In the spring of 1265, beneath the shadow of Florence's rising towers, a child was born who would revolutionize not merely Italian literature but the entire Western imagination. Dante Alighieri entered a world of political turmoil, theological ferment, and artistic flowering, and he would spend his fifty-six years transforming personal anguish into universal art, political exile into cosmic vision, and earthly love i…
“The vernacular is the language which we learn without any rule, by imitating our nurses.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Italian Renaissance Poets, Medieval Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Political Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Tenderness, Longing
Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, known in much of the world as Rumi, was born on 30 September 1207 and died on 17 December 1273. Few poets have crossed linguistic, religious, and national boundaries as fully as he has. In Persian literary history he is often called Mawlānā, “our master,” and in the Turkish-speaking world he is remembered as Mevlânâ; “Rumi,” the name by which he is most familiar in English, means…
“How long will you be content with the outward form? Go to the meaning, for the meaning is the root and the outward form is only its branch.”
Neighbourhood:
Medieval Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Persian Mystic Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Joy
