I was chatting to my Iranian fishmonger the other day about the oral tradition in poetry.
His grandfather had lived in a small village, with no electricity or running water, and only dust roads. Being one of the only literate people in the community, he would entertain the other villagers, either by reading aloud to them, or, just as often, by reciting poems and telling old tales.
I asked if they still read Omar Khayyam. He said his grandfather could never understand how Khayyam, one of the
