Dewan, Diwaan or Divan may refer to:

A Diwan (Persian: دیوان‎‎, divân, Arabic: ديوان‎, dīwān) is a collection of poems of one author, usually excluding his or her long poems (mathnawī). These poems were often composed and collected in the imperial courts of various sultanates and were very well known for their ability to inspire.

Etymology

The English usage of the phrase "diwan poetry" comes from the Arabic word diwan (دیوان), which is loaned from Persian means designated a list or register. The Persian word derived from the Persian dibir meaning writer or scribe. Diwan was also borrowed into Armenian, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish. In Persian, Turkish and other languages the term diwan came to mean a collection of poems by a single author, as in selected works, or the whole body of work of a poet. Thus Diwan-e Mir would be the Collected works of Mir Taqi Mir and so on. The first use of the term in this sense is attributed to Rudaki.

The term divan was used in titles of poetic works in French, beginning in 1697, but was a rare and didactic usage, though one that was revived by its famous appearance in Goethe's West–östlicher Divan (Poems of West and East), a work published in 1819 that reflected the poet's abiding interest in Middle Eastern and specifically Persian literature.

The Diwan, or Divan (Persian: دیوان‎‎), is a collection of poems written and compiled by Nasir Khusraw (1004–1088 AD). Khusraw composed most of his poems in the Valley of Yumgan, a remote mountainous region in Badakhshan (now in present-day Afghanistan). The Divan contains around 11,000 verses of Khusraw's own poetry, reflecting philosophical, religious, and personal themes.

Poetry

The majority of poems contained in the Divan are odes composed in the traditional Persian qasida (a structured form of poetry with an elaborate metre). The qasida consists of a single rhyme carried throughout the entirety of the poem. In terms of rhythm, each line (bayt) of the qasida consists of two equal parts. The Divan also contains quatrains and shorter poems (as qasidas can be relatively long).

Khusraw, in his Divan, employs sophisticated rhetorical and poetic devices characteristic of Persian poetry. Su’al u javab, or question and answer, is used frequently.Antanaclasis is also employed, often with words that denote both places and things. In her book, Make A Shield From Wisdom : Selected Verses from Nasir-i Khusraw's Divan, Annemarie Schimmel gives the example of the play on Sham meaning Syria, and sham denoting the 'evening', that occurs throughout the Divan. The combination of prescribed structure and varied peotic devices adds to the elegance and sophistication of his poetry, making this collection one of the greatest in Persian literature.