5218 Persica XVIII 04

PERSICA XVIII, 2002

HAFIZ’S SAQINAMAH: THE GENESIS AND TRANSFORMATION OF A CLASSICAL POETIC GENRE1

Sunil Sharma

The study of non-panegyric poetry in classical Persian poetry seldom ventures beyond the privileged forms of the ghazal, considered the love lyric or mystical poem par excellence, or the masnavi, the vehicle for narratives of romantic, epic, philosophical and mystical subjects. In reality, classical poets utilized a whole host of sub-genres of poetry that allowed them to experiment with poetic forms and constantly challenge the parameters of established genres. The intertextual nature of Persian poetry, combined with the allegorical tech- nique that allowed a set repertoire of images and topoi to be used in various genres, allowed for a great number of hybrid texts. The saqinamah is a genre of classical Persian poetry that enjoyed immense popularity in Persianate literary cultures, especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when many court poets composed such poems. It provides a use- ful case study of the transformation of a genre of classical Persian literature from its some- what obscure origins to a hybrid and highly flexible form of panegyric poetry. Its supposed “originator” was none other than Hafiz (d. 1389), the poet-seer of Shiraz, whose saqinamah was received and refashioned in innovative ways by later poets. A critical examination of the genesis of the saqinamah and its transformation will illuminate the organic connection between various forms and genres in Persian poetry and enable us to have a broader view of the dynamic nature of the canon of classical Persian literature.2 The saqinamah is a poem in the form of an address to a saqi, wine server or cupbearer, which provides the occasion for the poet to reflect on topics such as kingship and the transitory nature of the world.3 The cupbearer was a courtly institution of ancient Iranian origins, as James R. Russell explains:

1 I would like to thank A.A. Seyed-Gohrab for taking an interest in this paper and his informed com- ments and suggestions. 2 The whole question of the definition of literary genres and poetic forms in the Persian tradition is a complex one; see Frank Lewis’ work on the ghazal, Reading, Writing and Recitation: Sana’i and the Ori- gins of the Persian Ghazal (Unpublished dissertation, University of Chicago, 1995), 1-14. I have dealt with aspects of this issue in the context of another genre of classical Persian poetry, the habsiyat, in Persian Poetry at the Indian Frontier: Mas‘ud Sa‘d Salman of Lahore (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2000), 68-72. The poetic genre of shahrashub also raises many similar questions as the saqinamah, see Persian Poetry at the Indian Frontier, 107-116. 3 For a survey of the form, see S.B. Muzhdahi’s entry in saqinamah in Danishnamah-i adab-i Farsi (Tehran: Danishnamah, 1376), ed. H. Anushah, v. 2. 76 SUNIL SHARMA

The cupbearer appears thus to have enjoyed special access to the Achaemenid monarch, who usually feasted on the other side of a curtain from his company … The scope of the cupbearer’s influence appears to have been considerable in view of the fact that it was customary for the king to consider petitions when slightly inebriated, so that the verdict might be favorable; the Sasanians continued this practice.4 In medieval Iran, he continued to have an important status in courtly gatherings, as described by J.T.P. de Bruijn: The drinking of wine served to create the right mood for other things like music, singing and dancing, or games like chess and backgammon, usually combined with gambling. There was much bawdy conversation and flirting with the boys who served the guests as cup bearers, or musicians and dancers.5 Therefore, the connection of the cupbearer with the old courtly culture of Iran was preserved in one form or other in the Islamic period of Iranian history and the saqinamah is a celebration of this institution. Poetry about the wine itself and the courtly culture associated with its usage existed in a genre of its own, the khamriyah, which has its roots in Arabic poetry; the saqinamah which developed into an independent poetic genre can be classified as a sub-genre of the khamriyah since it focuses on one figure in this courtly oenophilic culture.6 The second part of the saqinamah is usually a mughanninamah, an address to a minstrel, another requisite character at convivial courtly gatherings. The two parts are distinct in tone but function as a unified text. Based on the subject and form in which such poems were composed, it appears that the saqinamah was originally connected to heroic epics since it was written as a masnavi of an unspecified length in the mutaqarib metre, and included allusions to a host of characters from Firdawsi’s Shahnamah. Addresses to the cupbearer occur in the earliest Per- sian poetry, as well as in the Shahnamah, interspersed in a narrative sequence but not as an organizing device or a separate poem, as would happen later.7 The issues dealt with in the saqinamah, kingship and courtly ethics, are by no means exclusive to this genre but are dealt with in all kinds of Persian court poetry. Therefore, if the organic relationship of the saqinamah to the larger body of classical court Persian poetry can be understood in the context of the heroic epic, the question remains why and in what circumstances did this kind of poem come into being as an independent work. Although there is no separate saqinamah in the Shahnamah, the existence of two lines from a lost masnavi of Fakhr al-

