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Topic: Persian Letters


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In the News (Tue 29 Dec 09)

  
  Persian Literature, an English article
The Old Persian of the Achaemenian Empire, preserved in a number of cuneiform inscriptions, was an Indo-European tongue with close affinities with Sanskrit and Avestan (the language of the Zoroastrian sacred texts).
In India, Persian language and poetry became the vogue with the ruling classes, and at the court of the Moghul emperor Akbar Persian was adopted as the official language; spreading thence and fusing later with Hindi, it gave rise to the Urdu tongue.
Though existing fragments of Persian verse are believed to date from as early as the eighth century A.D., the history of Persian literature proper begins with the lesser dynasties of the ninth and tenth centuries that emerged with the decline of the Caliphate.
www.iranonline.com /literature/Articles/Persian-literature/index.html   (2563 words)

  
  Persian Letters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Persian Letters is a satirical story of two Persian brothers, Usbek and Rica, traveling through France by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu.
It is told in epistolary form and consists of 161 letters dated over a span of nine years from 1711 to 1720.
Published anonymously in Amsterdam in 1721, it pointed out the "barbaric" absurdities of contemporary French life from an outsider's perspective, and was a symptom of a widening movement towards Enlightenment thought, where questioning the authority of the church and the state was blossoming.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Persian_Letters   (308 words)

  
 Persian Language
Persian is a subgroup of West Iranian languages that include the closely related Persian languages of Dari and Tajik; the less closely related languages of Luri, Bakhtiari and Kumzari; and the non-Persian dialects of Fars Province.
Persian is the first language of about 55 percent of the population in Iran, and is the country's official language.
Old Persian is attested from the cuneiform inscriptions left by the Achaemenid dynasty (559 to 331 BC.) that ruled the lands known as the Realm of the Aryans (from which comes the name of the modern country Iran) up until the conquest of Alexander the Great.
www.iranchamber.com /literature/articles/persian_language.php   (1384 words)

  
 FAQ - Middle East Scripts
Unicode includes presentation forms for Arabic, Urdu and Persian letters, but not for letters added for Jawi (Malay written in the Arabic script).
Q: Unicode includes presentation forms for Arabic, Urdu and Persian letters, but not for letters added for Jawi (Malay written in the Arabic script).
A: The reasons for encoding the new letterforms as a unit and not encoding combining modifier forms separately are historic, due to the evolution of the Unicode Standard.
www.unicode.org /faq/middleeast.html   (608 words)

  
 Encyclopedia: Persian Letters
Satire is a literary technique of writing or art which exposes the follies of its subject (for example, individuals, organizations, or states) to ridicule, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change.
The Persian language (or called Farsi by speakers) has a rich history going back many thousands of years and containing many volumes of stories, history, poetry, and scientific works.
Medial - the letter as it appears when there are joining letters both before and after the letter.
www.nationmaster.com /encyclopedia/Persian-Letters   (1055 words)

  
 Iransaga - General Features of Persian Literature
From their Persian renditions, it is clear that the Middle Persian historical novels based on the lives of Mazdak and Bahram Chobin were dramatic and well-constructed.
In modern Persian criticism this tendency, an integral part of artistic expression in Persian letters, has been somewhat deprecated, partly as a result of changes in literary values and partly because the critics have usually focused on excessive examples.
In early Persian poetry, ornament is minimal, partly as a result of the poetry's youth and partly because it was modeled on Sassanian poetry.
www.artarena.force9.co.uk /genlit.htm   (1546 words)

  
 Religious Tolerance in Montesquieu's "Persian Letters"
In Montesquieu's Persian Letters, the logic and reason of the Enlightenment become tools for examining the various extremes present in all walks of life thus demonstrating the need for balance and toleration.
In the same letter, the bishops are described as "men of the Law" who turn around and "dispense people from obedience to the Christian law." Montesquieu then says of religious leaders that they work diligently to maintain a state of neutrality -- to sin and worldliness (Letter 61).
In Letter 85 he concludes that if one reasons without prejudice, the existence of several religions in a state would be found to be desirable.
www.geocities.com /Athens/Delphi/5804/Montesqu.htm   (1286 words)

  
 inq: Journal
Montesquieu’s exploration into cultural relativism is evident mostly in Persian Letters, where he attempts to find why it is that we find certain rituals, values, and beliefs as “good”; and his investigation leads him to an assessment of cultural normalcy as a social construct.
Persian Letters, although not novel, uses the mechanism of presenting Montesquieu’s own culture as it might seem to spectators coming from a civilization structured on a different ideology, in which he displays an incredible ability to evaluate his own beliefs, society, and government as phenomena to be examined.
The climactic transition in the Persian Letters occurs when Usbek, the master of the seraglio, send a message to his First Eunuch giving “unlimited powers over the entire seraglio” to the eunuch, and asserts to him to “let fear and terror be your companions.
www.inq.pdx.edu /journal/article7.html   (3099 words)

