Kitab-i Lalazar az Divan-i Hafiz = Select odes, from the Persian poet Hafez, translated into English verse; with notes critical, and explanatory .

HAFEZ [HAFIZ] and John NOTT

Published by London, Printed for T. Cadell,, 1787

About this Item

[ENGLISH ORIENTALISM] BEAUTIFULLY-PRINTED RARE AND EARLY EDITION OF HAFEZ'S ODES. FIRST EDITION. 4to. [4], xv, [1],xii,[8],131,[1] pp. Half-title:"Ketab Laléhzar, az Divani Hafez". With a list of subscribers. Parallel Persian-English text. Early autograph of t-p ("O. Dickinson"). Early C19th bookplate of John Usborne glued on upper pastedown. Sporadic very mild spotting. Bound in contemp. half calf and paper. Beautifully printed on thick paper. Mid-20th century ms. dedicatory leaf tipped in, between the upper endpapers. An excellent copy with generous wide margins. Arabic text, transliteration, and English translation on facing pages; notes on the bottom of the pages. John Nott (1751-1825) was a physician and a classical scholar. On a journey to China, he studied the Persian language. The result of his studies is this very creditable translation of Hafez. "The publication history of the Persian poet Hafez, contemporary of Petrarch and Chaucer, in England and India from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth is a fascinating test-case for Edward Said s theory of western orientalism and illustrates both orientalism s apparently innocent aesthetic surface and its internal complexity in the shifting power-relations between cultures. This involves not only imperial interventions, but the Persianate Asian world s varying appraisal of one of its own unconventional and ambiguous writers, who called himself rind and qalandar, vagabond . Even so, throughout the Islamic world Hafez was regarded as the supreme poetic craftsman, whom to quote was a sign of the cultured Ottoman or Mughal courtier. So for an Englishman to know and refer to him was a badge of diplomatic ability as well as linguistic skill and informed taste" (Datta, K.S. (2008). Publishing and Translating Hafez Under Empire. In: Fraser, R., Hammond, M. (eds) Books Without Borders, Volume 2. Palgrave Macmillan, London). ESTC T154273.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1653410817337

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Kitab-i Lalazar az Divan-i Hafiz = Select odes, from the Persian poet Hafez, translated into English verse; with notes critical, and explanatory .
• Publisher: London, Printed for T. Cadell,
• Publication Date: 1787
• Binding: Rilegato
• Edition: prima edizione
• Condition: ottimo