Traditional and Cultural Beliefs vis-à-vis National and Religious Myths in Sohrab Sepehri’s The Traveler

Abstract

This study examines the integration of national and religious myths from varied traditions that permeate Sohrab Sepehri’s poem, The Traveler. The authors posit that Sepehri’s conceptions of these ancient tales and their expression in the poem constitute a creative evolutionary process that stands as our central thesis. The focus is an interpretation of Sepehri’s unconscious mind vis-a-vis the association of specific myths with the theosophical origins of recurrent themes. We utilize historical criticism as literary analysis in our application of a qualitative approach to the depiction of positions and periods in which these myths enjoyed currency in their respective cultures. Thus, the study attempts to portray the imaginative world that stands behind The Traveler while analyzing the relations of myths to religion, history and sociology — perhaps with a view to position the cited traditions as 'Iranian', or allow them as adaptations of traditional Persian forms derived from other nations. We conclude that the construction and interpretation of myths embody age-old existential issues and readers may judge whether the authors have substantiated the thesis of 'poetic evolution'. This novel approach to the great poet has but slight contemporary competition, hence, the literature base is meager.