The Persian Prison Poem

Abstract

The Persian Prison Poem is the first study of the prison poem genre (habsiyyat) across twelfth-century Central, South, and West Asia. While documenting the emergence of a concept of poetry as a form of political resistance, the book shows the profound entanglements of poetry and power across premodern Eurasia. This book traces the political role of poetry in shaping the prison poem genre across twelfth-century Central, South, and West Asia. The emergence of the genre is indebted to the changing role of the poet, who came into increasing conflict with Ghaznavid and Saljuq sovereigns as the genre developed. Uniting the polarities of perpetuity and contingency, the poet’s body became the medium for the prison poem’s oppositional poetics. Bringing modern European theorists such as Ernst Kantorowicz, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor Adorno into conversation with classical Persian poetics, this book offers an unprecedented account of prison poetry before modernity, and of premodern Persianate culture within the framework of world literature and global politics.