Classical Persian Lyric

Graduate / Professional

This course acquaints students with some of the most extraordinary lyric poets of classical Persian literature. We read famous medieval figures and early modern luminaries. As we attend minutely to matters of grammar, form, prosody, and style, we also keep in view relevant literary, cultural, historical, and intellectual contexts. An essential aim of the course is to introduce students to some of the ways in which the premodern Persian tradition thinks about itself. To that end, primary readings in poetry and literary prose are supplemented with short extracts from works by medieval and early modern critics, rhetoricians, theorists, and literary historians; these texts supply concepts and skills that are indispensable for reading, appreciating, and researching Persian literature. Achieving a fine-grained view of the tradition from within illuminates our discussions as we consider the distinctiveness of the lyric form; probe various entanglements between literature, philosophy, and religion; and situate the premodern Persian literary tradition against broader comparative horizons that stretch across the Islamicate world and beyond. Prerequisite: intermediate-level reading knowledge of Persian. HTBA