Khorasani style (poetry)

Khorāsānī style (Persian: سبک خراسانی sabk-i Khorāsānī 'the style of Khurāsān', also known as sabk-i Turkistānī 'the style of Turkistan', also transliterated Khurāsānī) was a movement in Persian poetry associated with the court of the Ghaznavids, associated with Greater Khorasan (now divided between Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan).

History

The term was coined in the early twentieth century.^[1] It is traditionally considered to characterise the first period of New Persian poetry, running from the ninth century CE into the second half of the twelfth. It is characterized by its plain poetic technique, concrete images and metaphors, and some archaic linguistic features. While showing limited use of Arabic loan-words, poetry in this style was influenced by Arabic verse, particularly in terms of its prosody, and the dominant genre was the praise-poem.^[2]

The Khurāsānī period was succeeded by the sabk-i ‘Irāqī ('style of Iraq'), with its greater use of Arabisms, more elaborate metaphors and imagery, and turn towards spiritualism.^[3] However, the transition between the periods was not a sharp one.^[4] The style saw a return to popularity with the so-called literary revival (bazgasht-e adabi) of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries.^[5]

Exponents

The pre-eminent study of the style was by Muḥammad Jaʻfar Maḥjūb in 1971.^[6] The chief representatives of this lyricism are Asjadi, Farrukhi Sistani, Unsuri, and Manuchehri. Panegyric masters such as Rudaki were known for their love of nature, their verse abounding with evocative descriptions.

Example

A. A. Seyed-Gohrab contrasts the following passages to illustrate the Khorāsānī style.^[7] The first is a description of a palace from Qaṣīda 31 by Farrukhī Sistānī, writing in the earlier eleventh century. It is plain and concrete in its description:

There was a kingly palace in the middle of the garden

The top of the parapets was situated between two turrets

Within the palace, there were decorated porticoes

Each opening towards a belvedere

One was adorned like Chinese brocade

The other contained pictures as in Mani's Artang

In this palace, the images of the King of the East

Were carved/painted in several places:

In one place, he is fighting, holding in his hand a small javelin

In another place, he is feasting, holding in his hand a cup of wine.

The second is from the end of the sabk-i Khurāsānī period, near to the sabk-i ‘Irāqī period: a description of a palace built by Arslān Shah of Ghazna, composed by ‘Uthmān Mukhtārī in the vicinity of 1100. This description is far less concrete and much more spiritual in tone:

The ancient sphere established the centre of the world's empire

Through this place, through which Jupiter exercises its heavenly influence.

When the sun saw its parapets from the sky,

It bowed its head to the ground, and its eyes to the threshold.

[When] the virgins of paradise beheld it from their gardens,

They took this palace for gold, and paradise as the mine.

They considered the earth insignificant because of its firm structure;

The air in this palace was so fine that the air (outside) was heavy.

The architect used his intellect and soul to design this edifice

Through the firmness of his intellect and the grace of his soul.

References

^ 'Persian Poetry', in The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries, ed. by Roland Greene and Stephen Cushman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), p. 419.
^ A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), p. 20; Angela Sadeghi Tehrani, 'Modernist Poetry in Iran and the Pioneers', Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2.7 (July 2014), 167-69 (p. 167).
^ A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), p. 20.
^ Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, 'Stylistic Continuities in Classical Persian Poetry: Reflections on Manuchehri from Dāmghān and Amir Mo‘ezzi', in The Age of the Seljuqs, ed. by Edmund Herzig and Sarah Stewart, The Idea of Iran, 6 (I. B. Tauris).
^ Angela Sadeghi Tehrani, 'Modernist Poetry in Iran and the Pioneers', Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2.7 (July 2014), 167-69 (p. 168).
^ Sabk-i Khurāsānī dar shiʻr-i Fārsī : barrasī-i mukhtaṣṣāt-i sabkī-i shiʻr-i Fārsī az āghāz-i ẓuhūr tā pāyān-i qarn-i panjum hijrī [The Khorasani style in Persian poetry: studies of the stylistic character of Persian poetry from its origins to the end of the fifth century of the Hegira] ([Tihrān]: Intishārāt-i Firdaws, 199-? [first publ. 1971]).
^ A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), pp. 39-42, drawing on Julie Scott Meisami, 'Palaces and Paradises: Palace Description in Medieval Persian Poetry', in Islamic Art and Literature, ed. by O. Grabar and C. Robinson (Princeton, 2001), pp. 21-54.

[1] 'Persian Poetry', in The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries, ed. by Roland Greene and Stephen Cushman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), p. 419.

[2] A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), p. 20; Angela Sadeghi Tehrani, 'Modernist Poetry in Iran and the Pioneers', Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2.7 (July 2014), 167-69 (p. 167).

[3] A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), p. 20.

[4] Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, 'Stylistic Continuities in Classical Persian Poetry: Reflections on Manuchehri from Dāmghān and Amir Mo‘ezzi', in The Age of the Seljuqs, ed. by Edmund Herzig and Sarah Stewart, The Idea of Iran, 6 (I. B. Tauris).

[5] Angela Sadeghi Tehrani, 'Modernist Poetry in Iran and the Pioneers', Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2.7 (July 2014), 167-69 (p. 168).

[6] Sabk-i Khurāsānī dar shiʻr-i Fārsī : barrasī-i mukhtaṣṣāt-i sabkī-i shiʻr-i Fārsī az āghāz-i ẓuhūr tā pāyān-i qarn-i panjum hijrī [The Khorasani style in Persian poetry: studies of the stylistic character of Persian poetry from its origins to the end of the fifth century of the Hegira] ([Tihrān]: Intishārāt-i Firdaws, 199-? [first publ. 1971]).

[7] A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010), pp. 39-42, drawing on Julie Scott Meisami, 'Palaces and Paradises: Palace Description in Medieval Persian Poetry', in Islamic Art and Literature, ed. by O. Grabar and C. Robinson (Princeton, 2001), pp. 21-54.

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