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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Iraj was a leading poet of the late Qajar era, a major poet in the whole history of Persian poetry, and by far the greatest of the poets who descended from Fath'ali Shah. Two things in particular distinguish Iraj's poetry: eloquence and humor. It is difficult to describe him as a satirist in the strict sense of this term since satire in his works is normally incidental and a natural result of his unique humor when writing about most subjects. His best works are Aref-Nameh, Enqelab-e Adabi and Zohreh o Manuchehr, although there is hardly any piece by him which is less than delightful, especially those which he wrote during the Constitutional era.
To the best of my knowledge, no scholarly or critical study of Iraj and his poetry exists in English or any other European language. Nor are there many modern critical studies of his works in Persian, the few books on him and his works being partial or complete editions of the works, the best and most scholarly of which is the complete works (listed in note 1 below) by Mohammad Ja'far Mahjub, which includes an extended introduction to his life and the earlier editions of his works. This paper is therefore based on a direct study of Iraj's own text. See further this author's ‘Ekhvaniyat-e Aref-nameh-ye Iraj’ in Iranshenasi, spring 1999, reprinted in Homa Katouzian, Hasht Maqaleh dar Tarikh va Adab-e Mo'aser (Tehran, 2006).
1 Divan-e Kamel-e Iraj-Mirza (hereinafter, Iraj), ed., Mohammad-Ja'far Mahjub (USA, 1986), 90.
2 Iraj, 48.
3 Iraj, 86–87.
4 Iraj, 12.
5 Iraj, 92.
6 Iraj, 75.
7 Iraj, 86.
8 Iraj, 87.
9 Iraj, 89.
10 Iraj, 90.
11 Iraj, 95.
12 Iraj.
13 Iraj, 84.
14 Iraj, 80.
15 Iraj, 82.
16 Iraj, 83.
17 Iraj, 177–78.
18 Iraj, 121.
19 Iraj, 122.
20 Iraj, 124.
21 Iraj, 102.
22 Iraj, 115.
23 Iraj, 117.
24 Iraj, 152.
