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states that relative to its scope, more of Persian literature has passed into the common stock of English proverbial expression and cliche than is true of literary works of any other language. ANCIENT PERSIAN LITERATURE The study of Avestic and ancient Persian literature in the west began in the 1700s with scholars investigating Zoroastrian texts brought in from the orient. It was the Frenchman Anquetil Du Perron who first translated the Vendidad in 1759, followed by works of Sir William Jones and Sylvestre De Sacy , who worked on Pahlavi texts. The decipherment of the ancient cuneiform inscriptions came later in the 9th century by the likes of Grotefend of the Göttingen Royal Society. EDWARD FITZGERALD One can perceive the magnitude of the influence of Persian literature on its western counterpart when one investigates that, in the words of Christopher Decker of The University Of Cambridge , "the most frequently read of Victorian poetry, and certainly one of the most popular poems in The English language" was none other than Omar Khayam 's Rubaiyat (C. Decker) . As a demonstrative metric, the 1953 edition of The Oxford Book Of Quotations , contains no less than 188 excerpts from the Rubaiyat alone, of which 59 are complete Quatrain s, virtually two thirds of the total work of Omar Khayam . Not even Shakespeare or the Authorized Version Of The Bible are represented by such massive percentages. Phrases like the following that are now part and parcel of the English language, have their origins in western discovered Persian literature:
In the words of Dick Davis, the likes of Fitzgerald found the "twin soul" they had spent most of their lives seeking, in the likes of Khayam . GOETHE The encounter of Goethe with Hafez 's Ghazal s became so inspiring to Goethe, that he produced his own "West-Ostlicher Divan " (Oriental Divan) and "led the way to the discovery of Persian poetry by the Romantics", according to Shusha Guppy . Guppy His ''west-ostlicher'', and collection of poetry in general, gradually came to function as "an influential model for religious and literary syntheses between the ‘occident’ and the ‘orient’ in the 19th century", according to Jeffrey Einboden of Magdalene College in Cambridge , England . RALPH WALDO EMERSON AND NIETZSCHE n side of Emerson, the side that appealed to Nietzsche . Nietzsche, a radical opposer of Greek Metaphysical thought, was the author of the book '' Thus Spoke Zarathustra '', referring to the ancient Persian prophet Zoroaster , as the prophet of his philosophy. {Link without Title} Nietzsche held very high interest and respect for Persians. For example, where he speaks about the Persian notion of history and ''cyclical Eternal Time'', he writes: "I must pay tribute to Zarathustra, a Persian (einem Perser), for Persians were the first who thought of history in its full entirety." and further adds: ""It was much more fortunate if Persians became masters (Herr) of the Greeks, than the very Romans." But Nietzsche was also influenced by Persia's post-Islamic writers as well. In his notebooks, Nietzsche uses an anecdote from , Voltaire , Hugo and Balzac , all of whom referred to Sa'di's works in their writings. Hafez , represented Nietzsche a prime example of Dionysian ecstatic wisdom, which he extolls so extensively in his philosophy. Goethe 's admiration for Hafez and his "Oriental" wisdom, as expressed in the ''West-östlischer'' Divan , has been the main source of attracting Nietzsche's interest in this Persian poet. There is even a short poem in Nietzsche's Collected Works, entitled ''An Hafis. Frage eines Wassertrinkers'' (To Hafez: Questions of a Water Drinker). RUMI AND THE SUFIST GENRE 's Conference Of The Birds continues to be the theme of theatrical plays in many venues worldwide.]] Sufi ideas and literature gained interest in the west particularly after the first world war, beginning with non-cultist Sufis like Colonel Wilberforce Clarke and Sir Richard Burton , as well as scholars such as Maurice Nicholl , Kenneth Walker , and philosophers Gurdjieff and Ouspensky . Writings of Attar , Jami , Hafez , Shabistari , and Rumi came to influence a whole generation of writers. Since the beginning of 21st century, Persian poet and philosopher Molana Jalaleddin Balkhi (Rumi) has appeared as the most popular poet worldwide. His works, which have been partly translated to English, attracted attention of numerous thinkers and artists. These, and subsequent works leads one to conclude that the influence of Persian literature extends beyond what was written in the Persian language to encompass works by those who thought in Persian when it came to literature, metaphysics, and philosophy, irrespective of their native tongues and ethnic origins. REFERENCES
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