Persian literature

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Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul
, Turkey.
A scene from the Shahnameh describing the valour of Rustam

Persian literature

Persianate
cultures.

Described as one of the great literatures of humanity,

Samanids being based in Khorasan.[6]

Persian poets such as

Nezami,[7] Rumi[8] and Omar Khayyam[9][10]
are also known in the West and have influenced the literature of many countries.

Classical Persian literature

Pre-Islamic Persian literature

See also:
Pahlavi literature

Very few literary works of

Parsis who fled to India, however, took with them some of the books of the Zoroastrian canon, including some of the Avesta and ancient commentaries (Zend) thereof. Some works of Sassanid
geography and travel also survived, albeit in Arabic translations.

No single text devoted to

Pahlavi, such as "Ayin-e name nebeshtan" (Principles of Writing Book) and "Bab-e edteda’I-ye" (Kalileh o Demneh), have been considered as literary criticism (Zarrinkoub, 1959).[12]

Some researchers have quoted the Sho'ubiyye as asserting that the pre-Islamic Iranians had books on eloquence, such as 'Karvand'. No trace remains of such books. There are some indications that some among the Persian elite were familiar with Greek rhetoric and literary criticism (Zarrinkoub, 1947).

Persian literature of the medieval and pre-modern periods

Shahnama of Ferdowsi. Brooklyn Museum
.

While initially

Daqiqi, Rudaki
, and their generation, as they used pre-Islamic nationalism as a conduit to revive the language and customs of ancient Iran.

Poetry

Further information: Persian metres
Bowl of Reflections, early 13th century. Brooklyn Museum

So strong is the Persian inclination to versifying everyday expressions that one can encounter poetry in almost every classical work, whether from Persian literature, science, or metaphysics. In short, the ability to write in verse form was a pre-requisite for any scholar. For example, almost half of Avicenna's medical writings are in verse.

Works of the early era of Persian poetry are characterized by strong court

Iranian dynasty. The Qasida was perhaps the most famous form of panegyric used, though quatrains such as those in Omar Khayyam's Ruba'iyyat
are also widely popular.

Manuchehri. Panegyric masters such as Rudaki
were known for their love of nature, their verses abounding with evocative descriptions.

Through these courts and system of patronage emerged the epic style of poetry, with

Daqiqi and Asadi Tusi presented the "Ajam" with a source of pride and inspiration that has helped preserve a sense of identity for the Iranian people
over the ages. Ferdowsi set a model to be followed by a host of other poets later on.

The 13th century marks the ascendancy of lyric poetry with the consequent development of the

Hafiz Shirazi
.

Regarding the tradition of Persian love poetry during the

love toward young pages, soldiers, or novices in trades and professions which was the subject of lyrical introductions to panegyrics from the beginning of Persian poetry, and of the ghazal. "[13] During the same Safavid era, many subjects of the Iranian Safavids were patrons of Persian poetry, such as Teimuraz I of Kakheti
.

In the

Gulistan
.

After the 15th century, the

Nand Lal Goya
.

Prose writings

The most significant prose writings of this era are

Zahiriddin Nasr Muhammad Aufi's anecdote compendium Jawami ul-Hikayat
.
Qabus nama (A Mirror for Princes), is a highly esteemed Belles-lettres work of Persian literature. Also highly regarded is Siyasatnama, by Nizam al-Mulk, a famous Persian vizier. Kelileh va Demneh, translated from Indian
folk tales, can also be mentioned in this category. It is seen as a collection of adages in Persian literary studies and thus does not convey folkloric notions.

Biographies, hagiographies, and historical works

Among the major historical and biographical works in classical Persian, one can mention

Sufi mystics, which is referenced by many subsequent authors and considered a significant work in mystical hagiography
.

Literary criticism

See also: Literary criticism in Iran

The oldest surviving work of Persian literary criticism after the Islamic conquest of Persia is Muqaddame-ye Shahname-ye Abu Mansuri, which was written during the

Samanid period.[14] The work deals with the myths and legends of Shahnameh
and is considered the oldest surviving example of Persian prose. It also shows an attempt by the authors to evaluate literary works critically.