  
 Persian language
Middle Persian was a contemporary of Parthian, and during the Arsacid period, Persian was strongly influenced by Parthian.
Middle Persian was, just like Old Persian, spoken in southwestern Iran, Parthian was spoken in the north, while a group of languages (Khwarezmian, Sogdian and Saka) were spoken in southeast.
Modern Persian, the language of Iran today, was developed as early as in the 9th century.
lexicorient.com /e.o/persian_l.htm   (376 words)

  
 MEALAC | Persian
Persian language is taught at Columbia University on three levels, namely Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced.
They will be able to sit through and comprehend a short Persian film that is not overloaded with slang expressions and then engage themselves in a simple discussion of its content and write a brief critical appraisal of it.
They know how compounds are formed, how various derivatives are made and their function, internal relationship of cognates and how the morphological function of a given word may change (adjective/adverb, noun/verb, adjective/noun, adjective/verb), various uses of stems and participles, and a very rudimentary knowledge of how to scan a poem.
www.columbia.edu /cu/mealac/languages/persian   (1773 words)

  
 Iransaga - The Rise and Development of Persian Literature
Most notable among these were Persian or Persian speaking Sufi mystics, whose saintly bearing and passionate preaching were important elements in the conversion of many Indians to Islam and in the spread of Persian language and culture.
Persian lyric poetry has always been popular with the Sufis as a symbolic expression of their love of the divine and their longing for union with God.
Therefore, in a discussion of Persian letters our scope extends beyond what was written in the Persian language to encompass works by those who thought in Persian when it came to literature, irrespective of their native tongues and ethnic origins.
www.artarena.force9.co.uk /riselit.htm   (1026 words)

  
 Prison Letters
Since the personal letter is not an official document and is not written with a view to publication, the writer is not usually expected to organise his or her thoughts in a tidy fashion.
In the letter dted 1084 refernce is rarely made to anything other than everyday issues, whereas in a couple of the letters written in 1988 the measure of courage that the writer shows to express his opinions is surprising.
So, in his letters we encounter a style resembling the political symbolism used in Modern Persian poetry in 1953-79, when in order to circumvent censorship the poet wrapped his or her social messages in images such as the struggle between night and day and between spring and winter.
www.iran-bulletin.org /art/PRISON.html   (3594 words)

  
 [No title]   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-25)
It is often in these wives' letters that the audience is satisfied by the stereotypes that we associate with a harem as a place of luxury, violence, confinement, and sexuality (homosexual and heterosexual desires).
In Persian Letters, he represents the letter as an agent of deceit; the heroine, Roxanna, whom Usbek believed most virtuous of all his wives, carries on an affair in his absence by means of the disguise afforded by the structure of letters.
Like the Persian eunuchs who are perpetually "on a journey from themselves," (Letters, 9) the editor is a "man from another world." (Letters, Preface) The eunuch is deprived of agency by virtue of being caught between desire and lack.
www-mcnair.berkeley.edu /95Journal/JannieChan.html   (2830 words)

  
 Montesquieu, Persian Letters ToC: The Online Library of Liberty
Nargum the Persian Envoy residing at Muscovy, to Usbek at Paris.
The Letter of an Intelligencer to the Minister.
LETTER CL. Usbek to Narsit, at the Seraglio of Ispahan.
oll.libertyfund.org /Home3/Book.php?recordID=0959   (391 words)

  
 Save $2.60! Save £3.40! Persian Letters (Penguin Classics)
Each letter, is more like a condensed essay reflecting on some subject - the nature of governments, some religious tradition, a behavioral trait of a certain people; there are even some letters thrown in from the brothers relatives, wives, and eunuchs pertaining to the goings on in Persia.
Truth be told, one could read these letters in a random order and be fine (with exception of a few necessarily linear 'chunks').
All in all, the 'theme' is the quest for universals, as these Persian brothers are seeing the Western world through Persian eyes (hence the ability for satire on Western traditions).
www.hackcraft.net /bookref?urn:isbn:0140442812   (770 words)

  
 Persian Letters (Penguin Classics)
Persian Letters (Lettres Persanes) was first published in 1721 when Montesquieu was 32 years old.
Very soon after their departure, there begins a brisk exchange of letters between the Persian visitors, and their wives, servants, and friends at home, as well as between the visitors themselves.One visitor, Usbek, a Persian...
Montesquieu's "Persian Letters" consist primarily of the collected correspondence of Usbek and Rica, two Persian travelers abroad in Europe in search of knowledge.
www.literacyconnections.com /0_0140442812.html   (479 words)

  
 Aramaic Documents
These letter writing surfaces are easier to process for the scribe but archaeologically speaking, they are also part of the reason why in situ written source material of the Persian period is much scarcer than even during the age of the Assyrian empire just before.
Below we discuss anciently written, contemporary letters which are among the only sources shedding light on the goings on during the time of the Persian Empire.
And true to the statement of Herodotus, Persian names express some bodily or mental excellence and end all with the letter `s' to the Greeks, however, according to others the ending `ek' as in `Psamshek' or `Psamtek' is a characteristic ending for Persian names, a situation we have not yet confirmed.
www.specialtyinterests.net /arsames.html   (3436 words)

