Social Factors Underlying Iraj's Predilection for Lyrics

Since antiquity, literary genres have been classified by Greeks into four kinds: epic, lyric, dramatic and didactic literature. It took a long time before new ideas were put forward by Russian formalists in the 20th century: they believed that epics belonged to infantile societies and lyrics came into fashion in adolescent societies. Now, the question is whether or not we can trace any relationships between the social class of poets and their preference for certain literary genres. This research is an effort to find an answer for this question by borrowing from Goldman who relies upon "Genetic structuralism" in his analyses. Literary works are structured by the poet's social class. Each social class will be analyzed in terms of the ideology, economic status, and historical function. Īraj Mīrzā is one of the greatest poets of the Constitutional Era. Compared to his contemporaries, he had a particular social standing due to his aristocratic background and therefore his poems were different from those of other poets who frequented literary coteries at the time. In this research, social class, its definitions and components have been examined in general and Īraj Mīrzā has been contextualized in particular to lay bare the influence of social factors upon his poetic landscape.