Between tradition and modernity : the quatrains by Khalilullah Khalili

Bibliogr. s. 309-311

The quatrain (ruba'i) is one of the most popular classical Persian literary genres. Its master lived between the 11th and 12th AD – Omar Khayyam, whoperfected the art of keenly observing reality and commenting upon it. His quatrainsreflect a bitter-sweet picture of the meaningful(/less)ness of the human existence. Theformal features of the ruba'i developed by Khayyam provided a model for the next generations of artists, including an Afghan poet – Khalilullah Khalili (1907–1987). The source of Khalilullah's ruba'i topics should be thus sought in the poetry of Omar Khayyam that, undoubtedly, refers to Khalilullah's complicated life, full of twists and turns. Some examples indicate that Khalilullah attempted to modernize the genre and to adapt its modernized form to the needs of the contemporary times. In this way he involuntarily became an artist who returned to Afghan poetry one of its leading means of expression – the quatrain.