4 “Cupbearer,” Encyclopedia Iranica. 5 Of Piety and Poetry: The Interactions of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Hakim Sana’i of Ghazna (Leiden: Brill, 1983), 157. Also see the entry for “saÈi, (In Persian usage)” in the Ency- clopedia of Islam, 2nd ed., by W.L. Hanaway for a brief history of the saqi as a stock figure in Persian poetry. 6 For a survey of khamriyah poetry in Persian, see Z.A. Mut’aman, Shi‘r va adab-i Farsi (Tehran: Afshari, 1364), 224-235. His suggestion that the saqinamah is characterized by the introduction of mystical elements in the courtly and non-mystical genre of khamriyah poetry accords with larger developments in the history of Persian poetry, especially in the sabk-i ‘Iraqi style, 230. Ehsan Yarshater writes, “Glorification of wine and drinking scenes is … one of the major themes of early Persian poetry … Generally, the poets speaks with knowledge and authority on the subject,” “The Theme of Wine-Drinking and the Concept of the Beloved in Early Persian Poetry,” 44, Studia Islamica 13 (1960). 7 ‘Ali Akbar Dihkhuda in his dictionary cites the following line by Rudaki: ay bulbul-i khvushnava ava dih/ay saqian qadah ra bi-ma dih (Melodious nightingale, sing an air/Saqi, give me that goblet). THE GENESIS AND TRANSFORMATION OF A CLASSICAL POETIC GENRE 77

Din As‘ad Gurgani (d. 1058) in this metre, preserved in medieval dictionaries, provides the basis for the speculation that this poet wrote such a poem: biya saqian ab-i atashfurugh kih az dil barad zang u az jan vurugh mughanni biya u biyar an surud kih rizam zi har didah sad zandahrud8 Saqi, bring the fiery and bright liquid that removes the heart’s weariness and the soul’s darkness. Come, minstrel, play that song, so that my eyes shed a hundred rivers. But what seems more probable is that the early poets only included a few lines of such addresses in longer works on heroic or courtly themes. If Firdawsi provided the inspiration for the topic of this kind of poem, it was actually Nizami Ganjavi (d. 1209) who directly influenced its genesis as a separate work. In Nizami’s Iskandarnamah, the address to the saqi, usually in two hemistichs, serves as an organizing device to begin each section of the work; the Sharafnamah has 48 such bayts that address the saqi and the Iqbalnamah has 30 that address the mughanni.9 This tradition was transmitted along with the far-reaching influence that Nizami’s masnavis had over poets in the Persianate world. The post-Nizami poets, Amir Khusraw (d. 1325), Hasan Dihlavi (d. 1328), Khvaju Kirmani (d. ca. 1352),10 and Jami (d. 1492), utilized these lines in a similar way in their masnavis.11 However, at the same time that the inclusion of such addresses became part of the tradition of writing long masnavis, the scattered lines from Nizami’s Iskandar- namah were gathered together and presented as an independent work, as we will see below. Drawing his inspiration from this work, Hafiz composed his own masnavi and is thus credited as being the originator of the saqinamah.12 The text of Hafiz’s poem is not without its own philological problems, with the number of lines varying considerably in their number and order.13 An anecdote from a

