Persian poetry

“ Persian romance, as well as Persian poetry, is burdened with florid description, and the redundancy of style which is everywhere found in the works of even their best authors makes them tedious to the reader. In these books of Oriental romance, it often happens that a new story is begun before the first is finished, being introduced as a narrative by one of the characters, and the second is in turn interrupted by a third, when the author apparently forgets to finish any one of his fables except the last. ”

“ From the time of Nadīr Shāh up to the present, Persia has suffered many revolutions, wars and famines, and although they could not destroy the admiration still bestowed upon their great poets, the genius of the race appears to have become extinct. The poetry of the eighteenth century is of little value, and the dominant spirit of the nineteenth is pure mysticism, as embodied in the doctrines of the Sufis.
Nations, as well as individuals, have their periods of mental growth and decay, and when once fallen they seldom rise again. ”

“ The development of Persian poetry under these first native dynasties was slow. Arabic language and literature had gained too firm a footing to be supplanted at once by a new literary idiom still in its infancy; nevertheless the few poets who arose under the Ṭāhirids and Ṣaffārids show already the germs of the characteristic tendency of all later Persian literature, which aims at amalgamating the enforced spirit of Islamism with their own Aryan feelings, and reconciling the strict deism of the Mahommedan religion with their inborn loftier and more or less pantheistic ideas ”

“ Persian literature, while scanty, embodied poetical conceptions, and several of the ancient poems possess much art. "The Persians had fancy and imagination, a relish for poetry and art, and they were not without a certain power of political combination. Yet we cannot justly ascribe to them any high degree of intellectual excellence. ”

“ There is something delightful in the use which the eastern poets, particularly the Persian, make of flowers in their poetry. Their allusions are not casual, and in the way of metaphor and simile only; they seem really to hold them in high admiration. I am not aware that the flowers of Persia, except the rose, are more beautiful or more various than those of other countries. ”

“ Essay on Persian Poetry.—Speech at the Burns Centennial Festival—Letter from Emerson to a Lady.—Tributes to Theodore Parker and to Thoreau.—Address on the Emancipation Proclamation.—Publication of "The Conduct of Life." Contents: Fate; Power; Wealth; Culture; Behavior; Worship; Considerations by the Way; Beauty; Illusions.
The Essay on Persian Poetry, published in the "Atlantic Monthly" in 1858, should be studied by all readers who are curious in tracing the influence of Oriental poetry on Emerson's verse. ”

“ While it is boundless, it is also formless, and just so far is it lacking in true Beauty. Its Sublimity is confused, chaotic, helpless; it ever struggles for a harmonious unity, for spiritual mastery of the manifold and the overwhelming, which it never attains. All this is truest insight, soundest criticism.—But a higher stage is reached in the Persian Poetry. Here the form of the Poet becomes more adequate, {xxi} more masterful, more refined. Beauty springing up with Sublimity, is harmoniously wedded with it, and in one great Poet the victory of Love is freely consummated ”

“ It was far more easy to sing of wine, woman and roses in the manner of Hāfiḍ, such as most of these poets conceived this manner to be, than to assimilate and reproduce the philosophic and often involved poetry of India. Add to this the charming form and the rich rhyme of Persian poetry and we can readily understand why it won favor. But we can also understand readily enough why most of the so-called Hafizian singing is of very inferior quality. ”

“ The intelligent study of Persian literature compels an examination of the early myths and legends where her poetry and romance found their sources—compels the study not only of the inscriptions of Persian kings, but of the tablets which have brought down to us the idols of a primitive people. Therefore, it is the province of this chapter to give a brief yet comprehensive outline of the principal deities and legends which seem to form the basis not only of Persian mythology, but of the luxuriant growth of myth and fable which has permeated India, Greece, and Rome, as well as Northern Europe. ”

