The post–Hafizian ghazal, for all the magnitude of its textual corpus, has been a somewhat marginal area in Persian literature studies, while those few full-fledged works devoted to the subject were set in a preponderantly descriptive vein. Losensky's in-depth analytical study undoubtedly offers a valuable corrective to this state of research. The book explores the literary-historical development of the Safavid–Mughal ghazal through a distinctive focus on one of the key concepts of the Persian literary tradition—that of poetic imitation, as embodied in the poetic practice of Baba Fighani (d. 1519) and a number of his imitators and followers. Justly observing that “our critical understanding of the period remains hampered by an inadequate conceptual framework” (p. 3), Losensky grounds his inquiry both in a solid theoretical basis and in meticulously prepared methodology. In contrast with traditional discussions of Safavid–Mughal poetry in terms of “Indian style,” conceived largely in a synchronic perspective as a sum total of stylistic features, the theoretical tendency of the book under review clearly leans toward viewing it as an integral part of the Persian literary system—that is, of a structured whole in which literary objects (properties, phenomena, processes) must be studied in the multiplicity of their intersections, both synchronically and diachronically.