ABSTRACT
IN the next following chapter we shall be examining the work of the greatest of the post-Mongol poets, in the view of many the greatest poet of all-Hafiz. Here a brief account will be given of five poets of the fourteenth century whose writings illustrate different aspects of the literary activities of that troubled and uncertain period. Our first subject is an author of no very great originality, whose reputation in Europe has surely exceeded his merits; a good example-though not so astounding as ‘Umar Khaiyam-of how the wayward interest of occidentals can some times prevail over the more informed and balanced judgment of native criticism, though unlike ‘Umar Khaiyam he has not wrung from his countrymen a belated confession of genius.
