The
first English-language study of the Persian prison poem
- Develops
a new approach to genre, based on the political status of the prison
poem
- Offers
an unprecedented account of the interrelations of poetry and power in
pre-modern literature
- Sheds
new light on Muslim–Christian relations by documenting the
multi-confessional orientation of many prison poems
- Relates
the trajectory of the prison poem genre in pre-modern poetics to
Iranian literary modernism, including the prison poems of Muhammad
Taqi Bahar
Through
a series of insightful and sophisticated readings, this book reveals
the worldliness of premodern Persian poetry. It traces the political
role of poetry in shaping the prison poem genre (habsiyyat) across
12th-century Central, South and West Asia. The emergence of the genre
is indebted to the increasing importance of the poet, who came into
increasing conflict with Ghaznavid and Saljuq sovereigns as the genre
developed. Uniting the polarities of perpetuity and contingency, the
poet’s body became the medium for the prison poem’s oppositional
poetics.
