Literary Criticism in Iran - Classical Tradition - Mongol Period

Mongol Period

During this period, the compilation of tazkirāt (anthologies sg. tazkirah) produced "criticism of taste (naqd-i zawqī)" which really represented a return to the ad hominem attacks and rival name-calling which characterize much of what passes for literary criticism during most of Iranian history. "As with earlier periods, the practitioners of the criticism of taste belittled their predecessors in order to aggrandize themselves." Muḥammad ʿAwfī wrote two of the most notable: Jawāmiʿ al-hikāyat and Lubāb al-albāb. Dawlatshāh Samarqandī's Tazkirāt al-shuʿarā "can be called the first true anthology of Persian poetry." Some other tazkirāt of this period:

• Miʿyār al-ashʿār, Khwājih Nāṣir al-Din Ṭūsī
• Ḥadā'iq al-ḥaqā'iq and Anīs al-ʿushshāq, Sharaf al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ḥasan Rāmī
• Essays by ʿAbd al-Rahmān Jāmī "noteworthy only for their vulgarity"

Some critics went against this trend. Shams-i Qays Rāzī wrote al-Muʿjam fī maʿāyir ashʿār al-ʿajam which is "the most comprehensive text of its kind to that date" and treats prosodic technique and terminology and poetic feet, rhyme, and criticism in two volumes.