Chains of Gold: Jāmī’s Defence of Poetry

Summary

To Barbara Flemming, teacher, colleague and friend.

Timurid Literature

In the history of Persian literature the fifteenth century constitutes a rather problematic period. Writers who have tried to define its significance within a long-term development have made different estimates of it: on the one hand as the last phase of the “golden age” of classical literature, which in the next century went into its “silver period”; on the other hand, as the beginning of a long process of decreasing creativity signalling the exhaustion of the classical conventions. This decline, continuing throughout the Safavid period, culminated in the radical stylistic innovations known as the “Indian style.” Muḥammad-Riżā ShafiʿīKadkanī, one of the severest modern critics of Timurid poetry, saw only a period “barren of climaxes,” in spite of the great number of poets. In Kadkanī's evaluation – which is perhaps influenced by his critical standpoint as a distinguished modern Persian poet – all the poems these poets wrote are devoid of any particular value; a peculiar lapse of vitality would have occurred in the literary tradition, a dead tide in comparison to which even the literature of the Safavid period is to be appreciated as a revival of some kind.

If Timurid culture is considered as a whole, it seems hard to accept this harsh verdict on its literature. The century in which the descendants of Tīmūr Lang ruled over most of the Persian lands was undeniably a splendid period in the history of the arts in Persia, especially of those which were closely related to literature such as calligraphy and miniature painting.4 The period has left us an impressive number of exquisite manuscripts, some of which are among the finest specimens of traditional Persian book art. This was also an age of great care for the textual tradition of the Persian classics: great philological projects, such as the revision of the Shāh-nāma, executed in 829/1425–1426 at Bāysunghur's library in Samarkand and the revision of the Dīvān of Ḥāfīẓ carried out in 807/1501–1502 at the court of Herat, bear witness to a great love and respect for the literary monuments handed down from the past. In doing this Timurid literati have contributed significantly to the preservation of medieval literature and, in this respect, show a remarkable resemblance to their contemporaries, the humanists of the European Renaissance.