inherited from the collective unconsciousness of the earliest human ancestors. According to Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, and his followers, archetypes include predetermined patterns that manifest themselves in dreams and myths. In Persian literature, Shahnameh by Ferdowsi contains numerous examples of these archetypes that are set on a people’s collective unconsciousness during years. This paper is a content analysis of Shahnameh, based on Jung’s theory of archetypes, to find the connections between its mythical heroes. More clearly, some mythical characters of Shahnameh are analyzed regarding their roles, actions and historical development, in light of archetypes proposed by Jung. After the analysis of Shahnameh’s mythical characters with the archetypes proposed by Jung and his followers and comparison of the characters belonging to different periods, the unknown aspects of the myths and the way they have changed were explained in detail. Since it has been hypothesized that the selected characters are archetypical ones, the study has been built on some hypotheses. The results indicated that all the heroes and their life events are archetypically patterned based on a collective culture. It was also found that each heroic period has contributed to the development of heroic characteristics for the next period. This piece of finding is in tune with Jung’s theory that heroic periods are gradually developed. On contrary with the heroes in the first heroic period who are simply patterned without any complexity of personality, the heroes in the fourth period are complex and ultimate representation of heroic characters. The four major Jungian animas were also found to have undergone the same evolutionary procedure up to their highest levels in the fourth period.