8 Ahmad Gulchin Ma‘ani, Tazkirah-yi paymanah (Mashhad: Danishgah-i Mashhad, 1359), 1. This line has been found in dictionaries such as Farhang-i Rashidi and Farhang-i Jahangiri, see Muhammad Ja‘far Mahjub, “Saqinamah-mughanninamah,” Sukhan 11 (1339) for a variant of this version and sources for its transmission, 78-79. All translations are mine. 9 Before this, in his Layli va Majnun, Nizami used the device of addressing a saqi as he ponders various subjects in a hasb-i hal mode; see the discussion in A.A. Seyed-Gohrab’s A Narration of Love: An Analysis of the Twelft Century Persian Poet Nizami’s Layli and Majnun (Privately published doctoral dissertation, 2001), 82. 10 For a comparision, chiefly concerning style, of Khvaju’s poem with that of Hafiz, see Manuchihr Amiri’s “Muqayisah-yi saqinamah-yi Khvaju ba saqinamah-yi Hafiz,” Kilk 20 (1370): 6-13. 11 Amir Khusraw followed Nizami in writing a poem about Alexander, called Ayinah-i Iskandari; Hasan Dihlavi’s short masnavi, called ‘Ishqnamah, about an Indian tale is less known. 12 There has been some debate among scholars whether Hafiz wrote the first independent saqinamah or his contemporary, Salman Savaji. Gulchin Ma‘ani writes that this was based on a mistake by a scribe of the nineteenth century biographical dictionary of Riza Quli Khan Hidayat, Majma‘ al-fusaha who erro- neously called Salman’s Firaqnamah a saqinamah, an error that was picked up and perpetuated by Rashid Yasimi, Tazkirah-i paymanah, 7. 13 There are 58 to 151 lines depending on the manuscript and/or edition of the poet’s works. For the variant readings and “extra” lines, see the description in Khanlari’s edition, 1050; also see Mahjub, 9. The problem of interpolation and authenticity of Hafiz’s poems affects the entire oeuvre of the poet. In the case of the saqinamah, we do have enough evidence that he wrote the poem, leaving the question of establishing an “authentic” text, which has been ably done by Khanlari. 78 SUNIL SHARMA contemporary source, the Munsha’at-i salatin of Shihab Munshi, a secretary employed by Hafiz’s patron, Shah Shuja‘ the Muzaffarid, describes how the poem came to be composed: One day, at an assembly a discussion about the saqinamah of Nizami had arisen, and those present were all in agreement that poetry cannot be composed in this manner. The fortunate king took great interest in this matter, and [as a result] this [versified] necklace was strung together with words.14 Nizami’s saqinamah was not a single poem but a compilation of lines addressing the saqi and mughanni found throughout his Iskandarnamah. It must have already assumed this form during Hafiz’s time, as can be surmised from the quotation above, but more impor- tantly, the historical context of the genesis of Hafiz’s poem is reported here. The poem was produced at the instance of the patron for a specific occasion, and inspired by older literary texts that regularly served as models for the creation of new works. Faramurz Gudarzi has noted the influence of Firdawsi on Hafiz’s poem, chiefly because of the metre and based on the allusions that Hafiz makes to characters in the Shahnamah.15 But he cautions that despite some elements of epic poetry in Hafiz’s poem, his overall vocabulary is characteristic of the later sabk-i ‘Iraqi school of poetry which has a decidedly mystical quality to it.16 Whereas the connection between the saqinamah and epic poetry may be obvious at a structural level, it must be kept in mind that much of subsequent Persian poetry was directly or indirectly influenced by the Shah- namah, and the preponderance of heroic names in the saqinamahs may not indicate a specific textual origin but rather evokes a particular mood in which heroic and courtly virtues are celebrated. Hafiz’s role in the development of this poetic form must be examined against the background of his times and at a specific juncture in the history of Persian poetry, when poets refashioned received texts in multiple ways. By the four- teenth century, mystical poetry with its special register of language and imagery had per- vaded all existing literary traditions in Persian. One of its chief characteristics, as with Hafiz’s ghazals generally, was a studied ambiguity of language and meaning, and it is futile to apply the exclusive categories of mystical and heroic to poems that have a more complex structure. The saqinamah portion of Hafiz’s poem includes allusions to various rulers of the past, with both positive and negative connotations, and this nostalgia sets the mood for the first part of the poem: biya saqian may kih ‘aksash zi jam bi-Kay Khusraw u Jam firistad payam bi-dih ta bi-guyam bi-avaz-i nay kih Jamshid ki bud u Ka’us Kay17

