I chose to focus on the dragon as my monster. The passage I chose is from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh called “Sekandar reaches a land where the men have soft feet and kills a dragon.” It is used along with medieval images to argue my point of view about how the dragon represents problems in life and how carefully planning a course of action is better than brute force when facing those problems. Our hero Sekandar uses his cunning nature and careful planning to achieve many feats. The context of the story is that Sekandar reaches a foreign land where a dragon lies. The community uses their resources on appeasing the dragon. Sekandar was able to slay the dragon because he has an internal arsenal of weapons as opposed to physical ones. In the subsequent narrative, the strategy Sekandar used will be analyzed and three medieval artifacts will depict the representations of dragons. An illustrated manuscript of the Shahnameh was created from 1576-1577 by Shah Ismail II. This manuscript features a picture called Rustam kills the dragon which I will relate to Sekandar's story. A similar strategy was employed by Daniel that was recorded in the Bible. This will also be analysed in artwork Roundel with Daniel Slaying the Dragon created in 1520. The final artifact that will be used is a folio from the Shahnameh called Isfandiyar's Third Explot: He Kills a Dragon created in 1341.
Credits
Ilinca Ducharme