A Review of the Reflection of Iranian Myths in the Poetry of Seljuk Era with Emphasis on Khaghani Shervani's Poetry

Myths comprise a main part of nations’ cultures and this greatly leads artists and especially poets to be influenced by this phenomenon. Persian poetry, in its early stages of flourishing, that is in the Samanid and the beginning of Ghaznavi eras, witnessed poets’ great and positive attention to Iranian myths and epics. However, with the consolidation of the Ghaznavi and especially Seljuk governments in Iran, a decline but not an end to Iranian myths and epics is observed. One of the important methods of poets’ in attending to myths is to found poetic images on Iranian mythical characters and narratives that were not necessarily positive images, and it often happened that poets humiliated Iranian mythical characters to praise their own favorite characters. Also, in this era, one witnesses the replacement of Semitic and Islamic narrations and characters for Iranian myths. Khaghani Shervani’s poetry, the great poet of the 6th century, is a perfect example of the poetry of this era. This study tries to, analytically, examine the methods of employing Iranian myths in the poems of Seljuk era.