Storytelling

Sassanid queen who must relate a series of stories to her malevolent husband, King Shahryar (Persian
: شهریار Šahryār), to delay her execution. The stories are told over a period of one thousand and one nights, and every night she ends the story with a suspenseful situation, forcing the King to keep her alive for another day. The individual stories were created over several centuries, by many people from a number of different lands.

The nucleus of the collection is formed by a

Pahlavi Sassanid Persian book called Hazār Afsānah[15] (Persian
: هزار افسان, Thousand Myths), a collection of ancient Indian and Persian folk tales.

During the reign of the

Persia, China, India, Africa, and Europe were all found in Baghdad. During this time, many of the stories that were originally folk stories are thought to have been collected orally over many years and later compiled into a single book. The compiler and 9th-century translator into Arabic is reputedly the storyteller Abu Abd-Allah Muhammad el-Gahshigar. The frame story
of Shahrzad seems to have been added in the 14th century.

Persian dictionaries

The biggest Persian dictionary is Dehkhoda Dictionary (16 volumes) by Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda. It is the largest comprehensive Persian dictionary ever published, comprising 16 volumes (more than 27,000 pages). It is published by the Tehran University Press (UTP) under the supervision of the Dehkhoda Dictionary Institute and was first published in 1931. It traces the historical development of the Persian language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, as well as describing usage in its many variations throughout the world. He names 200 Persian lexicographical works in his dictionary, the earliest,

Sassanid
era of the 3rd-7th century.

The most widely used Persian lexicons in the Middle Ages were those of Abu Hafs Sughdi (فرهنگ ابوحفص سغدی) and Asadi Tusi (فرهنگ لغت فرس), written in 1092.

The production of Persian dictionaries declined in Iran after the 14th century, while it simultaneously grew in the Indian subcontinent and Ottoman Turkey, regions that were increasingly becoming Persianized. Only 4 dictionaries of Persian were compiled in Iran between the 10th and 19th centuries, while more than 66 were produced in India. Significant dictionaries from India include the Farhang-e Ghavvas, Sharafnama-ye Ebrahimi, Farhang-i Jahangiri, and Burhan-i Qati. Unlike the Persian dictionaries of India, most dictionaries from Ottoman Turkey are bilingual (Persian-Turkish). Some significant dictionaries of the era are Oqnum-e Ajam, Loghat-e Ne'matallah, and Lesan al-Ajam.[16][17][18]

Also highly regarded in the contemporary Persian literature lexical corpus are the works of Dr. Mohammad Moin. The first volume of Moin Dictionary was published in 1963.

In 1645,

Christian Ravius completed a Persian-Latin dictionary, printed at Leiden. This was followed by John Richardson
's two-volume Oxford edition (1777) and Gladwin-Malda's (1770) Persian-English Dictionaries, Scharif and S. Peters' Persian-Russian Dictionary (1869), and 30 other Persian lexicographical translations through the 1950s.

Currently, English-Persian dictionaries of

Soleiman Haim
are widely used in Iran.

The influence of Persian literature on world literature

Sufi literature

Some of Persia's best-beloved medieval poets were

Sufi poetry
.

Many notable texts in Persian mystic literature are not poems, yet highly read and regarded. Among those are

Kashf ul Mahjoob
.

Georgian literature

Georgian script

Beginning in the early 16th century, Persian traditions had a large impact on the Georgian ruling elites, which in turn resulted in Persian influence on Georgian art, architecture, and literature.[19] This cultural influence lasted until the arrival of the Russians.[20]

Jamshid Sh. Giunashvili remarks on the connection of Georgian culture with that of the Persian literary work Shahnameh:

The names of many Šāh-nāma heroes, such as

Georgian literature
. They are indirect evidence for an Old Georgian translation of the Šāh-nāma that is no longer extant. ...

