The talk will discuss Vis and Ramin, the first major Persian romance, written by the poet Fakhraddin Gorgani at some time between 1050 and 1055.
Gorgani's poem is one of the most fascinating and extraordinary love narratives of medieval literature, either Muslim or Christian, and arguably one of its most influential, and yet it is relatively unknown. Why is this so? The speaker has recently completed a verse translation of the poem (Mage Publishers, 2008; Penguin Classics 2009), and the talk will conclude with a reading of a few passages from the translation.
Dick Davis was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1945, and educated at the universities of Cambridge (B.A. and M.A. in English Literature) and Manchester (PhD. in Medieval Persian Literature). He lived in Iran for 8 years (1970-1978), and also for some time in both Italy and Greece. He is currently Professor of Persian and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Ohio State University. As author, translator or editor, he has produced over 20 books as well as academic works. These include translations from Italian (prose) and Persian (prose and verse), and eight books of his own poetry (the most recent of which is 'A Trick of Sunlight', 2006). His translations from Persian include Attar's 'The Conference of the Birds', a book of medieval epigrams ('Borrowed Ware'), Pezeshkzad's 'My Uncle Napoleon', and Ferdowsi's 'Shahnameh'. He has recently completed a verse translation of the 11th century poet Gorgani's 'Vis and Ramin', one of the most beautiful of Persian love stories.
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