A 16th-century illustration of the Shahnameh which recounts Iranian history from the creation of the world up to the Arab conquest of Persia

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). After the fall of the Achaemenians the ancient tongue developed, in the province of Pars, into Middle Persian or Pahlavi. 

 

Pahlavi was used throughout the Sassanian period, though little now remains of what must once have been a considerable literature. About a hundred Pahlavi texts survive, mostly on religion and all in prose. Pahlavi collections of romances, however, provided much of the material for Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. 

 

After the Arab conquest a knowledge of Arabic became necessary, for it was not only the language of the new rulers and their state, but of the religion they brought with them and -later- of the new learning. Though Pahlavi continued to be spoken in private life, Arabic was dominant in official circles for a century and a half. With the weakening of the central power, a modified form of Pahlavi emerged, with its Indo-European grammatical structure intact but simplified, and with a large infusion of Arabic words. This was the Modem Persian in use today. 

 

Arabic continued to be employed in Iran, though on a decreasing scale, as Latin was used in Europe -that is, as a language of the learned. As such it was employed by Abu Ali Sina (Avicenna), al-Biruni, Rhazes, Al Ghazali and others; indeed, many of the most famous names in Arabic literature are those of men of Persian birth. But in general the use of Arabic declined; Persian developed rapidly to become the vehicle of a great literature, and before, long spread its influence to neighboring lands. In India, Persian language and poetry became the vogue with the ruling classes, and at the court of the Mongol emperor Akbar, Persian was adopted as the official language; spreading thence and fusing later with Hindi, it gave rise to the Urdu tongue. 

 

To the west of Iran, Persian heavily influenced the language and literature of Turkey; Turkish verse was based on Persian models as regards form and style, and borrowed an extensive vocabulary. 

 

A notable feature of Persian is the small extent to which it has changed over the thousand years or more of its existence as a literary language. 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. 

 

Persian literature has a number of noteworthy characteristics, the most striking of which is the exceptional prominence of poetry. Until quite recently there was practically no drama, and no novels were written; prose works were mostly confined to history, geography, philosophy, religion, ethics and politics, and it was poetry that formed the chief outlet for artistic expression. Classical Persian literature was produced almost entirely under royal patronage whence the frequency of panegyric verse. An influence of at least equal strength was religion, and in particular Sufism, which inspired the remarkably high proportion of mystical poetry. 

 

The real revival of Persian letters came in the early twentieth century, when the growing desire for reform inspired numerous satires. One of the most outstanding figures of this period was Iraj Mirza (died 1926), a poet of great talent and champion of the emancipation of women. 

 

Other noted poets were Adib, Bahar, Lahuti, Shahryar, Aref and the poetess Parvin E'tesami. Poets of more recent decades include Nima Yoshij, Ra'di, Khanlari, Islami, Gulchin, Ahmad Shamlou, Mehdi Akhavan Sales, Mas'ud Farzad, Sohrab Sepehri, Fereidoon Moshiri and the poetess Forough Farrokhzad. Some of these poets have introduced verse forms new to Persian literature. Here should not be forgotten the great works of Sadeq Hedayat, Samad Behrangi, Sadeq Choubak and many others who enriched the Persian literature. (Source: Iran Chamber Society)