The Šāh-nāma was translated, not only to satisfy the literary and aesthetic needs of readers and listeners, but also to inspire the young with the spirit of heroism and Georgian patriotism. Georgian ideology, customs, and worldview often informed these translations because they were oriented toward Georgian poetic culture. Conversely, Georgians consider these translations works of their native literature. Georgian versions of the Šāh-nāma are quite popular, and the stories of Rostam and Sohrāb, or Bījan and Maniža became part of Georgian folklore.[21]

Farmanfarmaian in the Journal of Persianate Studies:

Distinguished scholars of Persian such as Gvakharia and Todua are well aware that the inspiration derived from the Persian classics of the ninth to the twelfth centuries produced a ‘cultural synthesis’ which saw, in the earliest stages of written secular literature in Georgia, the resumption of literary contacts with Iran, “much stronger than before” (Gvakharia, 2001, p. 481). Ferdowsi’s Shahnama was a never-ending source of inspiration, not only for high literature, but for folklore as well. “Almost every page of Georgian literary works and chronicles [...] contains names of Iranian heroes borrowed from the Shahnama” (ibid). Ferdowsi, together with Nezāmi, may have left the most enduring imprint on Georgian literature (...)[22]

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Despite that

Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed towards a fully accepted language of literature, which was even able to satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation.[28] However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%.[28]
The Ottomans produced thousands of Persian literary works throughout their century long lifespan.

South Asia

Further information: Persian language in the Indian subcontinent

With the emergence of the

Ghurids, Timurids and Mughal Empire, Persian culture and its literature gradually moved into South Asia too. In general, from its earliest days, Persian literature and language was imported into the subcontinent by culturally Persianised Turkic and Afghan dynasties. Persian became the language of the nobility, literary circles, and the royal Mughal courts for hundreds of years. In the early 19th century, Hindustani
replaced it.

Under the Mughal Empire during the 16th century, the official language of the Indian subcontinent became Persian. Only in 1832 did the British army force the South Asia to begin conducting business in English. (Clawson, p.  6) Persian poetry in fact flourished in these regions while post-Safavid Iranian literature stagnated. Dehkhoda and other scholars of the 20th century, for example, largely based their works on the detailed lexicography produced in India, using compilations such as Ghazi khan Badr Muhammad Dehlavi's Adat al-Fudhala (اداة الفضلا), Ibrahim Ghavamuddin Farughi's Farhang-i Ibrahimi (فرهنگ ابراهیمی), and particularly Muhammad Padshah's Farhang-i Anandraj (فرهنگ آنندراج).

Balkans

See also: Fevzi Mostari

Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans (Rumelia), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa, in the northern part of Greece).[29]

Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken.[30] However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary.[30] The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" (Rumili Farsisi).[30] As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became the site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture.[30] The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo, was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian".[30]

Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi.[31]

Western literature

Main article:
Persian literature in the West

Persian literature was little known in the West before the 18-19th century. It became much better known following the publication of several translations from the works of late medieval Persian poets, and it inspired works by various Western poets and writers.

German literature

English literature

  • A selection from
    British East India Company
    .
  • A portion of this abridgment was later versified by the British poet Matthew Arnold in his 1853 Rustam and Sohrab.
  • The American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson was another admirer of Persian poetry. He published several essays in 1876 that discuss Persian poetry: Letters and Social Aims, From the Persian of Hafiz, and Ghaselle.

Perhaps the most popular Persian poet of the 19th and early 20th centuries was

Rubaiyat was freely translated by Edward Fitzgerald
in 1859. Khayyam is esteemed more as a scientist than a poet in his native Persia, but in Fitzgerald's rendering, he became one of the most quoted poets in English. Khayyam's line, "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou", is known to many who could not say who wrote it, or where:

گر دست دهد ز مغز گندم نانی
وز می دو منی ز گوسفندی رانی
وانگه من و تو نشسته در ویرانی
عیشی بود آن نه حد هر سلطانی

gar(agar) dast dahad ze maghz-e gandom nāni
va'z(va az) mey do mani ze gūsfandi rāni
vāngah man-o tō neshaste dar vīrāni
'eyshi bovad ān na had-de har soltāni

Ah, would there were a loaf of bread as fare,
A joint of lamb, a jug of vintage rare,
And you and I in wilderness encamped—
No Sultan's pleasure could with ours compare.

The Persian poet and mystic Rumi (1207–1273) (known as Molana in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and as Mevlana in Turkey), has attracted a large following in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Popularizing translations by Coleman Barks have presented Rumi as a New Age sage. There are also a number of more literary translations by scholars such as A. J. Arberry.

The classical poets (Hafiz, Saadi, Khayyam, Rumi, Nizami and Ferdowsi) are now widely known in English and can be read in various translations. Other works of Persian literature are untranslated and little known.

