The First Collection of Biographies (tazkera) of Invective Poets, Majles-Aray of Fakhri Heravi, And the New-found Works of Its Author

Abstract

Collections of biographies of poets (tazkera)s are among the primary sources of literary history, and they should be considered as the first modern form of history of literature. So far, the tazkeras mainly have classified the poets regarding their social class or in contemporary, general, ethnic, and other categories. But authors have not paid much attention to compiling tazkeras regarding the literary genres of the works of the poets. Critical poetry, especially invective, is an abandoned genre, and we know much less about its poets than poets of praise. Fakhri Heravi is the first author of tazkeras of invective poets, specifically by compiling Majles-Aray in 962-963 AH/ 1555-1556. In Majles-Aray, the poets, from Rudaki (4th AH/ 10th century) to contemporary poets with Fakhri (9-10 AH/ 15-16 centuries), are mentioned without a specific order. In this article, for the first time, citing newly discovered information, the significant tazkera of Majles-Aray is introduced and studied in terms of bibliography and codicology; afterward, more works of Fakhri and the works attributed to him are mentioned.

Keywords

• tazkera
• biographies of poets
• invective poets
• majles-aray
• fakhri heravi