14 From the fifth chapter of the Munsha’at-i salatin, quoted in Tazkirah-yi paymanah, 8. 15 “Nazari bar Shahnamah va ta’sir-i an bar saqinamah,” Hunar va mardum 154/3 (1354), 97, 102, 105. 16 Gudarzi, 98. 17 The quotations of Hafiz’s poem are from the Divan-i Hafiz, ed. Parviz Khanlari (Tihran: Khvarazmi, 1362), 1050-1059. THE GENESIS AND TRANSFORMATION OF A CLASSICAL POETIC GENRE 79

Bring that wine, saqi, whose reflection sends a message to Kay Khusraw and Jamshid. Give it so that I may declare by the reed’s song who Jamshid and Kay Ka’us were. In addition to Kay Khusraw, Jamshid and Kay Ka’us, characters from the Shahnamah mentioned by Hafiz are Afrasiyab, Piran, Salm and Tur, out of whom Jamshid is the most prominent one. He is celebrated as a wise king who was able to look beyond the material realm: chih khvush guft Jamshid-i ba taj u ganj kih yak jaw nayarzad sara-yi sipanj How well did Jamshid with the crown and treasure say, This world is not worth a grain of barley. Jamshid’s special ability to see the entire world in his goblet is a quality that is desired by the poet in his capacity as a wise ruler: bi-dih saqian may k’azu jam-i Jam zanad laf-i bina’i andar ‘adam bi-man dih kih gardam bi-ta‘id-i jam chu Jam agah az sirr-i ‘alam tamam dam az sayr-i in dayr-i dirinah zan sala’i bi-shahan-i pishinah zan haman manzil ast in jahan-i kharab kih didah ast ayvan-i Afrasiyab Saqi, give the wine with which Jamshid’s cup boasts of seeing into non-existence. Give it to me so that with its help I become aware of the world’s secrets like Jamshid. Speak of the passing of the world of yore, call out to the kings of old. This ruined world is the same abode that the palace of Afrasiyab saw. Hafiz does not valorize the martial qualities of rulers such as would be found in epic poetry, but a philosophical and even seer-like quality that a king like Jamshid possessed. Julie S. Meisami has written that Jamshid and his cup are “the most well-known emblematic allusion” in Hafiz’s poetry and presents “a variation on the ubi sunt topos with which the legendary kings of Iran are traditionally associated in Persian poetry.”18 In a nostal- gic vein the poet recalls the virtues of bygone kings, and sees the world as the abode of

18 “Allegorical Techniques in the Ghazals of Hafez,” Edebiyat 4:1 (1979): 29. Also relevant is this comment, “It is important to note that such metaphors are not used exclusively, or even primarily, to express mystical doctrines; it is more unusual in fact to see mystical concepts used as a line of support for a more general moral precept,” 26. 80 SUNIL SHARMA

Afrasiyab, a villain in the Shahnamah. Ultimately Hafiz claims that the cupbearer role is that of a crown-bestower: bi-dih saqian may kih shahi dihad bi-paki-yi u dil guvahi dihad Saqi, give the wine that bestows kingship, to the purity of which the heart testifies. In order to be an able and just king, such as the ones who lived in the past and left their mark on the world, a ruler must drink the wine served by the saqi. Through this act of evoking the past and taking the wine from the saqi, the poem takes on a ceremonial and emblematic function in this context.19 The poet’s role in this courtly ceremony is as important as that of the wine-server: man anam kih chun jam giram bi-dast bibinam dar an a’inah har chih hast I am he who, when taking the goblet in hand, sees in that mirror all that exists. The source of this power and his inspiration is the wine, of course, as he says in the last two lines of the poem, using the established metaphor of piercing pearls for the act of composing verse: bi-masti tavan durr-i asrar suft kih dar bikhvudi raz natavan nihuft kih Hafiz chu mastanah sazad surud zi charkhash dihad rud-i Zuhrah durud The pearls of secrets can be pierced in inebriation for the secret cannot be hidden in selflessness. When Hafiz drunkenly sings a song, Venus’ harp sends greetings from the heavens. Thus, Hafiz the poet is ultimately a mediator between the past and the present, as well as between this world and the other. In contrast, the tone in the second half of the poem, the mughanninamah, which is about half the size of the saqinamah, is less somber and both more personal and mystical. In this part of the poem, Hafiz makes references to loved ones who have left this world: bi-mastan navid-i surudi firist bi-yaran-i raftah durudi firist ravan-i buzurgan zi khvud shad kun zi Parviz u az Barbad yad kun

