Poetry
دیوان
Not translated into English
Shehab al-Din Torshizi · 1800
Synopsis
The Persian divan of Shehab Torshizi, a poet who came from Khorasan to seek protection from the Durrani rulers. According to Hedayat's anthology, he wrote panegyrics in Herat for King Shah Mahmud and violent satires against many of the city's inhabitants, before leaving the court for asceticism; his work, which exceeds a hundred thousand lines, also includes narrative poems.
Context
The Encyclopaedia Iranica cites Torshizi among the two poets who came from the west seeking the protection of Timur Shah, with Forughi Esfahani. The Persian anthologist Reza-Qoli Khan Hedayat, in the nineteenth century, devotes an entry to him in which he ranks his talent among the highest of his time, but admits that he has seen neither his divan nor his Khamsa, a set of five narrative poems. His narrative poems and his treatise on astronomy are, however, named in the anthology.
Who it is for
Poems in Persian, without translation. It helps to know that praise and satire are then two trades of one and the same court poet.
Prizes and reception
No prize. Hedayat counts him among the great poets of his time and praises the power of his style.