BAHAR, MUHAMMAD TAQI

born 1885, Mashhad, Iran died April 22, 1951, Tehran poet who is considered to be one of the greatest poets of early 20th-century Iran. Bahar succeeded his father, Saburi, as court poet of the reigning monarch, Mozaffar od-Din Shah (reigned 18961907). Gradually, however, Bahar broke away from the court and became a sympathizer with the revolution. As editor of a liberal democratic newspaper in Mashhad, and later in Tehran, called Now bahar (The New Spring), he wrote in praise of the new Iranian constitution. After spending a year in Istanbul (191516), he returned to Iran to lead an active political life as a deputy of the Iranian Parliament and became head of a literary group called Danishkadeh (The Place of Knowledge). The group published a journal by the same name in which Bahar expressed his conservative literary tastes, upholding the classical style against that of the avant-garde poets. He retired from politics in 1921, and, except for a brief period as minister of national education in 1946, he devoted himself mainly to teaching and cultural projects. His poetry, although written in essentially classical Persian style, was unique in his expression of modern social ideas and criticism of his country and government, often in biting satire. He also wrote essays on literary style and grammar, translations from Pahlavi, or Middle Persian, a novel, and treatises on the works of great Persian poets and historians.