Swedish literature

During the last century, numerous works of classical Persian literature have been translated into

Iranist Ashk Dahlén
, who has published several essays on the development of Persian literature. Excerpts from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh has also been translated into Swedish prose by Namdar Nasser and Anja Malmberg.

Italian literature

During the last century, numerous works of classical and modern Persian literature have been translated into Italian by Alessandro Bausani (Nizami, Rumi, Iqbal, Khayyam), Carlo Saccone ('Attar, Sana'i, Hafiz, Nasir-i Khusraw, Nizami, Ahmad Ghazali, Ansari of Herat, Sa'di, Ayené), Angelo Piemontese (Amir Khusraw Dihlavi), Pio Filippani-Ronconi (Nasir-i Khusraw, Sa'di), Riccardo Zipoli (Kay Ka'us, Bidil), Maurizio Pistoso (Nizam al-Mulk), Giorgio Vercellin (Nizami 'Aruzi), Giovanni Maria D'Erme ('Ubayd Zakani, Hafiz), Sergio Foti (Suhrawardi, Rumi, Jami), Rita Bargigli (Sa'di, Farrukhi, Manuchehri, 'Unsuri), Nahid Norozi (Sohrab Sepehri, Khwaju of Kerman, Ahmad Shamlu), Faezeh Mardani (Forugh Farrokhzad, Abbas Kiarostami). A complete translation of Firdawsi's Shah-nama was made by Italo Pizzi in the 19th century.

Contemporary Persian literature

History

In the 19th century, Persian literature experienced dramatic change and entered a new era. The beginning of this change was exemplified by an incident in the mid-19th century at the court of

Mirza Malkom Khan
. Khan also addressed a need for a change in Persian poetry in literary terms as well, always linking it to social concerns.

"In life there are certain sores which slowly erode the mind in solitude like a kind of canker." (The Blind Owl)

The new Persian literary movement cannot be understood without an understanding of the

Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906–1911, the idea that change in poetry was necessary became widespread. Many argued that Persian poetry should reflect the realities of a country in transition. This idea was propagated by notable literary figures such as Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda and Abolqasem Aref
, who challenged the traditional system of Persian poetry in terms of introducing new content and experimentation with rhetoric, lexico-semantics, and structure. Dehkhoda, for instance, used a lesser-known traditional form, the mosammat, to elegize the execution of a revolutionary journalist. 'Aref employed the ghazal, "the most central genre within the lyrical tradition" (p.  88), to write his "Payam-e Azadi" (Message of Freedom).

Some researchers argue that the notion of "sociopolitical ramifications of esthaetic changes" led to the idea of poets "as social leaders trying the limits and possibilities of social change".

An important movement in modern Persian literature centered on the question of

modernization and Westernization and whether these terms are synonymous when describing the evolution of Iranian society. It can be argued that almost all advocates of modernism in Persian literature, from Akhundzadeh, Kermani, and Malkom Khan to Dehkhoda, Aref, Bahar, and Taqi Rafat
, were inspired by developments and changes that had occurred in Western, particularly European, literatures. Such inspirations did not mean blindly copying Western models but, rather, adapting aspects of Western literature and changing them to fit the needs of Iranian culture.

Following the pioneering works of

Sadeq Hedayat and many others, the Iranian wave of comparative literature and literary criticism reached a symbolic crest with the emergence of Abdolhossein Zarrinkoub, Shahrokh Meskoob, Houshang Golshiri and Ebrahim Golestan
.

In Afghanistan

Persian literature in Afghanistan has also experienced a dramatic change during the last century. At the beginning of the 20th century, Afghanistan was confronted with economic and social change, which sparked a new approach to literature. In 1911, Mahmud Tarzi, who came back to Afghanistan after years of exile in Turkey and was influential in government circles, started a fortnightly publication named Saraj’ul Akhbar. Saraj was not the first such publication in the country, but in the field of journalism and literature it launched a new period of change and modernization. Saraj not only played an important role in journalism, it also gave new life to literature as a whole and opened the way for poetry to explore new avenues of expression through which personal thoughts took on a more social colour.

