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The Modernist Trend in Persian Literature and Its Social Impact

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Michael C. Hillmann
Michael C. Hillmann*
Affiliation:
Persian literature and Iranian culture, University of Texas, Austin
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Extract

For over a thousand years imaginative Persian literature has more directly and comprehensively than any other art medium reflected and nurtured distinctively Iranian cultural themes and orientations and has more than any other single indigenous phenomenon defined Iranian culture for literate Iranians themselves, who through the centuries have often pointed to this literature as a sign of their special place in and distinctive contributions to human cultural expression.

Now the phrase “imaginative Persian literature” can refer to various distinct traditions on the Iranian plateau. There is a folk tradition that emerged upon the heels of the appearance of the neo-Persian language in the 9th century. Then there is the better known belletristic court tradition that began in the same era and that persists today, albeit without court patronage, in the writings, particularly verse, of literary traditionalists who feel that the norms, forms, and themes of poets from Rudaki (d. 940) to Jami (d. 1492) constitute still relevant prescriptive standards.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 1-4: Literature and Society in Iran , 1982 , pp. 7 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1982

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References

Notes

1. Mo'azzen, Naser, comp., Dah Shab: Shabha-ye Sha'eran va Nevisandegan dar Anjoman-e Farhangi-ye Iran va Alman (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1978).Google Scholar Cassette tapes of the whole program, including extemporaneous remarks, applause, and the like, were distributed later by the New York-based Committee for Artistic and Intellectual Freedom in Iran. As for the earlier milestones in modernist Persian literature as a social movement, the proceedings of the First Congress of Iranian Writers were published as Nakhostin Kongreh-ye Nevisandegan-e Iran (Tehran: Iran--USSR Society, 1947; reprinted, 1979), 303 pp.Google Scholar At one point in his statement to the Congress, Communist fiction writer Bozorg ‘Alavi (b. 1904) declared: “Writers are leaders of the people [qowm] and should know how to lead the society [jame'eh]” (p. 183). On the founding of the Organization of Iranian Writers, according to Ferdowsi, no. 881 (22 Mehr 1968): 21, there were about eighty members of Kanun-e Nevisandegan-e Iran by mid-1968, the year the organization was founded. Also in Ferdowsi, no. 888 (11 Azar 1968): 19, under the title “Bahsi darbareh-ye Nevisandeh va Azadi,” the Organization's first general meeting is described. The proceedings of the First Poetry Week of Khusheh Magazine were published as Yadnameh-ye Nakhostin Hafteh-ye She'r-e Khusheh, comp. and ed. Shamlu, Ahmad (Tehran: Khusheh, 1969).Google Scholar The public support of the event is described in “Shabha-ye She'r-e Khusheh,” Ferdowsi, no. 878 (1 Mehr 1968): cover and 8-10.

2. Major themes are listed and discussed in Hillmann, Michael C., “Revolution, Islam, and Contemporary Persian Literature,” Iran: Essays on a Revolution in the Making, eds. Jabbari, Ahmad and Olson, Robert (Lexington, Kentucky: Mazda, 1981), pp. 121–142Google Scholar; idem, “Modern Persian Fiction: An Iranian Mirror and Conscience,” Highlights of Persian Literature, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (Persian Heritage Series, 1982); and A. Reza Navabpour, “A Study of Recent Persian Prose Literature with Special Reference to the Social Background” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Durham, 1981), pp. 247-297.

3. Tonokaboni, Faridun, comp. and ed., Anduh-e Bipayan va Chand Dastan-e Digar, 1st edition (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1977), pp. 47–52.Google Scholar

4. ‘Aref Qazvini, quoted in Aryanpur, Yahya, Az Saba ta Nima, 2 vols. (Tehran: Ketabha-ye Jibi, 1971), 2: 161.Google Scholar

5. Ahmad, Jalal Al-e, Karnameh-ye Seh Saleh (Tehran: Ketab-e Zaman, 1967), p. 164Google Scholar, cites religion, language, and literature as cultural factors determining his personality as an Iranian, Idem, Khasi dar Miqat (Tehran: Nil, 1964), pp. 105–106Google Scholar, sees cultural identity as determined by language, culture and tradition(s).

