Sa Di Analysis

The impact of Persian classical literature on European writers has been the subject of various ‘influence’ studies and numerous oriental scholars have alluded to a possible influence of 13th century Persian poets on the 18th century European writers. However, this is the first comparative study in the tradition of American school of comparative literature which focuses on a thematic study of ‘Man’ in the works of Sa‘di and Pope. There are no scholarly and academic researches done specifically on this particular subject, yet there are a number of insightful sources on the texts and contexts of both poets. The books, articles, dissertations and other sources that are helpful in this study are divided into two parts: sources that explore the time

It provides a social, historical as well as literary account of Sa‘di’s era with regard to the poet’s position. Interestingly, the author rejects Sa‘di as a rationalist and mystic and holds that “Philosophical realism – something akin to Socratic wisdom – is perhaps the nearest modern term that may be applied to his approach to personal and social life, although he was far from a pragmatist and instrumentalist” (143). These claims are contrary to the discussions of this dissertation and will be debated in the course of this study. Kazem Kamran in his book The Wisdom of Sa‘di (2001) has provided a dictionary of the ideas and topics expressed by Sa‘di in his Bustan and Gulistan arranged in alphabetic order. The book is very selective in that it does not cover all the ideas expressed by Sa‘di, yet it is insightful regardless of

The author emphasizes the influence of Sa‘di on Emerson’s writings and finds this influence undeniable. ‘The Image of Women’ is a subject of investigation by Dehghani et al (2010) in a comparative study of Sa‘di with the Arab poet Motanabbi. The author stresses while Sa‘di bestows a high position to women, Motanabbi takes a less admiring view. Hamid Reza Alavi (2009) in his book has made an extensive comparison among the views shared by Muslim and Non-Muslim writers on the issue of education and philosophy. Chapter six of this work includes an interesting comparison among the ideas of Rumi and Sa‘di from the east, and Rousseau and Dewey from the west, concentrating on moral education. Initially, each of the four writers is discussed separately and then placed together for comparison. With regard to Sa‘di, Alavi deduces the implicit doctrines of moral education from his poems, identifying four educational aims in Sa‘di’s