19 For a relevant study of nostalgia through the evocation of geographical sites in the Arabic and Per- sian qasidah, see Julie Meisami’s “Places in the Past: The Poetics/Politics of Nostalgia,” Edebiyat 8 (1998): 63-106. The author’s remarks on the function of nostalgia as a topos that can be manipulated as well as its formal function are particularly applicable to Hafiz’s poem. THE GENESIS AND TRANSFORMATION OF A CLASSICAL POETIC GENRE 81

Send good tidings in song to the inebriated, Send greetings to departed friends. Gladden the souls of the great with yourself, And remember Parviz and Barbad. The departed friends mentioned here are in contrast to the legendary kings in the saqinamah, and renders this portion of the poem less grandiose and more personal. The allusions to Parviz and Barbad are the only ones to historical figures; no other royal person- ages are alluded to here. The poet finds a salvation to the moral dilemma of the world that has been set up in the first part of the poem: mara bar ‘adu ‘aqibat fursat ast kih az asman muzhdah-yi nusrat ast At last I am free of my enemies, For there is news of victory from heaven. The departed ones can rest in peace knowing that things are well with the living. The poet twice refers to the khusruvani surud, a musical term which is suggestive of regal qualities. In the middle of the poem, Hafiz tells the singer, bi-qawl o ghazal qissah aghaz kun (Begin your tale with a song or lyric), suggesting that this poem is meant as an interlude at some assembly or this is a convention that is leftover from the original place of such lines in masnavis.20 In general there is more of a musical quality to the mughanninamah, compared to the saqinamah, and the mood here is lighter as if the burden of the past is no longer weighing upon the poet. The structural relationship between the saqinamah and the mughanninamah is not quite clear. Some editors of the divan have seen the two as separate poems while others consider them as one unit, although the use of the poet's penname at the end of the first part, as in the ghazal, suggests the independence of the two poems. The poem finally ends with a clear reference to mysticism: rahi zan kih sufi bi-halat ravad bi-masti-yi vaslash havalat ravad mughanni kuja'i bi-avaz-i rud bi-yad ar az an khusruvani surud kih ta vajd ra karsazi kunam bi-raqs ayam u khirqah bazi kunam Play a tune that sends the Sufi into ecstasy, [and] in the inebriation of union his senses be lost. Where are you, singer? With the music of the harp, call to mind the kingly melody. So that I may put my ecstasy to use, and tearing my robes begin to dance.

20 Mahjub points out that the address to the saqi always begins with bi-ya (come) but there is no such convention for the mughanni, 79. Perhaps this would suggest formulaic origins for the poem or merely a conscious effort to write in an archaic style. 82 SUNIL SHARMA

Sama‘ functions as an essential component of the practice of Sufism, and music here has a central place in bringing about the spiritual transformation that Hafiz longs for. As with the bulk of Hafiz's poetry, in the saqinamah too, Sufi terms abound. There are three terms in the opening lines: hal, karamat and kamal. However, one must be cautious about reading this as a purely mystical text; Hafiz operates at an ambiguous level as J. Christoph Bürgel suggests, “Hafiz plays with language, plays with literary and even with spiritual traditions, and, by doing so, lays bare the ambiguity of language, perception and thought.”21 He uses the register of mystical poetry masterfully in conveying his message, which is not exclusively about Sufism but Sufi conduct in the larger context of Iran- ian courtly culture. Nevertheless, there are stylistic differences between Hafiz's ghazals and his saqinamah that are connected with the choice of form itself; the poet could have conveyed all these ideas in a typical ghazal but the choice of using the saqinamah allowed him to mix elements of epic and lyric poetry in an innovative manner that would not have been possible in any other form.22 The language of his saqinamah varies from that of his ghazals, although there is an overlap in the terminology and imagery employed. The poet deals with timeless issues in a different form; as Julie Meisami states, “It is no exaggeration to state that Hafiz is preoccupied with the ethics of kingship and of courtly conduct; the theme runs close to the surface (when not explicitly stated) in a majority of his ghazals”.23 After Hafiz, the saqinamah became established as a separate genre of poetry, and was at the peak of its popularity in the hands of the sabk-i Hindi poets in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Iran and India, who were quite skilful in manipulating the received genres and topoi from classical literature in the never ending quest for literary innovation and novelty. Apparently, there are no saqinamahs from the Timurid period,24 but without more scholarly research on the connection between Hafiz’s poem and that of the post-Timurid poets, it is difficult to make any general statements about the popularity of this genre then. In the sabk-i Hindi period, almost every poet of any standing composed a saqinamah, which was no longer a short lyric as Hafiz’s poem, but a full-fledged narrative in masnavi form, sometimes running to thousands of lines. The popular value and bulk of these poems prompted the poet at the court of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, ‘Abd al-Nabi Qazvini (d. after 1619), to compile a collection of them entitled Tazkirah- yi maykhanah, which is our source for the historical facts surrounding the genesis of this genre,25 to which a continuation (zayl) was prepared by the text’s modern editor, the Iran-