In 1930 (1309 AH), after months of cultural stagnation, a group of writers founded the Herat Literary Circle. A year later, another group calling itself the Kabul Literary Circle was founded in the capital. Both groups published regular magazines dedicated to culture and Persian literature. Both, especially the Kabul publication, had little success in becoming venues for modern Persian poetry and writing. In time, the Kabul publication turned into a stronghold for traditional writers and poets, and modernism in

Dari literature
was pushed to the fringes of social and cultural life.

Two of the most prominent classical poets in Afghanistan at the time were

Nima Youshij
titled "Gharab" and "Ghoghnus" were published, Khalili wrote a poem under the name "Sorude Kuhestan" or "The Song of the Mountain" in the same rhyming pattern as Nima and sent it to the Kabul Literary Circle. The traditionalists in Kabul refused to publish it because it was not written in the traditional rhyme. They criticized Khalili for modernizing his style.

Very gradually new styles found their way into literature and literary circles despite the efforts of traditionalists. The first book of new poems was published in the year 1957 (1336 AH), and in 1962 (1341 AH), a collection of modern Persian (Dari) poetry was published in Kabul. The first group to write poems in the new style consisted of

Parwin Pazwak, and Qahar Asi. Poets like Mayakovsky, Yase Nien and Lahouti (an Iranian poet living in exile in Russia) exerted a special influence on the Persian poets in Afghanistan. The influence of Iranians (e.g. Farrokhi Yazdi and Ahmad Shamlou) on the newly established Afghan prose and poetry, especially in the second half of the 20th century, must also be taken into consideration.[33]

Prominent novelists and short story writers from Afghanistan include Akram Osman, known especially for Real Men Keep Their Word (مرداره قول اس), written in part in Kabuli dialect, and Rahnaward Zaryab. Some prominent writers from Afghanistan like Asef Soltanzadeh, Reza Ebrahimi, Ameneh Mohammadi, and Abbas Jafari grew up in Iran and were influenced by Iranian writers and teachers.

In Tajikistan

The new poetry in Tajikistan is mostly concerned with the way of life of people and is revolutionary. From the 1950s until the advent of new poetry in France, Asia and Latin America, the impact of the modernization drive was strong. In the 1960s, modern Iranian poetry and that of

Layeq Shir-Ali
.

Play

Among the best-known playwrights are:

Novel

Well-known novelists include:

Satire

Main article: Persian satire

Literary criticism

Pioneers of Persian literary criticism in 19th century include

Mirza `Abd al-Rahim Talebof and Zeyn al-`Abedin Maraghe`i
.

Prominent 20th century critics include:

Saeed Nafisi analyzed and edited several critical works. He is well known for his works on Rudaki and Sufi literature. Parviz Natel-Khanlari and Gholamhossein Yousefi, who belong to Nafisi's generation, were also involved in modern literature and critical writings.[37] Natel-Khanlari is distinguished by the simplicity of his style. He did not follow the traditionalists, nor did he advocate the new. Instead, his approach accommodated the entire spectrum of creativity and expression in Persian literature. Another critic, Ahmad Kasravi, an experienced authority on literature, attacked the writers and poets whose works served despotism.[38]

Contemporary Persian

Sadeq Hedayat, Ebrahim Golestan, Houshang Golshiri, Abdolhossein Zarrinkoub and Shahrokh Meskoob. Among these figures, Zarrinkoub held academic positions and had a reputation not only among the intelligentsia but also in academia. Besides his significant contribution to the maturity of Persian language and literature, Zarrinkoub boosted comparative literature and Persian literary criticism.[39] Zarrinkoub's Serr e Ney is a critical and comparative analysis of Rumi's Masnavi. In turn, Shahrokh Meskoob
worked on Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, using the principles of modern literary criticism.

Mohammad Taghi Bahar's main contribution to this field is his book called Sabk Shenasi (Stylistics). It is a pioneering work on the practice of Persian literary historiography and the emergence and development of Persian literature as a distinct institution in the early part of the 20th century. It contends that the exemplary status of Sabk-shinasi rests on the recognition of its disciplinary or institutional achievements. It further contends that, rather than a text on Persian ‘stylistics’, Sabk-shinasi is a vast history of Persian literary prose, and, as such, is a significant intervention in Persian literary historiography.[citation needed]

Mohammad Reza Shafiei-Kadkani, are other notable figures who have edited a number of prominent literary works.[40]

Critical analysis of Jami's works has been carried out by Ala Khan Afsahzad. His classic book won the prestigious award of Iran's Year Best book in the year 2000.[41]

Persian short stories

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Historically, the modern Persian short story has undergone three stages of development: a formative period, a period of consolidation and growth, and a period of diversity.[42]

Period of diversity

In this period, the influence of the western literature on the Iranian writers and authors is obvious. The new and modern approaches to writing is introduced and several genres have developed specially in the field of short story. The most popular trends are toward

speculative fiction
.

