By: Tanisha Agrawal (Response post, Spring 2025)
Rudaki’s poem about old age can be read in relation to Edward Said’s concept of late style, although the connection is not complete, since the poem shows strong awareness of loss and displacement while still remaining within the traditional structure of the qasida. Said, drawing on Adorno’s discussion of Beethoven’s late works, describes late style as marked by tension, non-reconciliation, and a refusal of smooth closure, where artists do not simply become wiser or calmer with age but instead produce works that resist harmony and expose contradiction. In Rudaki’s poem, the speaker looks back on his former life—his beauty, poetic fame, wealth, and favor at court—and contrasts it with his present condition of physical decline and poverty. He repeatedly emphasizes how time has taken away his strength, his attractiveness, and his social position, and by the end he imagines himself reduced to carrying a beggar’s staff. This sense of falling out of the world he once belonged to reflects the idea of lateness as a kind of exile or displacement, which Said identifies as central to late style. Our visit to Eastern State Penitentiary made this feeling easier to understand because many of the prison poems and stories we encountered there describe a similar sense of separation from society, where people feel frozen in time while life outside continues. Walking through the prison grounds and seeing the massive stone walls reinforced how physical spaces can create social and psychological isolation. In the photograph from the visit, the long shadow stretching across the snow-covered yard and the towering wall blocking the horizon visually suggest enclosure and separation. The small moon visible above the wall looks distant and isolated, almost as if it exists in a separate bubble away from ordinary life, which mirrors how both prisoners and aging individuals in Rudaki’s poem seem pushed outside the social world they once inhabited. However, despite these similarities, Rudaki’s poem does not fully fit Said’s idea of late style because it ultimately accepts change as part of divine providence and the natural order. Instead of ending in unresolved tension or anger, the poem frames decline as something governed by God and time, which restores a sense of meaning and order. The poem remains formally within poetic tradition rather than breaking from it, and its emotional tone settles into reflection rather than resistance. In this sense, the poem powerfully represents the experience of lateness as personal and social loss, similar to the forms of isolation reflected in prison writing, but it does not completely embody late style as Said describes it, since it ultimately reconciles itself to tradition and cosmic order rather than remaining in a state of unresolved conflict.
Rudaki’s Qasida on Lament in Old Age presents aging as both physical decline and social displacement, using vivid contrasts between past prosperity and present suffering to show how completely time can overturn a person’s life. The poem opens with an almost shocking focus on bodily decay, as the speaker laments that “Every tooth, ah me! has crumbled, dropped and fallen in decay,” and then immediately contrasts this loss with the beauty those teeth once represented, calling them “a brilliant lamp’s bright ray” that shone like “pearl and coral in the light.” This comparison shows how something once associated with brightness and vitality has now disappeared, emphasizing how aging strips away both physical beauty and confidence. The speaker then reflects more broadly on time’s power, observing that “That same thing which once was healing, may become a source of pain,” and that gardens can become deserts just as deserts can become gardens, suggesting that change is inevitable and often cruel. Much of the poem then turns to memory, where Rudaki recalls his former youth and fame, remembering how women admired him, how music and poetry surrounded his life, and how his verses were once celebrated across Khurasan. He reminds the reader that “Time there was when that his verses broadcast through the whole world ran,” and that rulers rewarded him generously, showing how completely his identity was once built around success and public recognition. However, this memory only makes the present condition feel harsher, since now he describes himself as reduced to “this wretch of low degree,” ending the poem with the painful admission that fortune has turned so completely that he must now take up “the beggar’s staff.” This sense of social and personal fall connects to what we discussed when visiting Eastern State Penitentiary, where many prison writings describe how incarceration isolates people from society and makes them feel forgotten while life continues outside. Rudaki’s speaker experiences something similar—not through imprisonment, but through aging and the loss of status, which leaves him feeling separated from the world he once moved freely in. The poem shows how lateness in life can feel like a kind of exile, where one watches the past from a distance and realizes that former identity cannot return. At the same time, Rudaki ultimately attributes this change to “Providence which God displays,” suggesting that these reversals are part of a larger order rather than random cruelty. Because of this, the poem expresses deep sadness and isolation while still accepting change as part of life’s natural and divine pattern, making it a powerful reflection on aging as both personal decline and social separation.