Irreverent Persia

Irreverent Persia IRANIAN IRANIAN SERIES SERIES Poetry expressing criticism of social, political and cultural life is a vital integral part of IRREVERENT PERSIA Persian literary history. Its principal genres – invective, satire and burlesque – have been INVECTIVE, SATIRICAL AND BURLESQUE POETRY very popular with authors in every age. Despite the rich uninterrupted tradition, such texts FROM THE ORIGINS TO THE TIMURID PERIOD have been little studied and rarely translated. Their irreverent tones range from subtle (10TH TO 15TH CENTURIES) irony to crude direct insults, at times involving the use of outrageous and obscene terms. This anthology includes both major and minor poets from the origins of Persian poetry RICCARDO ZIPOLI (10th century) up to the age of Jâmi (15th century), traditionally considered the last great classical Persian poet. In addition to their historical and linguistic interest, many of these poems deserve to be read for their technical and aesthetic accomplishments, setting them among the masterpieces of Persian literature. Riccardo Zipoli is professor of Persian Language and Literature at Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, where he also teaches Conceiving and Producing Photography. The western cliché about Persian poetry is that it deals with roses, nightingales, wine, hyperbolic love-longing, an awareness of the transience of our existence, and a delicate appreciation of life’s fleeting pleasures. And so a great deal of it does. But there is another side to Persian verse, one that is satirical, sardonic, often obscene, one that delights in ad hominem invective and no-holds barred diatribes. Perhaps surprisingly enough for the uninitiated reader it is frequently the same poets who write both kinds of verse. Riccardo Zipoli’s Irreverent Persia is a splendidly comprehensive introduction to this fascinating and hitherto virtually ignored side of the Persian literary canon, providing a wealth of examples of the varieties of the genre in accurate and felicitous translations. − Dick Davis, professor and Chair of the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department, Ohio State University Riccardo Zipoli LEIDEN UNIVERSITY PRESS www.lup.nl L U P Irreverent Persia iranian studies series The Iranian Studies Series publishes high-quality scholarship on various aspects of Iranian civilisation, covering both contemporary and classical cultures of the Persian cultural area. The contemporary Persian-speaking area includes Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Central Asia, while classical societies using Persian as a literary and cultural language were located in Anatolia, Caucasus, Central Asia and the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent. The objective of the series is to foster studies of the literary, historical, religious and linguistic products in Iranian languages. In addition to research mon- ographs and reference works, the series publishes English-Persian critical text-editions of important texts. The series intends to publish resources and original research and make them accessible to a wide audience. chief editor A.A. Seyed-Gohrab (Leiden University) advisory board of iss F. Abdullaeva (University of Cambridge) G.R. van den Berg (Leiden University) F. de Blois (University of London, SOAS) J.T.P. de Bruijn (Leiden University) D.P. Brookshaw (University of Oxford) N. Chalisova (Russian State University of Moscow) A. Adib-Moghaddam (University of London, SOAS) D. Davis (Ohio State University) M.M. Khorrami (New York University) A.R. Korangy Isfahani (University of Virginia) F.D. Lewis (University of Chicago) L. Lewisohn (University of Exeter) S. McGlinn (unaffiliated) Ch. Melville (University of Cambridge) D. Meneghini (University of Venice) N. Pourjavady (University of Tehran) Ch. van Ruymbeke (University of Cambridge) A. Sedighi (Portland State University) S. Sharma (Boston University) K. Talattof (University of Arizona) Z. Vesel (CNRS, Paris) M.J. Yahaghi (Ferdowsi University of Mashhad) R. Zipoli (University of Venice) irreverent persia invective, satirical and burlesque poetry from the origins to the timurid period (10th to 15th centuries) Riccardo Zipoli Leiden University Press Cover design: Tarek Atrissi Design Cover illustration: Nizami’s Khamsa. Shiraz, 1449–1450, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 13.228.2, fol. 332r (Gift of Alexander Smith Cochran, 1913). Lay-out: TAT Zetwerk, Utrecht isbn 978 90 8728 227 1 e-isbn 978 94 0060 212 0 (ePDF) e-isbn 978 94 0060 213 7 (ePub) nur 635 © Riccardo Zipoli / Leiden University Press, 2015 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. This book is distributed in North America by the University of Chicago Press (www.press.uchicago.edu) Contents Notes on Transliteration System, Dates and Biographical Information Acknowledgements Introduction The Genre of Hajv (‘Satire’, ‘Mockery’, ‘Verbal Aggression’) The Genre of Hazl (‘Witticism’, ‘Facetiae’, ‘Bawdy Poetry’) Historical Background