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Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture

Lyrics of LifeSa'di on Love, Cosmopolitanism and Care of the Self

By Fatemeh Keshavarz

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£19.99

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About this book

A creative and analytical study of important facets of classical Persian poetry

  • Includes hundreds of verses in translation, making it ideal for use by students
  • Explores the connections between poetry and lived experience
  • Highlights the role of classical Persian poetry as the 'silk road of the imagination', connecting many polities and diverse ways of life
  • Examines the poetic strategies that give Sa’di’s substantive and sumptuous lyrics their unique status

This imaginative study of the lyrical, humorous, social and educational aspects of classical Persian poetry focuses on the works of the master medieval poet Sa‘di of Shiraz (d. 1291), one of the funniest, most influential and lyrical figures in classical Persian poetry. Sa’di, a prominent ethicist and a devout teacher of virtues, stands out for his worldliness, his practical teachings, and his love for living a wholesome life, as well as for his signature elegance and artistry that has compelled critics to call his lyrics perfectly polished diamonds.

In a language deliberately free of technical jargon, Keshavarz argues for the versatility of Sa‘di’s poetic voice and portrays his notion of love as open to multiple perspectives including homoerotic aesthetics. She brings to life the worldly wisdom that kept the lyrical, adventurous, and ethical legacy of Sa’di fresh and effective through the passage of time.

Reviews

Sa'di is a poet for this age, and every age. And there is no better gateway to the rose garden of Sa'di's magnificent world than the mind, the heart, and the pen of Fatemeh Keshavarz. Keshavarz situates Sa'di as a deeply humane voice, poetically lyrical, and ethically cosmopolitan. We are indebted to Professor Keshavarz for another masterful and lyrical work that opens up not just Sa'di, but a whole possibility of humanistic encounter with the pre-modern world. Recommended most enthusiastically for all who love literature, ethics, and cosmopolitanism.
Table of contents
  1. At the brink of writing: which doors to open first?
  2. Cosmopolitan kinship: the making of a multi-world subjectivity in the poetry of Sa‘di
  3. Sa‘di on care of the self: ethical games of power in practice of freedom
  4. ‘Every new flower arriving in the world’: Sa‘di and the art of ghazal writing
  5. Gazing at the garden of your beauty: love in the garden
  6. My poor heart sometimes runs, sometimes whirls: meet Sa‘di the comedian
  7. Epilogue: leaving the garden already? Here are a few things I hope you take along
Bibliography
About the author

Fatemeh Keshavarz

Fatemeh Keshavarz is the Roshan Chair in Persian Studies & Director at Roshan Institute for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Keshavarz works on mystical Persian poetry and is author of five monographs including Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi and Recite in the Name of the Red Rose: Poetic Sacred Making in Twentieth Century Iran (University of South Carolina Press, 1998 & 2006). Her last monograph, Lyrics of Life: Sa’di on Love, Cosmopolitanism, and Care of the Self was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2016.

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