Mohsen Ashtiany

The third volume in this ground-breaking series, Persian Narrative Poetry in the Classical Era, 800-1500: Romantic and Didactic Genres, introduces masterpieces of Persian literature from these seven centuries to an international audience. In the process, it underlines the remarkable tenacity of their malleable tradition: the perennial dialogue and the interconnectedness which binds together a vast and varied literature composed of many threads, romantic and didactic, in many lands, from Anatolia and Iran to India and Central Asia. In its companion volume, Persian Lyric in the Classical Era, 800-1500, the readers of the series will have already met in passing all the mythical and historical figures who appear with far more aplomb on the stage here, with their lives narrated in detail by poets of different caliber from different perspectives. The first two chapters of this volume recount the literary history of the entire period, focusing on didactic and romantic narratives. The central chapters take a closer look at the towering figure of the poet Nezâmi Ganjavi. The final chapter takes the reader to a wider landscape tracing the footsteps of Alexander across the globe, offering insights to the cultural preoccupations refracted in so many versions past and present.

A History of Persian Literature, Vol III

Persian Narrative Poetry in the Classical Era, 800-1500: Romantic and Didactic Genres

Clifford Edmund Bosworth

Abū al-Faz̤l Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn Bayhaqī

This is the first complete translation, with detailed commentary, of the surviving volumes of Beyhaqi's massive project. The historian's writings, dealing with the years 1030–1041, combine astute criticism and wry humor with an unobtrusive display of mastery of the learned literature of the time, both in Arabic and Persian.

Mohsen Ashtiany

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