A Key to the Treasure of the Hakim: Artistic and Humanistic Aspects of Nizami Ganjavi's Khamsa

ISBN-13: 9789087280970 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 250 str.

Johan Christoph Burgel; Christine Van Ruymbeke

Opis

This splendid work consists of thirteen essays by eminent scholars, each focusing on different aspects of the Khamsa, which is a collection of five long poems written by the Persian poet Nizami of Ganja (1141-1209). Its heroes, Khosrow and Shirin, Leili and Majnun, Iskandar, have become household names all over the Islamic world. This volume reflects topics such as mysticism, art history, comparative literature, science, and philosophy. It constitutes a significant development in the field of Nizami-studies, and more general, of Persian literature. It shows how classical Greek knowledge mingles with the Persian past and the Islamic culture in Nizami's world. The volume reflects a high degree of engagement with the existing scholarship, reviving and challenging traditional views on the poet and his work. For both specialists and anyone interested in the movement of ideas in the medieval world this Key is indispensable.

Spis treści

Contents
Acknowledgment
Introduction “A Key to the Treasure of the Hakim”
1 Nizami’s World Order
2 The Hidden Pearls of Wisdom: Desire and Initiation in Layli u Majnun
3 Descriptions and Images – Remarks on Gogand Magog in Nizami’s Iskandar Nama,Firdawsi’s Shah Nama and Amir Khusraw’s A’ina-yi Iskandari
4 Nizami’s Cosmographic Vision and Alexander in Search of the Fountain of Life
5 Drinking from the Water of Life – Nizami, Khizr and the Symbolism of Poetical Inspiration in Later Persianate Literature
6 The Enigma of Turandot in Nizami’s Pentad. Azada and Bahram between Esther and Sindbad
7 What is it that Khusraw learns from the Kalila-Dimna stories?
8 The “Wasteland” and Alexander, the Righteous King, in Nizami’s Iqbal Nama
9 A Mystical Reading of Nizami’s Use of Nature in the Haft Paykar
10 The Nizami Manuscript of Shah Tahmasp: A Reconstructed History
11 Nizami Ganjavi, the Wordsmith: The Concept of sakhun in Classical Persian Poetry
12 Teucros in Nizami's Haft Paykar
13 “Let Even a Cat Win your Heart!” Nizami on Animal and Man.
Illustrations to Chapter 10
Bibliography
Index
Already published in the Iranian Studies Series: