Ein Vortrag von Dr. Andrew Hicks (Cornell University)

The divan of Farrukhī Sīstānī (d. 1037) teems with evocations of a lively Ghaznavid minstrel culture, a culture Farrukhī knew first-hand, as he was not only a court poet but was also, according to the Chahār maqāla, a "dexterous performer on the harp." Though numerous studies document and detail the public, courtly persona of the Persian minstrel, the divan-e Farrukhī presents a much less studied aspect of Ghaznavid minstrelsy, namely, the minstrel's private, erotic persona as the "moon-faced," "silken-breasted" beloved; auditory beauty and visual beauty become semantically entwined and at times interchangeable. This study takes as its point of departure the lyric nasib to several of Farrukhī's qasidas that describe intimate and manifestly erotic encounters between Farrukhī, the poet, and an (always unnamed) Turkish beloved, the minstrel. In recounting such erotic encounters, Farrukhī's poetry affords us a glimpse into the formative stages of a still-living symbol that was to become, in later Persian poetry, "stock" poetic imagery: the beloved as "Turk". A careful reading of Farrukhī's poetry, with occasional glances to Manūchihrī and ‘Unṣurī, allows us to chart with more precision the emergence of this symbolic minstrel persona, which was rooted in the historical realities of the Ghaznavid court but came to resonate more broadly with the imagery of music and musical performance unique to the Persian poetic tradition.