6. Simin Daneshvar, “Ghorub-e Jalal,” “Yadnameh-ye Jalal,” Arash 21, no. 31, New Series 6 (September/October 1981): 47; reprinted in idem, Ghorub-e Jalal (Tehran: Revaq, 1982), pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

7. Cottam, Richard, Nationalism in Iran (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh, 1964Google Scholar; expanded edition, 1979); Helfgott, Leonard M., “The Structural Foundations of the National Minority Problem in Revolutionary Iran,” Iranian Studies 13 (1980): 195–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Nikki R. Keddie, “Iran: Change in Islam; Islam and Change,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 11 (1980): 534, describes the situation in these words:

In somewhat different ways the Pahlavi regime and most of its intellectual critics were aggressively secularist. Both shared in the glorification of pre-Islamic Iran, though the Shahs stressed the great dynasties while radical critics looked to the “communist” heretic Mazdak; until recently both accepted fairly wholesale Westernization, with a stress on large, modern industry, Western fashions, consumer goods, and fads. Both tended to look down on the ‘ulama and the traditionalist classes as remnants of an old way of life that would surely disappear through secularization and modernization.

9. The most popular writing on the subject is Al-e Ahmad's polemic Gharbzadegi (1962), available till near the end of the Pahlavi era only in underground editions. For more, see the chapters on Gharbzadegi in Hillmann, Michael, comp. and ed., Iranian Society: An Anthology of Writings by Jalal Al-e Ahmad (Lexington, Kentucky: Mazda, 1982).Google Scholar

10. Cottam, Richard, “Book Review: Major Voices in Contemporary Persian Literature,” Iranian Studies 14 (1981).Google Scholar

11. The reformist character of most of modernist Persian literature is discussed in Hillmann, Michael, “Reza Baraheni: A Case Study of Politics and the Writer in Iran, 1953-1977,” Major Voices in Contemporary Persian Literature--Literature East & West 20 (1976): 304–313Google Scholar; idem, “Book Review: An Anthology of Modern Persian Poetry (1978),” Major Voices, pp. 314-318; and Gert J. J. de Vries, “Book Review: The Little Black Fish,” Major Voices, pp. 323-327.

12. Hushang Golshiri, “Payam,” Dah Shab, pp. 692-694.

13. Ahmad, Jalal Al-e, “Chand Nokteh darbareh-ye Moshakhkhasat-e Kolli-ye Adabiyat-e Mo'aser,” Arzyabi-ye Shetabzadeh (Tabriz: Sina, 1965), p. 63.Google Scholar

14. According to Tehranian, Majid, “Communication and Revolution in Iran: The Passing of a Paradigm,” Iranian Studies 13 (1980): 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, during the late 1970s the religious journal Maktab-e Islam was selling at a rate of 50,000 copies per month as opposed to 3,000 copies of Sokhan, Iran's best known literary magazine since the World War II years.

15. Al-e Ahmad, “Chand Nokteh,” pp. 62-63. The situation had not changed by the 1970s, according to Tonokaboni, Faridun, Mardi dar Qafas, 2nd ed. (Tehran, 1972), pp. 88–89Google Scholar, footnote.

16. Fergus M. Bordewich, “Fascism without Swastikas: Misreading the Iranian Revolution,” Harper's (July 1980): 65-71.

17. Mostafa Rahimi, “Chera ba Jomhuri-ye Eslami Mokhalefam?” Omid-e Iran, New Series, no. 9 (2 April 1979): 18-19. In October 1981, the arrest of Rahimi and a number of other modernist, presumably secular intellectuals was announced.