Poetry expressing criticism of social, political and cultural life is a vital integral part of Persian literary history. Its principal genres - invective, satire and burlesque - have been very popular with authors in every age. Despite the rich uninterrupted tradition, such texts have been little studied and rarely translated. Their irreverent tones range from subtle irony to crude direct insults, at times involving the use of outrageous and obscene terms. This anthology includes both major a...

The value of Plutarch's perception of physical reality and his attitude towards the natural spectacle.

Plutarch was very interested in the natural world around him, not only in terms of its elementary composition and physical processes, but also with respect to its providential ordering and 'wonders'. His writings teach us a lot about his perception of physical reality and about his attitude to the natural spectacle. He found his greatest inspiration in the ontological and epistemological fr...

The epigram is certainly one of the most intriguing, while at the same time most elusive, genres of Neo-Latin literature. From the end of the fifteenth century, almost every humanist writer who regarded himself a true ‘poeta’ had composed a respectable number of epigrams. Given our sense of poetical aesthetics, be it idealistic, post-idealistic, modern or post-modern, the epigrammatic genre is difficult to understand. Because of its close ties with the historical and social context, it does...

The question of the political relevance of philosophy, and of the role which the philosopher should play in the government of his state, was often discussed in Antiquity. Plato’s ideal of the philosopher-king is well-known, but was precisely his failure to realise his political ideal in Syracuse not the best argument against the philosopher’s political engagement? Nevertheless, Plato’s ideal remained attractive for later Greek thinkers. This is illustrated, for instance, by one of Plutarch...

The Leiden Lectures on Arabic Language and Culture were initiated in 2013 on the occasion of the 400-year anniversary of the founding of the chair of Arabic at Leiden University. Each year an outstanding scholar in the field is invited to present a lecture on the rich and enjoyable variety of classical Arabic texts and their significance and relevance for today's world.

This book contains the first three lectures delivered by Petra Sijpesteijn, James E. Montgomery and Geert Jan van Gelder. F...

Colonialism advanced its project of territorial expansion by changing the very meaning of borders and space. The colonial project scripted a unipolar spatial discourse that saw the colonies as an extension of European borders. In his monograph, Mohit Chandna engages with narrations of spatial conflicts in French and Francophone literature and film from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. In literary works by Jules Verne, Ananda Devi, and Patrick Chamoiseau, and film by Michael H...

This book presents three of the works of Abduʾl-Bahā, son of the founder of the Bahāʾi Faith, dealing with social and political issues.

In ‘The Secret of Divine Civilization’ (1875) Abduʾl-Bahā supports the administrative and broader social reforms of Mirzā Hosayn Khān, but looks mainly for organic reform through the efforts of Iranian intellectuals to waken and educate the masses. In this work, Abduʾl-Bahā gives virtuous and progressive Islamic clerics a leading role among th...

Parvin Etesami (1907-1941) is among the few Persian female poets, who has gained nationwide popularity, while her authorship was disbelieved. She is celebrated in a plethora of publications every year in Iran and beyond. Etesami is the only female poet who has remained part of the daily lives of people in her society for about a century. Her poetry appears in school curricula both before and after the Revolution of 1979. People use her poetry on social media, particularly in critical times. I...