‘Persian Poetry in Translation’ examines the social values and cultural patterns in the millennium old Persian literary tradition through focusing on the poetic tradition and ways in which the literary text have mirrors these cultural patterns and values throughout centuries from the medieval period up to the present time. Through exploring key themes, metaphors, the use of literary devises and their transformation over time these social values and patterns become more accessible for the students.

Intertextuality and the canon formation in the Persian poetic tradition are two important themes that are discussed and explored in this course. Through ‘intertextual’ analysis of poetic works, the students will explore the relationship between different poets of different literary schools/different historical periods who responded to and engaged with each others’ work over time. In the canon formation, visual teaching materials such as miniatures and calligraphies will be shown to the students to connect poetry with other fields in order to see in what ways literary canons were formed not only through poetry and literature but also through other forms of art.

The main focus of the course is poetry but it related to religious beliefs, cultural patterns and norms, political condition and social change in ways that literature always echoes aspects of any given culture. Through contextualizing poetry the course addresses the relevant historical and social transformations. Questions of gender and sexuality, to give one example, are addressed in the course when the concept of ‘Beloved’ is discussed in Persian poetic tradition.

How does the course teach students the methods required for sensitive and critical cultural analysis, such as the informed reading of texts, artifacts, and social institutions? The reading materials of this course usually consist of two parts: the primary texts and the secondary literature. Through the first category, the students learn how to handle the primary sources while using close-reading as an efficient method to make sense of the text. Through the second category, they become informed about the conditions in which the literary texts were produced or the theories with which they could evaluate the primary sources. The goal is for them to handle both sets of material with critical and independent thinking. This will usually address in in-class discussions.