My verse resembles the bread of Egypt—night passes over it, and you cannot eat it any more. Devour it the moment it is fresh, before the dust settles upon it. Its place is the warm climate of the heart; in this world it dies of cold. Like a fish it quivered for an instant on dry land, another moment and you see it is cold. Even if you eat it imagining it is fresh, it is necessary to conjure up many images. What you drink is really your own imagination; it is no old tale, my good man.
Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–73), legendary Persian Muslim poet, theologian, and mystic, wrote poems acclaimed through the centuries for their powerful spiritual images and provocative content, which often described Rumi’s love for God in romantic or erotic terms. His vast body of work includes more than three thousand lyrics and odes. This volume includes four hundred poems selected by renowned Rumi scholar A. J. Arberry, who provides here one of the most comprehensive and adept English translations of this enigmatic genius. Mystical Poems is the definitive resource for anyone seeking an introduction to or an enriched understanding of one of the world’s greatest poets.
“Rumi is one of the world’s greatest lyrical poets in any language—as well as probably the most accessible and approachable representative of Islamic civilization for Western students.”—James W. Morris, Oberlin College
"A valuable book for any collection of world literature, but especially of Persioanand Middle Eastern literature."
(Choice )
About the Author
Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–73), legendary Persian Muslim poet, theologian, and mystic, wrote more than three thousand lyrics and odes. A. J. Arberry (1905-69) was professor of Arabic at Cambridge University. Ehsan Yarshater is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies and director of the Center for Iranian Studies at Columbia University.
Product Details
Paperback: 440 pages
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (April 15, 2009)
A kid from southern California, college at U.C. Berkeley and University of Chicago. Taught at Emory University and now at University of Chicago - Persian literature, Iranian cinema, Islamic civilization of the medieval period, Translation History of the literatures of the Middle East, etc. Publications include translations of modern stories and poems by various Iranian authors, including the book In a Voice of Their Own: A Collection of Stories by Iranian Women written since the Revolution of 1979, with Farzin Yazdanfar (Mazda Publishers, 1996), as well as translations in several other collections, articles about classical Persian literature and sufism appearing in the Encyclopaedia Iranica, Encyclopedia of the Modern Muslim World, Encyclopedia of the Qur'ān, and the Encyclopedia of Religion. With Heshmat Moayyad, I worked on the translation and annotation of a hagiographical account of a popular Sufi saint of 12th century Khorasan, The Colossal Elephant and His Spiritual Feats: Shaykh Ahmad-e Jām (Mazda, 2004). Together with Sunil Sharma, I edited The Necklace of the Pleiades: Studies in Persian Literature and Culture (Amsterdam: Leiden University Press, 2010). My study, Rumi: Past and Present, East and West (Oxford: Oneworld) received the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies publication award (British-Kuwaiti Friendship award) for the best book published in the United Kingdom in the field of Middle Eastern Studies in 2000 (translations have been published in Iran, Turkey, Denmark and in Syria). An updated English edition was published in 2007 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the poet's birth, along with a collection of literary translations of Rumi's poetry, Rumi: Swallowing the Sun (Oneworld, 2007). An 8-part description of Rumi's poetry and thought was published in the Guardian in 2009-2010 ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/nov/30/rumi-masnavi-muslim-poetry ) In Persian, I have written about Mowlana Rumi for Iran Nameh, ( http://fis-iran.org/fa/irannameh/volxxiv/rumi-quest ) including editing a special issue of the journal dedicated to the poet featuring major scholars ( http://fis-iran.org/fa/irannameh/volxxv/1-2rumi ).
This review is from: Mystical Poems of Rumi (Paperback)
This 2009 edition of Rumi's mystical poems includes the text from both vol 1 and 2 of the earlier editions of Arberry's brilliant translations. Professor Lewis's new foreword is fascinating, there is an "autobiographical sketch" by Arberry; both the notes and, in some cases, the translations have been corrected and made consistent. The history of all the work many scholars have put into the book is explained on page iv, if you want to search inside and read the details. A volume to treasure: this is the edition to get!
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This review is from: Mystical Poems of Rumi (Paperback)
I read a passage and try to grasp its significance and find myself at a loss. There is great value in the passages, but the meanings are cloudy to me. It seems very symbolic at points and then ethereal at others. I would recommend this to a person on a spiritual quest that has a very poetic mindset and is capable of reading deeply into things that may at first seem mundane.
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This review is from: Mystical Poems of Rumi (Paperback)
I can't say I'm too happy with this book for several reasons. In the begining of the book, somewhere before poems, there is a publisher comment saying something in the line that this is one of the few books that made justice to what Rumi was saying, and others are new age type of renderings, and then he went naming some of those "new age" authors. That is in my oppinion very low thing to do.
Translation itself is quite intelectual and it seems to me that the translator made something simple into something complex just for the sake of having that intelectual tone. Translator is also using words which are not used much today. I personally am not native speaker but I have enough experience with english to determine which words are not used much, so this can make the reading a bit difficult as well.
Other then that, the book is satisfactory. I am still searching for some good translation of Rumi's poems.
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