21 “Ambiguity: A Study in the Use of Religious Terminology in the Poetry of Hafez,” in Intoxication, Earthly and Heavenly: Seven Studies on the Poet Hafiz of Shiraz. Ed. Michael Glünz and J. Christoph Bürgel (New York: Peter Lang, 1991), 39. 22 The choice of form on the poet’s part is a crucial point due to the overlapping subject matter of the ghazal and saqinamah, given that, in W.L. Hanaway’s words, “The two genres in which the saÈi appears most prominently are the ghazal and saÈi-nama,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. 23 Medieval Persian Court Poetry (Princeton, 1987), 297. 24 Tazkirah-i paymanah, 12. 25 In this work, the entry on Hafiz follows that of Nizami, ‘Iraqi and Amir Khusraw. Regarding Hafiz’s poem, the author says that during the poet’s time the tradition of writing saqinamahs did not exist, except for the instances found in the works of Nizami and Khusraw, Tazkirah-i maykhanah (Tehran: Iqbal, 1363), 4th ed., 91. THE GENESIS AND TRANSFORMATION OF A CLASSICAL POETIC GENRE 83 ian scholar Ahmad Gulchin Ma‘ani.26 The experimentation with poetic forms is dis- cernible in these poems: for instance, there are a few saqinamahs in the tarkib-band and tarji‘-band forms, but each one must be examined separately to determine its relationship to the older models. One of the most well-known and historically important works of this type was a saqinamah written at the close of the sixteenth century in the Deccan court of Ahmadnagar by the Iranian émigré poet Zuhuri (d. 1616). Zuhuri’s poem is a masnavi of about 4500 lines in 78 sections, and no longer a lyric poem meant for performance but a lengthy panegyric for his patron Burhan al-Din Nizamshahi. The work comprises of a series of descriptive poems on multiple topics, from the description of spring, the archi- tectural projects commissioned by his patron, to addresses to various characters that inhabit the world of Persian poetry such as the zahid, mayfurush, along with the saqi. There is also a section with shahrashub verses about the professionals in the bazaar that provides an interesting example of literary hybridity in classical texts. Thus, the original saqinamah in Hafizian terms is merely one topos of many in Zuhuri’s larger work, although the whole composition is called saqinamah, probably due to the courtly patron- age behind its creation and the inspiration it drew from Hafiz for its core. A host of contemporary poets such as Nasim-i Shumal and Hushang Ibtihaj in Persian, and Muhammad Iqbal in Urdu, have written saqinamahs in the manner of the classical genre but with overt political tones, testifying to the flexible nature of this genre and the endurance of the Persian(ate) literary tradition in the modern world. Viewing Hafiz’s poem in the context of the development of the genre of saqinamah, it can be seen that classical Persian poetic forms do not have rigid boundaries, and often one genre provides the material for the genesis of another one. Hafiz’s poem was a short lyric composed for a courtly setting that inspired a whole school of saqinamah writers up to the twentieth century. Hafiz’s poem has certain characteristics that it inherited from older epic traditions, like the catalog of heroes and emphasis on kingship, but the combination of nostalgia and philosophizing about the transitory nature of the world is a typical feature of his ghazals and to a great extent of Persian poetry in general. Thus, Hafiz’s saqinamah remains a unique work in Persian literary history from the per- spectives of its structure and later history. Future work on later saqinamahs, as well as other unexamined poems from the divans of post-classical poets, will shed further light on some fundamental literary issues concerning the genesis, reception and transformation of genres in classical Persian literature.

26 The zayl, Tazkirah-i paymanah, includes sixty-two such poets.