Above: DLR Lorimer was originally in the colonial service in India, before he was posted to Persia. Here he is, in 1909, shortly after his renegotiation of the key 1905 oil agreement. (This image is reproduced with the kind permission of Christina Lorimer, DLR Lorimer’s grand niece). Bakhtiari poetry has been described as “revealing the …
According to David Lockhart Lorimer, Bakhtiari poetry “reveals the real interests and outlook, and something of the experiences, of the Bakhtiari people”. He is clear that it is “the genuine product of the Bakhtiari mind” and that it owes nothing to any other poetic conventions. Laments are the most common type of poem, with grief …
I’ve been re-reading Henry Layard’s 1887 ‘Early Adventures in Persia’; after I noticed that this apparently included identifying details of the events and individuals in one of the Bakhtiari poems translated by DLR Lorimer. I was especially interested by Layard’s descriptions of Bakhtiari poetry recitations: “I frequently witnessed . . the effect which poetry had …
Recently I introduced you to Sattara Khanum, and her husband Jaffer Kuli Khan (Sitara and Ja’far Quli Khan in Lorimer’s translated Duraki/Behdarwand poem). The puzzle in the posting this week is a salutary lesson in careful reading of transliterated names and also, perhaps, in not believing everything that even the most renowned authors write – …
This week – something special for my Bakhtiari subscribers. An extra welcome to you all! My posting on Bakhtiari poetry recitations mentioned how the people and places in one of the poems on this website (on the battle of the Duraki and Behdarwand) are, according to their translator DLR Lorimer, traceable in Henry Layard’s book …