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Middle Eastern Studies

Why Persian Literature? Why Now? Tending Saadi's 13th Century Rose Garden in Today's World

A lecture by Richard Jeffrey Newman

When the Gulistan, the 13th century Persian masterpiece written by Saadi of Shiraz - whose place in the Persian canon is not unlike Shakespeare's in our own - was translated into French by Andre du Ryer in the 1600s, it gave the West perhaps its first sympathetic window into the world of Islam. Subsequent translations spread Saadi's name and the humanistic values that are so central to his work throughout the literary and cultural landscapes of the 18th and 19th centuries, influencing writers like Goethe, Byron, Emerson and Thoreau. Emerson thought so highly of the Gulistan that he called it "a secular bible." Now, in the 21st century, with both Iran and Islam occupying increasingly important and problematic places on the world stage, it's worth looking again through the window the Gulistan provides to see what it can teach us, not only about Iran and Islam, but also about ourselves.

This lecture is available from March 1, 2009 to July 1, 2012

Can be tailored to a high school audience

Setup Needed

• Microphone optional

Professor Richard Jeffrey Newman

Associate Professor, Nassau Community College

Richard Jeffrey Newman is an essayist, poet and translator. Selections from Saadi's Gulistan, his first book, was published in 2004 by Global Scholarly Publications (GSP). Selections from Saadi's Bustan is forthcoming in 2006. His own book of poems, The Silence of Men, is forthcoming from CavanKerry Press. He is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Nassau Community College

Telephone:	(718) 779-9284
Website:	www.richardjnewman.com
Address:	33-15 80th Street Apartment 61 Jackson Heights, NY  11372 Queens County
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