Matthew Arnold's "Sohrab and Rustum" (1853) is a narrative poem that retells a tragic episode from the Persian epic "Shahnameh." The poem recounts the story of Rustum unknowingly killing his son Sohrab in combat and attempts to emulate Homer's style, consisting of 892 lines of blank verse.
Matthew Arnold's "Sohrab and Rustum" (1853) is a narrative poem that retells a tragic episode from the Persian epic "Shahnameh." The poem recounts the story of Rustum unknowingly killing his son Sohrab in combat and attempts to emulate Homer's style, consisting of 892 lines of blank verse.
| Front | Sohrab and Rustum |
|---|---|
| Back | Sohrab and Rustum: An Episode is a narrative poem with strong tragic themes first published in 1853 by Matthew Arnold. The poem retells a famous episode from Ferdowsi's Persian epic Shahnameh relating how the great warrior Rustum unknowingly slew his long-lost son Sohrab in single combat. Arnold, who was unable to read the original, relied on summaries of the story in John Malcolm's History of Persia and Sainte-Beuve's review of a French prose translation of Ferdowsi. In Sohrab and Rustum, Arnold attempted to imitate the "grandeur and rapidity" of Homer's style which he was to discuss in his lectures On Translating Homer (1861). The poem consists of 892 lines of blank verse. |
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