This title is no longer available from this publisher at this time. To let the publisher know you are interested in the title, please email bv-help@uchicago.edu.
Love and Devotion: From Persia and Beyond
edited by Susan Scollay
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2012 Cloth: 978-1-85124-278-8 Library of Congress Classification PK6416.L68 2012 Dewey Decimal Classification 891.5
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Yusuf and Zulaykha. Khusrau and Shirin. Layla and Majnun. For hundreds of years, Persian poets have captivated audiences with recitations and reinterpretations of timeless tales of earthly and spiritual love. These tales were treasured not only in Iran, but also across the neighboring Mughal and Ottoman Empires.
In Love and Devotion, leading specialists in literature, art history, and philosophy reveal new perspectives on these evocative stories and the exquisite illustrated manuscripts that convey them. Particularly in courtly settings, poetry was a key component of Persian cultural life from the fourteenth through the eighteenth century, and elite patrons commissioned copies of lyrical poems and epics told in verse. Beautifully presented here in full-page reproductions are more than one hundred folios from these illustrated manuscripts, representing masterful works from Hafiz, Rumi, and many others. Echoes of works by Persian poets are manifest across European literature from Dante and Shakespeare to the present, and this lavishly illustrated book reveals new perspectives on the universal theme of love.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Susan Scollay is an art historian who specializes in the art and culture of the Islamic world. She is guest cocurator of the exhibition Love and Devotion: From Persia and Beyond, which will travel from the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, to the Bodleian Library.
REVIEWS
"This handsome volume accompanies an exhibition of the same name. Fourteen chapters present aspects of classic Persianate literature and book illustrations ostensibly focused on the themes of love and devotion, but actually including such topics as mysticism and astrology, and a discussion of related themes, such as the influences on Chaucer and European travelers. . . . The pictures are beautifully reproduced with lots of details. . . . Recommended."
— Choice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Note to the Reader
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. An Introduction to Persian Poetry and Its Milieu
Susan Scollay Part I: Epic Romance
2. Love and Devotion in the Shahnama of Firdausi
Barbara Brend
3. Women in the Romances of the Shahnama
Firuza Abdullaeva Part II: Language of the Heart
4. ‘Bahram Gur Visits the Lady from Khwarazm in the Blue Pavilion on Wednesday’ and Similar Representations from Illustrated Manuscripts by Nizami, Hatifi and Mir ‘Ali Shir in the Bodleian Library
Eleanor Sims
5. Earthly and Spiritual Love in Sufism: Ibn “Arabi and the Poetry of Rumi
Süleyman Derin Selection of Poetry
6. The Mystic Poetry of ‘Attar and the Conference of the Birds
Rafal Stepien
7. Meetings of Lovers: The Bodleian Majalis al-‘Ushshaq, MS. Ouseley, Add. 24
Lâle Uluç
8. Dreams, Premonitions and Cosmologies in Persianate Literature
Stefano Carboni Part III: Intersections: From Persia and Beyond
9. Images of Love and Devotion: Illustrated Mughal Manuscripts and Albums in the Bodleian Library
Andrew Topsfield
10. An Ottoman ‘Garden of Love’: The Oxford Dilsuznama, the ‘Book of Compassion’
Susan Scollay Iskandar/Alexander: East and West
11. The Two Faces of Love: Devotion and Terror in Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Danijela Kambaskovic-Sawers
12. Romance and Love in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, The Squire’s Tale and The Parliament of Fowls Nicholas Perkins
13. Imagining Persia: European Travellers’ Tales and Their Literary Offspring
Clare Williamson Part IV: Persian Poets and Their Stories
14. A Glance at the History of Romantic Versified Stories in Persian Poetry
Seyed Mohammad Torabi
Literary Works, Selected Characters and Summaries of the Major Stories
Biographies of the Major Persian Poets and Writers
Timeline
Map
Glossary
Nearby on shelf for Indo-Iranian philology and literature / Iranian philology and literature / New Persian:
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9781851245314
9780226731513
This title is no longer available from this publisher at this time. To let the publisher know you are interested in the title, please email bv-help@uchicago.edu.
Yusuf and Zulaykha. Khusrau and Shirin. Layla and Majnun. For hundreds of years, Persian poets have captivated audiences with recitations and reinterpretations of timeless tales of earthly and spiritual love. These tales were treasured not only in Iran, but also across the neighboring Mughal and Ottoman Empires.
In Love and Devotion, leading specialists in literature, art history, and philosophy reveal new perspectives on these evocative stories and the exquisite illustrated manuscripts that convey them. Particularly in courtly settings, poetry was a key component of Persian cultural life from the fourteenth through the eighteenth century, and elite patrons commissioned copies of lyrical poems and epics told in verse. Beautifully presented here in full-page reproductions are more than one hundred folios from these illustrated manuscripts, representing masterful works from Hafiz, Rumi, and many others. Echoes of works by Persian poets are manifest across European literature from Dante and Shakespeare to the present, and this lavishly illustrated book reveals new perspectives on the universal theme of love.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Susan Scollay is an art historian who specializes in the art and culture of the Islamic world. She is guest cocurator of the exhibition Love and Devotion: From Persia and Beyond, which will travel from the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, to the Bodleian Library.
REVIEWS
"This handsome volume accompanies an exhibition of the same name. Fourteen chapters present aspects of classic Persianate literature and book illustrations ostensibly focused on the themes of love and devotion, but actually including such topics as mysticism and astrology, and a discussion of related themes, such as the influences on Chaucer and European travelers. . . . The pictures are beautifully reproduced with lots of details. . . . Recommended."
— Choice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Note to the Reader
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. An Introduction to Persian Poetry and Its Milieu
Susan Scollay Part I: Epic Romance
2. Love and Devotion in the Shahnama of Firdausi
Barbara Brend
3. Women in the Romances of the Shahnama
Firuza Abdullaeva Part II: Language of the Heart
4. ‘Bahram Gur Visits the Lady from Khwarazm in the Blue Pavilion on Wednesday’ and Similar Representations from Illustrated Manuscripts by Nizami, Hatifi and Mir ‘Ali Shir in the Bodleian Library
Eleanor Sims
5. Earthly and Spiritual Love in Sufism: Ibn “Arabi and the Poetry of Rumi
Süleyman Derin Selection of Poetry
6. The Mystic Poetry of ‘Attar and the Conference of the Birds
Rafal Stepien
7. Meetings of Lovers: The Bodleian Majalis al-‘Ushshaq, MS. Ouseley, Add. 24
Lâle Uluç
8. Dreams, Premonitions and Cosmologies in Persianate Literature
Stefano Carboni Part III: Intersections: From Persia and Beyond
9. Images of Love and Devotion: Illustrated Mughal Manuscripts and Albums in the Bodleian Library
Andrew Topsfield
10. An Ottoman ‘Garden of Love’: The Oxford Dilsuznama, the ‘Book of Compassion’
Susan Scollay Iskandar/Alexander: East and West
11. The Two Faces of Love: Devotion and Terror in Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Danijela Kambaskovic-Sawers
12. Romance and Love in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, The Squire’s Tale and The Parliament of Fowls Nicholas Perkins
13. Imagining Persia: European Travellers’ Tales and Their Literary Offspring
Clare Williamson Part IV: Persian Poets and Their Stories
14. A Glance at the History of Romantic Versified Stories in Persian Poetry
Seyed Mohammad Torabi
Literary Works, Selected Characters and Summaries of the Major Stories
Biographies of the Major Persian Poets and Writers
Timeline
Map
Glossary
List of Illustrations
Select Bibliography
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC