MANUCHEHRI - Damghani rates among the first -rank poets of Iran in the
first half of the 5thcentury(h.g.).He is a poet of nature, love, gaiety, and life
. He is tender of sentiment, sweet of words, and he has jocund and
charming verses. With the invention of "mossammat" he opens a new gate
to the Persian Poetry and he is knowledgeable ofthe sciences of his age,
such as medicine, religion, and astrology. He knows most Divans of the
Arabic poetry by heart, and thus his knowledge ofthe Arabic culture and
literature and his persistence in expressing his scientific learnedness in
poetry has made him more influenced than his contemporary poets from the
witty imagery and emotions and ideas of the Arab poets; especially the
"desert" Arabs; imitating and adapting their works and occasional allusions
to the opening lines of their Qasidehs, mentioning the names of those Arab
poets.
The purpose of this article is to compare some of his "Qasidehs"
with the pagan poems and to show the affinities between them in terms of
content, themes, the impact of "Moallaghat - e - Sab-e" on MANUCHEHRI, and
the grounds of his excessive inclination to the "desert" Arabic culture and
literature, in contrast with the other contemporary poets of "Khorasani
School".