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Which Persian poetic form was especially used for epic poetry?
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Persian literature
Ceramic wine bottle, fritware, Iran, second half of the 17th century; in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The Persian poetic form primarily used for epic poetry is the masnavi (also spelled masnawi).12
The masnavi consists of a series of rhymed couplets (aa, bb, cc, etc.), a structure that allowed poets to develop long narratives through thousands of verses. While the form was also utilized for romantic and didactic poetry, it provided the essential framework for Persian epic literature. In terms of prosody, the motaqareb metre was the specific pattern most frequently applied to these epic works.12
The most celebrated example of this form is the Shāh-nāmeh ("Book of Kings") by Ferdowsī, which serves as the Persian national epic.3