The Realm of Sa‘di and nearly a dozen other books and treatises establish Dashti’s reputation as a prominent literary critic and analyst. The first chapter of the book, “Speaking of Sa‘di,” is essentially a reprise of an essay, titled “Ferdowsi or Hafez,” included in Sayeh, a miscellany of articles and translations he published in 1946. The article is a speculative attempt on Dashti’s part to determine who is the greatest poet in the annals of Persian literature. Although the issue is not resolved to anyone’s satisfaction, least of all to Dashti’s own, the chapter is highly readable and intriguing. More or less it sets the tone for the rest of the book. It is from the second chapter, “Angularity vs. Curvature,” that Dashti sets up a theoretical pattern to validate the premise of the book. The eloquence and fluidity of Sa‘di’s style in writing both poetry and prose gives it the smoothness and natural flow of a curved line, as opposed to the style of composition practiced by his contemporaries and peers that pushes the readers around sharp corners and divests them of the autonomy of interpretation and identification. Dashti proceeds to enlarge on this theme through the succeeding chapters in which he compares Sa‘di with a host of luminaries of Persian poetry. It is interesting to note that Dashti’s political thought and idiom permeated his scholarly and critical writing and the present volume is no exception. Although the focus of the book is on Sa‘di as a literary figure, Dashti takes every opportunity to scrutinize the sheikh’s mindset vis-à-vis the dominant sociopolitical influences that shaped it. In this context Dashti also delves into the nature of the relationship between the individual and the state. In the closing chapter of the present volume, Dashti offers a dialectical view of the nature of patriotism as an abiding sentiment in humans underlying the allegiance of the citizenry to the state. The following are salient excerpts from that text: Considering that Dashti wrote these lines in the early 1960s when the Pahlavi regime was at the height of its power and in full control of the country, these words are more than broad hints to an absolutist monarch: "Since the advent of civilization human being have sought freedom and justice from their societies. Governing mechanisms that fail to provide them, cannot expect allegiance and support from the governed. Dictators and potentates of our own age, using the media and other means of propaganda, demand from their subjects unquestioning support and sacrifice for the homeland. The fact of the matter is that no other elements than social justice and assurance of security and dignified existence motivates people to have an allegiance to a state. No ordinary human being feels attachment or a sense of duty toward a land which has offered nothing but slavery and oppression to its denizens. This is exactly what Sa‘di brilliantly propagates in various forms in the totality of his work." --Faridoun Farrokh