“ Hence the heroes in the Shāh-Nāmah exhibit many of the traits of the Vedic deities—traits which have lived through the Zoroastrian period, the Achæmenian dynasty, the Macedonian rule, the Parthian wars, and even the Arabian conquest, to be reproduced in the poem of Firdusī.
The modern phase of their literature is emphatically an age of poetry; the Persians of these later centuries seem to have been born with a song on their lips, for their poets are numbered by thousands. ”

“ Any account of Persian women is incomplete without some reference to woman in the native poetry of the Persians. No poetry of the East has been so generally admired, translated, and read as the Persian. In it woman finds a large place. And yet, it cannot be said that she is presented always in the light of the brightest ideals of virtuous womanhood.
The Persian poet Hafiz is said once to have been asked by the philosopher Zenda what he was good for, and he replied: "Of what use is a flower?" "A flower is good to smell," said the philosopher. ”

“ HISTORIC OUTLINE. ORIGIN OF PERSIAN LITERATURE—ACCAD AND SUMER—LITERATURE OF NINEVEH—BABYLON—ĪRĀN OR PERSIA—PHYSICAL FEATURES—PERSIAN ART—MANUSCRIPTS—EARLY LITERATURE—THE ARABIAN CONQUEST—LITERATURE OF MODERN PERSIA—PERSIAN ROMANCE.
Every nation has a literature peculiarly her own, even though it may find its sources in foreign fields. As Persia was founded upon the ruins of more ancient monarchies, as she gathered into the halls of her kings the spoils of conquered nations, so also her literature was enriched by the philosophy and science, the poetry and mythology of her predecessors. ”

“ The love for literature and poetry, which it principally expounded, developed in the people the more agreeable qualities which have made the Persian probably the most polite man on this earth. The clerical education, indeed, worked first upon the heart, then upon the brain ”

“ In the Persian I have often met this dual personality—the hard, cautious man, who descends to any trickery and deception, even crime, for the meanest ends, and in a revulsion of feeling reviles himself, sees himself as others see him, in the purest poetry of language and thought71 expresses the most beautiful sentiment, and falls to earth again. ”

“ Finally, after the conquest, and when Persia was thoroughly made over into a province of the Moslem empire, arises, in the tenth century, the modern Persian, and becomes during several centuries, and even to our own day, the vehicle of an abundant and admirable literature, rich in every department, in poetry, fiction, history, philosophy, science. ”

“ Looking now at the poetical form of Jelál's Lyrics, it goes without saying that it is distinctively Persian, and always eminently so in its kind. The Persian Poets were truly 'makers'; they not only created most of the nature-imagery still current in all modern poetry, but they constructed new forms of rhythm and rhyme, in which they finely echoed the sweetest melodies of nature and gave a richer and more expressive music to human speech. ”

“ The pupil, after he has learned the alphabet, reads the Koran in Arabic; next, fables in Persian; and lastly is taught to write a beautiful hand, which is considered a great accomplishment. The Persians are fond of poetry, and the lowest artisans can read or repeat the finest passages of their most admired poets. For the education of the higher classes there are in Persia many colleges and universities where the pupils are taught grammar, the Turkish and Arabic languages, rhetoric, philosophy, and poetry. The literary men are numerous ”

“ In the eagerness to be genuinely Persian, the poet was not content, however, with imitating only what was striking or beautiful; he introduces even some features which, though very prominent in Eastern poetry, will never become congenial to the West. Thus the utter abjectness of the Oriental lover, who puts his face in the path of his beloved and invites her (or him) to scatter dust on his head (H. 148. 3) , is presented to us with all possible extravagance in these lines of 87 ”

“ There is always the grand uprising of the king of day and the endless cycle of the stars—for this poetic people cannot forget the teaching of the Pārsī and the Sabean. In the literature found on the banks of these southern seas there is also the restfulness of night, with its coolness and dews, to be followed by the glory of the morning and the fragrance from the hearts of the roses.
Persian literature rings with voices from ruined cities, and mingles the story of the past with the dreams of her future. Her treasures are drawn from the records of Chaldean kings ”

