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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2025
The development of the association between the father of New Poetry and the father of American free verse owes a great deal to the activities in the 1940s of an Iranian intellectual, Iḥsān Ṭabarī ( 1917–1989). A leftist thinker, Ṭabarī connected literary modernism in general and New Poetry in particular with leftist ideology. He was the first literary critic to support Nīmā strongly and to publicise his poetic modernism on various occasions. He was also among the first writers to translate and to introduce Whitman to the Persian-speaking world. The connections between Ṭabarī and Nīmā along with the connection between Ṭabarī and Whitman led to the emergence of the association between Nīmā and Whitman and to putting the two modern poets under the leftist discourse in Persian literary and intellectual circles.
In October/November 1943 (Ābān 1322 SH) translations of two poems of Whitman along with an introduction on the poet were published in issue six of a journal which heavily influenced the contemporary Persian literature. Established in 1943, Sukhan turned into Iran's leading literary journal for a period of almost four decades. It published the second Persian translation of Whitman (after Bahār in 1922) and the first of such translations to be accompanied by an introduction. The one-page introduction was written by Ṭabarī:
Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman, the great American poet, lived in the nineteenth century.
This innovative and wonderful poet is less known in Iran and a few people may have heard his name.
His poetic style was so unique that it was received with surprise and sometimes with disgust even in Europe and in the US. Nevertheless, Walt Whitman had and still has its miraculous effect on the souls.
The start of Whitman's career coincides with that of the modern poet, Lowwell. His first work, published in 1855, was titled Leaves of Grass. Although this work was not well received by the common people, it received the full attention and interest of the famous American writer, Emerson.
In a short time, discussion on and criticism of Whitman's poems started. He found some advocates and followers, in particular in the old continent. The aforementioned book was reprinted eleven times during the poet's life and it absorbed the interest of the intellectuals.
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