Bahār provides an unusual example of a writer belonging to different periods of Persian literature. He began writing early and lived long enough to pass through several admittedly rapid stages in modern Persian history. Thus he is known as one of the poets of the Constitutional period, whose poems were chanted and recited by the overthrowers of the old autocracy, even more by those who counteracted the Lesser Autocracy of Muḥammad ˓Alī Shāh, as well as the poet, journalist, scholar and teacher of the restored constitution, the reign of Ri
ā Shāh and just after.
A close look at the Dīvān reveals a third period, less important from the literary point of view, but which preceded the others and gave Bahār a stamp he was never wholly to lose, even though he was acutely sensitive to the rapid changes Persian society and culture were to undergo during his life.