The Poetics of Spiritual Instruction

Examines ʿAttar's didactic sufi poetry in historical context from a rhetorical, recipient-centred perspective Provides an accessible introduction to the didactic mode in Persian literature Uncovers a poetics of didacticism that was never systemtised in the rhetorical or philosophical traditionTraces the implications of the ‘medicinal metaphor’, in which speech is likened to medicineExplores literary allegory's relationship to visionary experienceInvestigates how didactic texts evoke oral discour