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Poetry

Husn u Dil

Not translated into English

Muhammadniyoz Nishotiy · 1779

Synopsis

Dil, the Heart, is the son of King Reason, ruler of the West; Husn, Beauty, is the daughter of King Love, who reigns in the East. The tale of their meeting unfolds among allegorical figures, the Soul, Patience, Honour and many others, each of whom bears the name of what she is. The quest of the two young people passes through the water of life, itself laden with meaning, and each stage of their story reads as a lesson on the soul and on divine beauty.

Context

Written in Bukhara, the poem has sixty-two chapters and fifteen thousand five hundred and eighty-four lines. It takes up a Persian allegory completed in 1436 or 1437 by Fattahi of Nishapur, which the letters of the East had already adapted in prose and verse, in Persian, Arabic and Ottoman Turkish. Critics read in it the Sufi teaching of inner perfection, mixed with the imagery of the mysticism of its time.

Who it is for

In Khorezm Turkic, with no French version. A long poem, read by chapters. It is better to know that each character is a faculty or a passion, and that the story is followed like a map of the soul.

Prizes and reception

Regarded as the last great narrative poem in the Chagatai language, it was published in Tashkent in 1967 with its author's lyric poems.

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