Shota Rustaveli is among the top 30 writers on www.ranker.com next to famous world writers such as Agatha Christie, James Joyce, Goethe, Kafka, Fitzgerald, etc. www.ranker.com assesses more than 250 million votes all over the world.
Shota Rustaveli is the author of the Georgian medieval epic poem “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin”. The poem was created during the reign of Queen Tamar (12th & 13th centuries). It is believed that he was the treasurer of the queen. The story of the poem takes place far away from Georgia: Arabia, India and “Khataeti”(China). But the faraway lands are the allegorical representation of his contemporary Georgia. The poem describes how Avtandil, a young Arabian nobleman, helps his friend Tariel (the knight in the panther’s skin), to rescue an Indian princess from sorcerers. The poem consists of 1666 stanzas and 6500 lines embodying the medieval knightly ideals of chivalry, friendship, courtly love, and courage. Marjory Scott Wardrop (19th & 20th centuries) was an English scholar and translator of Georgian literature. She was a sister of the British diplomat and scholar of Georgia, Sir Oliver Wardrop. She made the first English prosaic translation of The Knight in the Panther’s Skin. Both a folk tradition and the 17th-century royal poet Archil identify Rustaveli as a native of the southern Georgian region of Meskheti, where his home village Rustavi was located. The only known contemporary portrait of Shota Rustaveli is painted on the pillar in the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. Legend has it that Rustaveli was a minister at Queen Tamar’s court and retired to the monastery when he got older.