Literary History and Biography of Prescribed Authors and Poets
What this domain tests
Biographical and literary-history questions ask for dates, places, pen names, patrons, major works, genre, and one characteristic contribution of each prescribed author. Exact titles and centuries are common differentiators.
Core rules
- For every author, fix five facts: full name, takhallus, birth and death dates, birthplace and main city of activity, and two major works.
- Place authors in period and region: early Khurasan (Rudaki, Ferdowsi), medieval mystical and courtly Persian literature (Attar, Rumi, Sa'di, Hafiz, Jami), and Indo-Persian literature (Amir Khusrau, Bedil, Iqbal).
- Distinguish genre: ghazal, masnavi, qasida, ruba'i, prose treatise, and tazkira.
- Know which works are Persian and which are Urdu; Iqbal, for example, wrote both.
Worked example
Sa'di: full name Abu-Muhammad Muslih al-Din bin Abdallah Shirazi; pen name Sa'di; born in Shiraz around 1210 and died there around 1291–92. His two best-known works are the Gulistan (1258), a mixture of prose and verse, and the Bostan, a masnavi. Reasoning: the dates place him in the thirteenth century, the era of the Mongol invasions; his travel narratives and moral anecdotes explain the didactic tone of both works. Remember Shiraz as his city, not Hafiz's alone.
Traps that cost marks
- Mixing Sa'di and Hafiz, who were both from Shiraz but lived in different centuries.
- Saying Rumi was born in Konya; he was born in Balkh and died in Konya.
- Confusing the Gulistan with the Bostan, or attributing the Masnavi to Sa'di.
- Listing Urdu works as Persian or vice versa for Iqbal.
- Giving a pen name as a full name, or a title as a genre.