Poetry

Notable Persian poets, modern and classical, include

Aref Ghazvini (classical), Ahmad NikTalab (new classic), Parvin Etesami (classical), Shahriar (classical) and, Ali Abdolrezaei (Post Modernism and New Post Modernism), Babak NikTalab (Children's poetry).[43]

Classical Persian poetry in modern times

A few notable classical poets have arisen since the 19th century, among whom Mohammad Taghi Bahar and Parvin Etesami have been most celebrated. Mohammad Taghi Bahar had the title "king of poets" and had a significant role in the emergence and development of Persian literature as a distinct institution in the early part of the 20th century.[44] The theme of his poems was the social and political situation of Iran.

Parvin Etesami may be called the greatest Persian woman poet writing in the classical style. One of her remarkable series, called Mast va Hoshyar (The Drunk and the Sober), won admiration from many of those involved in romantic poetry.[45]

Modern Persian poetry

Nima Yushij is considered the father of modern Persian poetry, introducing many techniques and forms to differentiate the modern from the old. Nevertheless, the credit for popularizing this new literary form within a country and culture solidly based on a thousand years of classical poetry goes to his few disciples such as Ahmad Shamlou, who adopted Nima's methods and tried new techniques of modern poetry.

The transformation brought about by Nima Youshij, who freed Persian poetry from the fetters of prosodic measures, was a turning point in a long literary tradition. It broadened the perception and thinking of the poets that came after him. Nima offered a different understanding of the principles of classical poetry. His artistry was not confined to removing the need for a fixed-length hemistich and dispensing with the tradition of rhyming but focused on a broader structure and function based on a contemporary understanding of human and social existence. His aim in renovating poetry was to commit it to a "natural identity" and to achieve a modern discipline in the mind and linguistic performance of the poet.[46]

Nima held that the formal technique dominating classical poetry interfered with its vitality, vigor and progress. Although he accepted some of its aesthetic properties and extended them in his poetry, he never ceased to widen his poetic experience by emphasizing the "natural order" of this art. What Nima Youshij founded in contemporary poetry, his successor Ahmad Shamlou continued.

The Sepid poem (which translates to white poem), which draws its sources from this poet, avoided the compulsory rules which had entered the Nimai’ school of poetry and adopted a freer structure. This allowed a more direct relationship between the poet and his or her emotional roots. In previous poetry, the qualities of the poet’s vision as well as the span of the subject could only be expressed in general terms and were subsumed by the formal limitations imposed on poetic expression.

Nima’s poetry transgressed these limitations. It relied on the natural function inherent within poetry itself to portray the poet’s solidarity with life and the wide world surrounding him or her in specific and unambiguous details and scenes. Sepid poetry continues the poetic vision as Nima expressed it and avoids the contrived rules imposed on its creation. However, its most distinct difference with Nimai’ poetry is to move away from the rhythms it employed. Nima Youshij paid attention to an overall harmonious rhyming and created many experimental examples to achieve this end.[46]

Ahmad Shamlu discovered the inner characteristics of poetry and its manifestation in the literary creations of classical masters as well as the Nimai’ experience. He offered an individual approach. By distancing himself from the obligations imposed by older poetry and some of the limitations that had entered the Nimai’ poem, he recognized the role of prose and music hidden in the language. In the structure of Sepid poetry, in contrast to the prosodic and Nimai’ rules, the poem is written in more "natural" words and incorporates a prose-like process without losing its poetic distinction. Sepid poetry is a developing branch of Nimai’ poetry built upon Nima Youshij's innovations. Nima thought that any change in the construction and the tools of a poet’s expression is conditional on his/her knowledge of the world and a revolutionized outlook. Sepid poetry could not take root outside this teaching and its application.

