Poetry
دیوان بهار
Not translated into English
Mohammad-Taqi Bahar · 1956
Synopsis
Half a century of poetry, from the first pieces of Mashhad to the last, written in a Swiss sanatorium. It contains the elegies for his father, the panegyrics of his early years, the piece that made him known in 1909 in a clandestine newspaper, the attacks on his political enemies, the poems of prison and banishment, La Fontaine's fables put into Persian, and more intimate ghazals, reserved for those close to him.
Context
The book did not appear in the author's lifetime: around 1930, his attempt to publish his divan had run up against censorship. After his death, the poems scattered in newspapers and notebooks were collated with the manuscript divan, and his younger brother Mohammad Malekzadeh established the text and notes; Amir Kabir published it in two volumes, in 1956 and 1957, a total of one thousand three hundred and twenty pages. A few pieces were left out as a precaution. The edition revised by his son Mehrdad Bahar was published by Tous in 1989.
Who it is for
More than a thousand pages in Persian, in a demanding classical language. It helps to know that many of the pieces respond to specific events, and that the editor's notes help to place them.
Prizes and reception
Its author is regarded as the last great poet of classical manner in the Persian language, and is known first for the eloquence of his qasidas.