Abstract
The ways through which literary texts can be read against their historical backgrounds have been the subject of several controversies since the beginning of the 20th century. This article, by focusing on the particular case of contemporary Persian poetry in the first half of the 20th century, aims at demonstrating the way historical processes are internally inscribed in the formal totality of the work and hence, not standing as external phenomena in relation to the text. Thus, by emphasizing the form and representational characteristics, this study offers readings of early 20th century Persian poetry in Iran and attempts to give an explanation of a double-faced phenomenon: The allegorical construction of the ‘nation’ on the one hand, and the representation of the individual subjectivity on the other. To approach this particular historical subject matter, this article focuses on the centrality of ‘the homeland’ in this specific literary discourse, and the particular manner in which it is being ‘concretized’ by establishing relations with various sign networks, alongside the change in ‘the real’ upon which individuals’ subjectivities are constructed.
Highlights
IntroductionArticulating the past historically does not mean recognizing it ‘the way it really was’
Walter Benjamin, ‘On the concept of History’. This Reading some moments of Contemporary Persian Poetry, neither as things-in-themselves nor as reflections of something external, but as history itself is what moves this essay forward
The constellation constructed by these concepts, is aimed here to explain how individual subjectivity is being represented in Iran as a peripheral zone, and how this subjectivity from the first moment is bound to the allegorical construction of the ‘nation’ and ‘homeland’
Summary
Articulating the past historically does not mean recognizing it ‘the way it really was’. In the era of the construction of modern Iran, emerging forms and contents, or one might say new representational subjectivities, are in conflict with the preexisting ones in the field of poetic production This leads to a tragic situation for ‘Iranian’ poets in this particular era. At the same time, Persian literature in Iran, which in the literary discourse of the time mainly refers to Persian poetry, is one of the most central actants of the process of nation-building, as ‘the national literature’; as a space that feeds the national imagination and functions as a sort of retrospective collective memory for the ‘nation’ In this regard, even though the necessity of change in Persian poetry seems crucial for Iranian intellectuals (because the pre-existing poetical norms and values are seen as aspects of ‘decline’), yet a sense of continuation should be preserved.. The constellation constructed by these concepts, is aimed here to explain how individual subjectivity is being represented in Iran as a peripheral zone, and how this subjectivity (quite different from that of the core-countries in the early 20th century) from the first moment is bound to the allegorical construction of the ‘nation’ and ‘homeland’ (vatan)
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