Mohammad Ahmadi; Sarah Saeidi
Volume 9, Issue 2 , July 2020, , Pages 77-96
Abstract
Rashid al-Din Vatvat, a poet and prose writer of the Khwarezmian court, was one of the most eminent figures in the 12th century AH. His fame and reputation in his lifetime went beyond ...
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Rashid al-Din Vatvat, a poet and prose writer of the Khwarezmian court, was one of the most eminent figures in the 12th century AH. His fame and reputation in his lifetime went beyond Khwarazm and most of his contemporary poets such as Adib Sabir, Abd al-Vasi Jabali, Suzani Samarqandi, Seyyed Hasan Ghaznavi, Asir al-Din Akhsikati, Anvari, and Khaqani mentioned him in their poetry. The biographers after him recorded an extensive account of his life and considered him as one of the best panegyric poets of 12th century contemporary to the Khwarezmian. Vatvat’s widespread fame as a high-ranking official of the Khwarezmian court and an eloquent poet aroused the interest of biographers and scribes to attribute other poems of unknown and less important poets to him; poems which are not nearly close to Vatvat’s style of poetry and whose original poets, by investigating some old anthologies, may be identified. This paper highlights inserted poems in Vatvat’s Divan in Nafisi’s critical edition (Tehran, 1960) which is to date the only edition presented to academic assemblies. These poems are not likely to be composed by Vatvat, but since past biographers and scribes attributed it to him, Nafisi inserted them in his critical edition. This study discusses the reasons why the previously mentioned poems are not Vatvat’s and, to the extent possible, mentions the original composers of them. The results of this article can enrich the studies on Vatvat’s poetry and manuscript analysis.
