The Role of Lily in Persian Culture and Poetry

Plants have long enjoyed a special status in the Iranian culture and art. Among them, some have been more favored, praised and so-called selected. The lily flower is one of the plants that has enjoyed a special status among the Iranians since the ancient era, and we may pursuit impressions of this reverence into the people’s reflections. Today, despite that the origin of this selection is imprecise, but reflects the existence of notional concepts in the thoughts of ancient people. Lily is among flowers that have been matured within Persian culture. The influence of this flower on Persian culture accounts for part of the historical identity and memories of the people of this land; thus, identification of its semantic transformations is considered indispensable. One of the sources to recognize each nation thoughts is to study the literary writings, and Persian poetry as one of the oldest Iranian literary sources could help identify the hidden semantic layers of this flower. Persian poets represent prevalent thoughts of their time, which, beyond their rhymes, make clear to us the facts and concepts expressing the state of their era. This research, through analyzing poetic works during different literary periods, seeks to realize the mentality of the Iranian people towards Lily flower. For this purpose, first we introduce various species of Lily flower scientifically and describe its general characteristics. After providing an extract presenting Lily flower in Iranian culture and art, we will address semantic analysis of the flower during various poetry periods by providing some examples.