Because of its historical significance and also due to the fact that it represents a part of the ancient Iranian national identity,it is important to study Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. When Shahnameh is the subject of discussion, Iranian culture and history come to attention and since Shahnameh narrates ancient Iran events in an Islamic era, given the cultural indications in the book, it is expected to provide the reader with an image of Iranian woman in ancient times. By reviewing some of the studies which have investigated women in Shahnameh, the present paper seeks to find out whether this expectation has been fulfilled or not. It gives a brief summary of these studies and appraises them according to the theories of feminist criticism and shows the differences and similarities between these studies and theories. It was found out that most of the studies have made common conclusions and considered women’s image generally and biasedly. These studies pay little attention to the theories of feminist criticism.
Keywords: Feminism, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, Literary Studies., Women
