Iran, our missing piece of puzzle: Spanish expert

In a commemoration ceremony for Ferdowsi and celebration of Persian language, Director of The House of Asia in Spain Teresa Rodriguez del Alamo, said that Iran is our missing piece of the puzzle in Asian literature.
According to the correspondent, quoting from the public relations office of Sa`di Foundation in Tehran, the commemoration of the legendary Persian poet Abolqassem Ferdowsi and celebration of Persian language was held in Madrid by the Institute The House of Asia in collaboration with the Iranian Cultural Attaché in Spain.
In this event, Rodriguez del Alamo said: “Iranians see themselves in Ferdowsi’s poetry and its narrations and events, and we do not know of any other nation that loves poetry like Iranians.” “Following years of being away from Iranian poetry, I believe it is time for us to get close to it because there is a piece of the puzzle in Iran that we miss when we travel to surrounding countries,” she continued. Then Joaquin Rodriguez Vargas, a professor of Iranian studies and translator of several Persian literature books into Spanish, spoke on the importance Ferdowsi’s position in Persian poetry and literature: “Ferdowsi holds a basic position in the literature of Persian language, such that he is one of the four main pillars of Persian literature, with the other three being Sa`di, Hafez, and Molana (Rumi). However, we must know that the first column of the four pillars is Ferdowsi.” He said that not more than two thousand verses have remained from the tenth-century poetry of which the majority belong to Rudaki or Abu Shakur Balkhi.
In comparison with the sixty thousand verses left from ‘Shahnameh’, we can realize the importance of Ferdowsi since many words have reached us through ‘Shahnameh’. This Iranologist referred to the importance of Shahnameh for its composer and said: “Ferdowsi himself was aware of the significance of his work and refers to this point in ‘Shahnameh’ too.”