Love is a major theme in Persian poetry and can be interpreted in various ways—as mystic love, the basis of the relationship between humans and God, or as passionate or affectionate love between lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children, family and friends, or even as patriotic love of Iran. The literary style and indeed the Persian language itself are floral and elaborate, but the themes differ little from our preoccupations with love and romance today. This collection of extracts has been selected from the best of traditional and contemporary Persian poetry. Each poem is illustrated with a fine example of Persian art from the collections of the British Museum. With a brief introduction to the Persian poetic tradition and a short biographical note about each of the poets, this beautiful anthology is the perfect way to discover the treasures of Persian literature and art.

'In the breath that I die, for you I'll be longing/ Wishing to turn into the dust of your belonging' - Sa'di, Expressions of Love. With poetry which speaks across the ages, Sa'di (1210-1281) is a vital classical poet and a towering figure of the medieval Persian canon. Comparable in skill and stature to other Persian poets such as Ferdowsi, Hafez, Rumi and Omar Khayyam, Sa'di's verses--best known through his 'Bustan' and 'Golestan' address universal themes of passion, love and the human condition in works which are both psychologically perceptive and beautifully crafted. His mystical writings, contemporaneous with Rumi, reveal a degree of depth, wisdom and insight which have placed Sa'di in the pantheon of world literature. In this essential new translation of Sa'di's work, leading expert on Iranian studies Homa Katouzian seeks to bring the poet's lyrics to a new readership. The book provides the Persian text and Katouzian's English translation side-by-side, creating an indispensible tool for students and enthusiasts of Iranian history, literature and culture.

One of the very first Persian poets was a woman (Rabe’eh, who lived over a thousand years ago) and there have been women poets writing in Persian in virtually every generation since that time until the present. Before the twentieth century they tended to come from society’s social extremes. Many were princesses, a good number were hired entertainers of one kind or another, and they were active in many different countries – Iran of course, but also India, Afghanistan, and areas of central Asia that are now Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. Not surprisingly, a lot of their poetry sounds like that of their male counterparts, but a lot doesn’t; there are distinctively bawdy and flirtatious poems by medieval women poets, poems from virtually every era in which the poet complains about her husband (sometimes light-heartedly, sometimes with poignant seriousness), touching poems on the death of a child, and many epigrams centered on little details that bring a life from hundreds of years ago vividly before our eyes. This new bilingual edition of The Mirror of My Heart – the poems in Persian and English on facing pages – is a unique and captivating collection introduced and translated by Dick Davis, an acclaimed scholar and translator of Persian literature as well as a gifted poet in his own right. In his introduction he provides fascinating background detail on Persian poetry written by women through the ages, including common themes and motifs and a brief overview of Iranian history showing how women poets have been affected by the changing dynasties. From Rabe’eh in the tenth century to Fatemeh Ekhtesari in the twenty-first, each of the eighty-four poets in this volume is introduced in a short biographical note, while explanatory notes give further insight into the poems themselves.

Rumi the Persian poet is widely acknowledged as being the greatest Sufi mystic of his age. He was the founder of the brotherhood of the Whirling Dervishes. This is a collection of his poetry.

A collection of beautiful Persian love poetry, freshly translated and richly illustrated with magnificent images from world famous collections. Love is a major theme is Persian poetry and can be interpreted in various ways--as mystic love, the basis of the relationship between humans and God, or as passionate or affectionate love between lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children, family and friends, or even as patriotic love of Iran. The literary style and indeed the Persian language itself are floral and elaborate, but the themes differ little from our preoccupations with love and romance today. This collection of extracts has been selected from the best of traditional and contemporary Persian poetry. With a brief introduction to the Persian poetic tradition and a short biographical note about each of the poets, this beautiful anthology is the perfect way to discover the treasures of Persian literature and art.

Focuses on the poems rather than on their authors. Surveys the development of Persian mystical poetry, dealing first with the relation between Sufism and literature and then with the four main genres of the tradition: the epigram, the homiletic poem, love poetry and symbolic narrative.

Dr. Meisami discloses previously neglected stylistic qualities and ethical purposes in medieval Persian court poetry, and shows that court poets were also moral instructors who examined and celebrated the values they shared with their audiences. The book also takes into account the close relationship between Persian and Arabic court poetry. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In 1978, as the protests against the Shah of Iran reached their zenith, philosopher Michel Foucault was working as a special correspondent for Corriere della Sera and le Nouvel Observateur. During his little-known stint as a journalist, Foucault traveled to Iran, met with leaders like Ayatollah Khomeini, and wrote a series of articles on the revolution. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution is the first book-length analysis of these essays on Iran, the majority of which have never before appeared in English. Accompanying the analysis are annotated translations of the Iran writings in their entirety and the at times blistering responses from such contemporaneous critics as Middle East scholar Maxime Rodinson as well as comments on the revolution by feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. In this important and controversial account, Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson illuminate Foucault's support of the Islamist movement. They also show how Foucault's experiences in Iran contributed to a turning point in his thought, influencing his ideas on the Enlightenment, homosexuality, and his search for political spirituality. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution informs current discussion on the divisions that have reemerged among Western intellectuals over the response to radical Islamism after September 11. Foucault's provocative writings are thus essential for understanding the history and the future of the West's relationship with Iran and, more generally, to political Islam. In their examination of these journalistic pieces, Afary and Anderson offer a surprising glimpse into the mind of a celebrated thinker.

Love has been an important trope in the literature of the region we now call the Middle East, from ancient times to modern. This book analyses love poetry in various ancient and contemporary languages of the Middle East, including Akkadian, ancient Egyptian, Classical and Modern Standard Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Turkish and Kurdish, including literary materials that have been discovered and highlighted for the first time. Together, the chapters reflect and explore the discursive evolution of the theme of love, and the sensibilities, styles and techniques used to convey it. They chart the way in which poems in ancient poetry give way to complex and varied reflections of human sentiments in the medieval languages and on to the modern period which in turn reflects the complexities and nuances of present times. Offering a snapshot of the diverse literary languages and their relationship to the theme of love, the book will be of interest to scholars of Near and Middle Eastern Literature and Culture.