Poetic Forms Tradition of Studies Authors and Texts chapter 1 – Invective Poetry Physical Images Actions Involving the Victims of Satire Imprecatory Poetry Composite Poetry chapter 2 – Satirical Poetry Patrons and Ruling Classes Poets Court Milieu Religious Context Women as Habitual Subject for Satire Satirising Members of a Family Peoples and Towns Addressees with no Social Labels Behaviour and Customs 6 | Irreverent Persia chapter 3 – Burlesque Poetry Form and Content Replies to Poems Biographies of the Poets Glossary of Key Literary Terms Notes Bibliography Index of Names, Places and Works Notes on Transliteration System, Dates and Biographical Information Except in cases for which there is a widely accepted spelling (such as Bu- khara and Muʿâwiya), the Persian and Arabic terms have been transliterated following the rules proposed by the Library of Congress for Persian, but with no diacritical marks: only the long vowel ‘a’ is indicated as â (corresponding to a ‘back’ a). For the vowels and the diphthongs, the transliteration is based on the standard contemporary Persian pronunciation. The accent in Persian nouns falls on the last syllable. Only the Christian era system of dates has been used with no corresponding Islamic dates. This rule does not apply to the year of publication for books cited in the bibliography, in which both dates are included (the Christian date first). When there is a double date for the Christian era (for example, 1160/1), this indicates that the corresponding year in the Islamic era straddles two years in the Christian era and it is not known in which of the two the event in question took place. The poets’ names are written in summarised form (in the Islamic world the name of a person often involves a long series of components), but in such a way as to make them easily identifiable. In cases of homonymy, an extra element is added, usually the nisba (indication of genealogical, ethnical or geographical provenance). In an appendix at the end of the book there are brief biographical notes on the poets translated in the anthology. In the introduction all the names of people are accompanied by a reference date the first time they are mentioned. There are no notes for well-known places or people (such as the prophet Muhammad) or unknown names (as happens, for example, with some per- sons contemporary to our poets). If a term requiring comment or expla- nation recurs several times in the same poem, the note appears at the first mention of the term. The English equivalents of technical terms are provided only the first time that they occur, but a glossary of the key literary terms is provided at the end of the book. Acknowledgements I began this work in 1993 and, from the outset, I was lucky enough to rely on the invaluable collaboration of my friend and colleague Hamid Rezâ Bahârlu, who unfortunately died prematurely and whom I remember with deep and heart-felt gratitude. His help and intuitive insight were crucial in finding and interpreting the corpus collected here. The work came into being at the prompting of Ehsan Yarshater, who also read through a preliminary version and offered advice. Encouragement and suggestions from François de Blois, Hans de Bruijn and Geert Jan van Gelder were of vital importance in completing the work. Lastly, it was due to the interest shown by Asghar Seyed-Gohrab that this book eventually found a prestigious publisher. I offer them all my warmest thanks. Moreover, I should like to express my gratitude to Jalâl Moravvej and Gianroberto Scarcia for their extremely expert comments in the interpreta- tion of controversial passages, and to Daniele Guizzo and Stefano Pellò who provided initial Italian translations of some of the texts. I am also deeply indebted to Gianroberto Scarcia, Daniela Meneghini, Daniele Guizzo and Stefano Pellò for reading and checking some parts of the book. Finally, many thanks go to David Kerr for his essential contribution to drafting this text in English. Introduction The texts presented here come from a little studied area of Persian literature consisting of poems that reflect critical attitudes (ranging from gen- tle irony to elaborate condemnation and even crude verbal aggression) towards people, situations, aspects and products of social, political and cultural reality. Our study deals with this kind of poetry from its origins (10th century) up to the Timurid period (15th century) and ends with the age of Jâmi (d. 1492), traditionally considered the last great classical Persian poet. Despite this relatively limited time scale, the field of inquiry is very rich. It embraces a broad range of literary genres that may be considered members of a single great typological family. These genres include invective, cursing, lampoon, satire, diatribe, mockery, facetiae, social criticism, burlesque, par- ody and the like. Some of them are so close in terms of intent, motivation, expression and content that they often overlap.

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