Diwan-i Hatif-i Isfahani

Persian poetry of the pre-modern era is divided into three successive styles, each belonging to a different period: Khurasani, ?Iraqi and Hindi. The Hindi style is called such because in Safavid times, during which it developed, poets no longer enjoyed the shah's patronage so that many of them went to India, where Persian poetry had flourished since Ghaznavid times (11th-12th century CE). The Hindi style is often regarded as a lesser style, but has the merit of having put a halt to the decline that Persian poetry was suffering from at the time and also, by its accessible language and subject matter, of having brought poetry within reach of the ordinary man. The poetry of Hatif Isfahani (d. 1198/1783) published here was written in the latter half of the 12th/18th century, at the beginning of the neo-classical period of return (bazgasht) to the poetical styles of the pre-Safavid era.