
Sunday May 15, 2005
[ Art (هنر) ]
Does Old Mean Gone and Finished?
One thousand years ago, Abu 'abdollah Ja'far Ebn Mohammad Rudaki (859 to 940/41 A.D.) signalled the founding of "modern" Persian with his poems—some of the first Persian poems ever written in the Arabic script. These poems are as lucent today as they were when they were first composed. Even my children and wife, who have learned most of their Persian here in America, can grasp and understand Rudaki's simple but powerful poetry.
One of Rudaki's most famous poems put into song can be found at tehran.stanford.edu. This poem is written in praise of the land of Amu-darya and Sier-darya, Rudaki's birth place. Most Persian poets wrote one or two such praise poetry for the land or the region of their birth. However, the main corpus of their work concerned itself with more universal matters of moral conduct and spiritual arts. (For others, the region of Rudaki's birth has taken a new significance having to do with oil.)
Music,
Persian Poetry,
Poetry.
2005-05-15 23:22:33.0 --
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