“ If we listen to the nightingale it is but to follow the bird with our own emotions; we think of the grape-juice, and call it "the breaker of our cares." Among the Persians, however, the rose is no mere image or ornament, no symbol, but itself appears to the poet as possessed with a soul, as loving bride, and he transpierces with his spirit the rose's very heart. Precisely the same character of a gorgeous Pantheism is still impressed on the most modern Persian poems. ”

“ It is spontaneous love, "love at first sight," which they deem alone worthy of their song. "Love at first sight and of the most enthusiastic kind is the passion described in all Persian poems, as if a whole life of love were condensed into one moment. It is all wild and rapturous; it has nothing of the rational cast. A casual glance from an unknown beauty often affords the subject of a poem." These words well sum up the Persian poets' most common attitude toward love and the female graces. ”

“ There are three principal love stories in Persia which, from the earliest times, have been the themes of every poet. Scarcely one of the great masters of Persian literature but has adopted and added celebrity to these beautiful and interesting legends, which can never be too often repeated to an Oriental ear. ”

“ Not that discreet English sunshine which varies its charm with clouds, with rainbows, with golden mist, as an attractive woman varies her dress and the fashion of her hair—‘ever afresh and ever anew,’ as the Persian poet has it—here the sun has long ceased trying to please so venerable a world. ”

“ The under-current forces, which determine our own civilization of to-day, are in a general way the same forces which were at play during the heyday of Persian literary production. We owe to the Hellenic spirit, which at various times has found its way into our midst, our love for the beautiful in art and in literature. We owe to the Semitic, which has been inbreathed into us by religious forms and beliefs, the tone of our better life, the moral level to which we aspire. The same two forces were at work in Persia. ”

“ But where the Persian artist shines is in his readiness to undertake any style or subject; geometrical patterns—and they are very clever in originating these; scroll-work scenes from the poets; likenesses, miniatures, paintings of flowers or birds; in any media, on any substance, oils, water, or enamel, and painting on porcelain; all are produced with rapidity, wonderful spirit, and striking originality. In landscape, the Persian is very weak ”

“ It is strange that we have to go to the literature of Persia to find a poet whose deep religious convictions were fully reconciled with the theory of human existence which was nothing more or less than an optimistic hedonism. There is nothing parallel to this in classic literature. The greatest of Roman Epicureans, the materialist, whose maxim was: enjoy the present for there is no God, and no to-morrow, speaks despairingly of that drop of bitterness, which rises in the fountain of Delight and brings torture, even amid the roses of the feast. ”

“ It is a beautiful picture, and one full of hope, that remains with us as we leave the sad, inert, decadent land of Persia. There among a people, sinful, sensuous, corrupt, and apparently loveless, at almost every place where in school or hospital, in gaudy harem or in humble cottage, the Gospel of purity and love is preached to-day, are little companies of Persian Christians, men and women who, disowned, impoverished, persecuted, in peril of imprisonment and death, count it a joy to suffer for Christ's sake. Truly in Persia are heroic outposts of the Christian Church. ”

“ But it did add the element of fierce revenge and the tragedy of violent death, represented by the pitiless simoon and the shifting sand column, the hopeless wastes, the bitter waters, and the dry bones of perished caravans. It added the life-springs of the oasis, as well as the rushing whirlwind; it added the palm tree of the desert, with her feet in 28the burning sand and her head in the morning light—a symbol of the watch-fires of faith above the desert places of life. The best literature of Persia in our own age is largely the reproduction in various forms of her standard poets ”

“ The tales of “Saadi,” and a smattering of Arabic, form the climax of what is learnt at school.
At many village schools a few only of the boys learn to write, all to read. This power of reading they soon lose, but a villager has little occasion for it, and the repeating from memory of a few prayers, and passages from the Koran, with some verses of poetry, is generally all that remains to the villager of his education.
The quoting of poetry in Persia is universal; it is in every man’s mouth from highest to lowest, and is introduced into the most unpoetical conversations. ”