According to Simin Behbahani, Sepid poetry did not receive general acceptance before Bijan Jalali's works. He is considered the founder of Sepid poetry according to Behbahani.[47][48] Behbahani herself used the "Char Pareh" style of Nima, and subsequently turned to ghazal, a free-flowing poetry style similar to the Western sonnet. Simin Behbahani contributed to a historic development in the form of the ghazal, as she added theatrical subjects, and daily events and conversations into her poetry. She has expanded the range of traditional Persian verse forms and produced some of the most significant works of Persian literature in the 20th century.

A reluctant follower of Nima Yushij, Mehdi Akhavan-Sales published his Organ (1951) to support contentions against Nima Yushij's groundbreaking endeavors. In Persian poetry, Mehdi Akhavan Sales has established a bridge between the Khorassani and Nima Schools. The critics consider Mehdi Akhavan Sales as one of the best contemporary Persian poets. He is one of the pioneers of free verse (new style poetry) in Persian literature, particularly of modern style epics. It was his ambition, for a long time, to introduce a fresh style to Persian poetry.[49]

Forough Farrokhzad is important in the literary history of Iran for three reasons. First, she was among the first generation to embrace the new style of poetry, pioneered by Nima Yushij during the 1920s, which demanded that poets experiment with rhyme, imagery, and the individual voice. Second, she was the first modern Iranian woman to graphically articulate private sexual landscapes from a woman's perspective. Finally, she transcended her own literary role and experimented with acting, painting, and documentary film-making.[50]

Fereydoon Moshiri is best known as conciliator of classical Persian poetry with the New Poetry initiated by Nima Yooshij. One of the major contributions of Moshiri's poetry, according to some observers, is the broadening of the social and geographical scope of modern Persian literature.[51]

A poet of the last generation before the Islamic Revolution worthy of mention is

Mohammad-Reza Shafiei-Kadkani (M. Sereshk). Though he is from Khorassan and sways between allegiance to Nima Youshij and Akhavan Saless, in his poetry he shows the influences of Hafiz and Mowlavi. He uses simple, lyrical language and is mostly inspired by the political atmosphere. He is the most successful of those poets who in the past four decades have tried hard to find a synthesis between the two models of Ahmad Shamloo and Nima Youshij.[52]

In the twenty-first century, a new generation of Iranian poets continues to work in the New Poetry style and now attracts an international audience thanks to efforts to translate their works. Éditions Bruno Doucey published a selection of forty-eight poems by Garus Abdolmalekian entitled Our Fists under the Table (2012),[53] translated into French by Farideh Rava. Other notable names are poet and publisher Babak Abazari (1984–2015), who died under mysterious circumstances in January 2015,[54] and emerging young poet Milad Khanmirzaei.[55]

Post Modern Persian poetry

In 1990s a progressive evolution called Postmodern Ghazal begun in the Persian poetry leading to the modern poetry that changed the balancing principle of rhythm and rhyme of the traditional Persian poetry, as did in the Free Verse poetry following the rhythm of natural speech. Now, the center of the attention was language alone, and not only rhythm was absent but the charm of language leads it to be the main axle pushing the Persian poetry forward. The three most talked about poets of the Post Modern Poetry in Iran are Reza Barahani, Ali Abdolrezaei and Ali Babachahi. Among them Ali Abdolrezaei enjoyed a wider admissibility due to the new language he expressed which prevailed in that period. Of these poets Reza Barahani’s “Butterflies” (or Addressed to Butterflies), Ali Abdolrezaei’s “Paris in Renault”, “So Sermon of Society”, “Shinema” and “Mothurt”, and Ali Babachahi’s “The Soft Rain is Me” belong to this genre.

Children's poetry

In the contemporary period, the growth and manifestation of children's poetry in Persian language and literature increased and in this period we see the emergence of prominent poets such as Mahmoud Kianoosh and Abbas Yamini Sharif in young poetry and Babak Niktalab in adolescent poetry.

Persian literature awards

Authors and poets

Main article: List of Persian-language poets and authors

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Persian: ادبیات فارسی, romanized: Adabiyâte fârsi, pronounced [ædæbiːˌjɒːte fɒːɾˈsiː]

References

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Sources

Further reading

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Persian literature.
Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Persian literature.
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