← Back to the front page

Ancient and Medieval Bards – Surprising Facts About Some of History’s Greatest Poets

Khalid Elhassan March 17, 2025 17 min

Poets - Statue of Al-Mutanabbi, the Arabic Language's greatest bard, in Baghdad — Statue of Al-Mutanabbi, the Arabic Language's greatest bard, in Baghdad. Chaldean News

15. A Truly Epic Poem

Illustration from the Shahnameh. Wikimedia

Ferdowsi toiled for decades to pen the Shahnameh’s nearly 60,000 couplets. The epic mixes myth and history to chronicle the lives of famous figures of the Persian Empire, which had been conquered first by the Arabs, then by Central Asian barbarians. The poem marches through centuries of history and myth, and narrates the lives and adventures of generations of warriors and kings as they fight, rebel, betray and are betrayed. It is rife with moving verse pervaded by a sense of loss and melancholy. The Shahnameh reversed a centuries-long decline in Persian culture, and preserved the Persian language, history, and folklore from erasure.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.