This volume is a collection of essays on classical Persian literature, focusing on Persian rhetorical devices, especially imagery and metaphors. The various contributions discuss the origin and the development of debate poetry, the transmission of Persian and Arabic tales to the works of Europeans medieval authors such as Boccaccio and Chaucer, but also the development of Aristotelian poetics and epistemology in Persian philosophical tradition. Furthermore, the baroque style of the Shi ite author usayn V i K shif, the use of wine metaphors by mystics such as Jal l al-D n R m, fi s original use of candle metaphors, the translation of Khayy m s metaphors into English, and the importance of a single metaphor in the epic Barz -n ma are discussed. Contributors include: F. Abdullaeva, G.R. van den Berg, J. Landau, F.D. Lewis, N. Pourjavady, Ch. van Ruymbeke, A. Sedighi and S. Sharma

Ali Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, Ph.D. (2001) in Persian literature and mysticism, is associate Professor of Persian literature and culture at Leiden University. He has published extensively on classical and modern Persian poetry, mysticism, poetic metaphors, and Iran-Iraq war poetry. He is the author of Laylī and Majnūn. Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Niẓāmī's Epic Romance, (Brill, 2003).