  
 Persian alphabet, pronunciation and language
Under Mongolian and Turkish rulers, Persian was adopted as the language of government in Turkey, central Asia and India, where it was used for centuries, and until after 1900 in Kashmir.
Persian is a member of the Iranian branch of Indo-European languages.
This is a correct transliteration of the native name of the language, however many, including the ISO and the Academy of Persian Language and Literature, prefer the name Persian for the language.
www.omniglot.com /writing/persian.htm   (567 words)

  
 Baron de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The Persian Letters is an epistolary novel consisting of letters sent to and from two fictional Persians, Usbek and Rica, who set out for Europe in 1711 and remain there at least until 1720, when the novel ends.
When Montesquieu wrote the Persian Letters, travellers' accounts of their journeys to hitherto unknown parts of the world, and of the peculiar customs they found there, were very popular in Europe.
Since commerce began to recover after the development of letters of exchange and the reintroduction of lending at interest, he writes, "it became necessary that princes should govern with more prudence than they themselves could ever have imagined; for great exertions of authority were, in the event, found to be impolitic...
plato.stanford.edu /entries/montesquieu   (7396 words)

  
 Persian Letters (Penguin Classics), Penguin Classics, Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu
Truth be told, one could read these letters in a random order and be fine (with exception of a few necessarily linear 'chunks').All in all, the 'theme' is the quest for universals, as these Persian brothers are seeing the Western world through Persian eyes (hence the ability for satire on Western traditions).
For those familiar with Said's theories of Orientalism, this is an exemplary text to see how 18th century France thought of its Ottoman rivals, and how those views reflect the state of French society.Usbek, Rica, and their various correspondents discuss matters touching on gender, politics, the nature of the self, history, religion, and culture.
The neglected wives, locked away from society in the harem, and the pitiable eunuchs, who must guard them, offer profoundly personal opinions on the causes and effects of a rigid class structure."Persian Letters" is a valuable text for the layman interested in gauging the currents of thought in the early 18th century.
allentech.net /techstore/item_0140442812.html   (1076 words)

  
 Encyclopedia
EYP is a work in progress comprising 5000 entries, envisaged to be completed in 24 volumes.
The entries have been compiled and edited, after a review of elementary and secondary school textbooks and various Persian and English encyclopedias giving due consideration of the needs, basic knowledge and language skills of children and young adults in Iran.
To date nine volumes (the first 4 Persian letters) have been published.
www.cbc.ir /en/encyclopedia   (661 words)

  
 Compare Prices and Read Reviews on Persian Letters at Epinions.com   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-25)
One question that inevitably rises from reading the Persian Letters, is under which regime is truth more apt to exposure.
We see conflict arising at once here, for in a democratic society, where everyone is able to use the art of rhetoric to mask falsity with the veil of truth, one might say, that it is not the man who knows that is considered wise, but the man who is best able to speak.
Early in the Persian Letters, the reader is told that the only pleasure remaining in the First Black Eunuch's life is the power he yields over the wives in the seraglio.
www.epinions.com /content_56784686724   (1460 words)

  
 ajabanzabAn.com deconstructs the cursive aspect of Persian script.
That's because the letters in the column are all in detached form, while the letters within words are in different forms depending on where they are in the word.
J: You may have gathered from this that for most four form letters, the general rule is that the letters will look very similar across their four forms except that the final and detached forms seem to have a tail, or to be bigger.
Some people consider typed Persian to be "print" and the fancy script in poetry books to be "cursive".
www.ajabanzaban.com /learn/alphabet/cursive.html   (389 words)

  
 A Brief History of Persian Literature
Thus the poems of Roudaki, the first Persian poet of note, who died in the year 941 CE, are perfectly intelligible to the modem reader.
Though existing fragments of Persian verse are believed to date from as early as the eighth century CE, the history of Persian literature proper begins with the lesser dynasties of the ninth and tenth centuries that emerged with the decline of the Caliphate.
There was for long considerable scepticism as to whether he was in fact the author of all or any of the quatrains attributed to him, but the discovery recently of manuscripts more ancient than any of those previously known has removed these doubts.
www.iranchamber.com /literature/articles/history_literature.php   (2568 words)

  
 Amazon.com: Persian Letters (Penguin Classics): Books: Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu,C. J. Betts   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-25)
While these letters make up the majority of the novel, the few letters Montesquieu inserts from Usbek's wives and eunuch servants are by far the novel's most interesting pieces, and unfortunately, the most frequently overlooked.
"Persian Letters" is a valuable text for the layman interested in gauging the currents of thought in the early 18th century.
With the psuedo naive eyes of Persian tourists, Montesquieu depicts the French society of the beginning of the 18th century through a correspondance with relatives and...
www.amazon.com /Persian-Letters-Classics-Secondat-Montesquieu/dp/0140442812   (1442 words)

  
 CRL Language Resources: Persian
Persian, also known as Farsi, is the official language of Iran.
This is especially true in Tajikestan since it was isolated from the other Persian speaking countries during the Soviet era.
Persian is derived from Indo-Iranian, one of the branches of the Indo-European languages.
crl.nmsu.edu /Resources/lang_res/persian.html   (380 words)

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