Rumi's Poetry
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry of Rumi, the Persian scholar and Sufi mystic of the 13th century, whose great poetic works are the Masnavi and the Divan.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry of Rumi, the Persian scholar and Sufi mystic of the 13th Century. His great poetic works are the Masnavi or "spiritual couplets" and the Divan, a collection of thousands of lyric poems. He is closely connected with four modern countries: Afghanistan, as he was born in Balkh, from which he gains the name Balkhi; Uzbekistan from his time in Samarkand as a child; Iran as he wrote in Persian; and Turkey for his work in Konya, where he spent most of his working life and where his followers established the Mevlevi Order, also known as the Whirling Dervishes.
With
Alan Williams
British Academy Wolfson Research Professor at the University of Manchester
Carole Hillenbrand
Professor of Islamic History at the University of St Andrews and Professor Emerita of Edinburgh University
And
Lloyd Ridgeon
Reader in Islamic Studies at the University of Glasgow
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Last on
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
Alan Williams at the University of Manchester
Carole Hillenbrand at the University of St Andrews
Lloyd Ridgeon at the University of Glasgow
Electronic School of Masnavi Studies
READING LIST:
A. J. Arberry, Tales from the Masnavi (Routledge, 1993)
J. T. P. de Bruijn, Persian Sufi Poetry: An Introduction to the Mystical Use of Classical Poems (Routledge, 1997)
William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (State University of New York Press, 1984)
Kabir Helminski Ruins of the Heart: Selected Lyric Poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi (T Threshold Books, 1981)
Franklin D. Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi (Oneworld Publications, 2000)
Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), The Philosophy of Ecstasy: Rumi and the Sufi Tradition (World Wisdom Books, 2015)
R. A Nicholson, The Mathnawí of Jalálu’ddín Rumí (Luzac and Co. vols. I-VIII, 1925-1940
Annemarie Schimmel, The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of Jalaloddin Rumi (first published 1980; State University of New York Press, 1993)
Lloyd Ridgeon (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Sufism (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
Rumi (trans. Alan Williams) The Masnavi (I. B. Tauris, forthcoming 2017-2020)
Rumi (trans. A. J. Arberry), Mystical Poems of Rumi (first published 1968; University of Chicago Press, 2009)
Rumi (trans. Annemarie Schimmel), Look! This is Love: Poems of Rumi (Shambhala Publications, 1991)
Rumi (trans. W.M. Thackston), Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi (Shambhala Publications, 1999)
Alan Williams, Spiritual Verses: The First Book of the Masnavi-ye Maʿnavi (Penguin Classics, 2006)
Alan Williams, The Vision of Rumi: Revealing the Masnavi, Persia's Great Masterpiece (I. B. Tauris, 2017)
Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Presenter | Melvyn Bragg |
| Interviewed Guest | Alan Williams |
| Interviewed Guest | Carole Hillenbrand |
| Interviewed Guest | Lloyd Ridgeon |
| Producer | Simon Tillotson |
Broadcasts
- Thu 11 Feb 2016 09:00BBC Radio 4
- Thu 11 Feb 2016 21:30BBC Radio 4
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