The author examines two great epics of the Ancient world: the Epic of Gilgamesh and Iliad. Though both compositions were created on the mythological basis they differ from each other substantially by their pathos. Iliad is a hymn to war. Its battle scenes are replete with pictures of atrocities, mutilated corpses, streams of blood. The epic praises deeds of valor performed by kings whose meaning of the life was reduced to looting and protection of spoils of war. On the contrary the Epic of the Person, Who has seen everything, places friendship and cooperation on the high pedestal because friendship and cooperation are the guarantee of the humankind’s triumph over hostile elements. Sumerians' outlook and religious beliefs were in many ways alien to individualism. Hence a great difference between Sumerians' mentality and that of the Western civilization people. The Sumerians' world was wide and embraced natural being. It places nature and its vastness above the kindred, self-centered interest. That world balances the material and spiritual and raises the sensual above the rational which is usually brought in by act of an empowered individual’s will or by his striving but such persons are self-interested.

The article is devoted to life and creative work of Afzaladdin Badil Ibrahim ibn Ali Khakani Shirvani, one of the greatest Persian lyric poets. Analysis of Khakani’s verses and circumstances of life that accompanied these verses' emergence allowed the author to introduce some important amendments into the poet’s biography. The author considers Khakani’s creative work against a broad historical background and investigates the poet’s multifaceted interests to his own country and the adjacent countries: Byzantine, Georgia, Iraq, Armenia, Rus. Khalani’s poetry is the embodiment of aesthetic, ethical, philosophical and historical culture. Khakani’s poetry reflected the variegated life of Transcaucasia and Middle East in the epoch of Turkomans' expansion to the West and did that with a greater authenticity than many chronicles and scientific treatises. It is not for nothing that historians in their studies so often refer to Khakani’s poetical testimonies. His poetry contains pre-admonition of Byzatine’s collapse which would have to occur nearly three centuries later. His poetry contains admonition of planetary disaster which would happen unless injustice of the social arrangement is done away. Khakani’s poetry is the poetry of pain caused by personal humiliation and humiliation of the nation. It is the poetry of persistence, tenacity and courage. At the end of the article the author offers analysis of Khakani’s poetics. The author demonstrates influence of Khakani’s creative work on many his contemporaries and later poets including Hafiz, another man of genius in the Persian poetry.

Poets are not done, they are born but in all times there are multitudes of those who are eager to pass for poets. The author undertakes an attempt to demonstrate what the spirit of true poetry is and in what way one may discover paths that allow become closer to the poetry. The author is sure that many our contemporaries who offer their intellectual experiments as innovations understand the poetry as a sort of intellectual industry for making a human being a more noble creature. On the contrary, the author thinks that the progress in the sphere of poetry is the cultivation of artistic intuition which connects us to out ancestors. At the same time the author does not call us back to caves but protests against dehumanization, degeneration of a human being and lack of spirituality.