A Critique of Poems of Latayef al-Khayal Anthology

The remaining anthologies from centuries are literary and valuable sources that preserve the works of poets and writers. One of the most important historical periods in writing anthologies and memoirs is the Safavid era. During this period, several changes appeared that made the anthologies like poetry and prose literary collections. Compared to previous anthology books, this work has an advantage in development. One of its most important signs of progress is the critical approach used in mentioning and recording poems and verses. That progress was the result of the prevailing literary criticism in the Safavid era. Besides the criticism attitude, another aspect of the past anthology works is the poets' historical and biographical considerations.  These items contain valuable information about the state of poetry and literature of that period and provide researchers with information about the literature before the Safavid period.  One example of such an approach in Persian anthology is the valuable collection of Latayef al-Khayal, which, in addition to biographical considerations, has the changes mentioned in the tradition of compiling Persian literary collections and is one of the most outstanding anthologies of the Safavid era which in both terms of the number of the poets and verses has a special place among the others. One of the main characteristics of this work is mentioning the new poets, whose names have not been in any previous similar ones. Another point to consider in this anthology is the inclusion and expression of literary arts and the criticism of verses shown with abbreviation signs. These signs, which criticize the poems in different views, have been compiled in seven subjects and show the prosodic problems of poems. They also critically mention the differences, in terms of rhythm or rhyme in the initiating verses, by which the author could cover the weakness in the meaning of a hemistich or difficult points in composing it. The poems' problems have not gone away from Mohammad Saleh Razavi's eye, and he has shown all of them in the verses with abbreviations. On the other hand,  if a poem has reached maturity and perfection, he has elaborately helped the literary specialists to identify it. In the present study, while introducing the anthology and its collector's date, Latayef al-Khayal manuscripts, emendating methods, and content are introduced. Then the critical signs, rhyming, and rhythm techniques have seen throughout Latayef al-Khayal are examined. In continue, the abbreviated and conventional symbols focused on criticizing the poems have been mentioned. Then the meters and the rhymes of the poetries are analytically discussed in detail.