fazel asadi amjad

The harrowing memories of lynching as a method of historical implementation of terror and violence imposed on generations of Afro-Americans have been portrayed in numerous dramatic works. Lynching is generally referred to as a quasi-ritual and extra-legal act of punishment and retribution, which has been exercised throughout history as a method of intimidation. What should be accentuated is the far-reaching impact of such an atrocity on its victim's mentality and identity. Collective trauma and agonizingly invisible memories of humiliation, exploitation, racial discrimination, physical assault and sexual abuse experienced by black people resonate in dramatic renderings of many black playwrights. This article investigates the long-term impact of lynching and racial atrocities on the black collective psyche and the mechanisms through which one can articulate traumatized memories and experiences. By examining black people's traumatic encounter with savagery and coercion, this research explores its ensuing psychic impact on the black community. For this purpose, Angelina Weld Grimke's Rachel (written in 1916 and published in 1920) and Adam and Adrienne Kennedy's Sleep Deprivation Chamber (1996) are analysed in order to trace the footprints of ubiquitous racism and its jarringly traumatic impact on the black psyche. The horrendous account of police atrocity, the 'modern day lynching', against Teddy Alexander, a black youngster, and its subsequent repercussions in the private and public lives of his black family finds its way in the fragmented pieces of memory and repetitious moments of nightmare. Psychological and emotional effects of lynching resembling permanent burns inscribed both on black bodies and black minds are reflected in Rachel's traumatized mind colliding with many rising conflicts in a white supremacist society that eventually leads to her total abandonment of sexual life and motherhood. Theories of Christina Wald, which rely heavily on the psychological and psychoanalytical aspects of dramatic works, will be employed. By explaining and defining "Trauma Drama", Wald has striven to discover and analyse the hidden traces of racial violence on the soul and psyche of the victim's personality and its conspicuous impact on the quality of life and decision making in the real world. This study also explicates the psychological effects of racially motivated hatred and hostility toward black people and illustrates how the characters of the aforementioned plays face racist assault and agonizingly atrocious behaviour from the white supremacist society through expressing their lived experiences derived from trauma and post-traumatic aftermath of the racist incident in the form of linguistic mechanisms. What the authors of this article, by providing concrete examples, is to depict how the characters of the aforementioned selected plays attempt to assert their traumatized personality through remembering first-hand accounts of racially motivated attacks and strive to elicit empathy and understanding from both people surrounding them and the audience.

Modern Man, engaging the predicament of “identity” and “self”, seeks “love” as a redeeming power to reach affirmation of life and reconciliation. To discuss the issue, the concept of “becoming” as an innate motion and transformation in the process of love has been scrutinized from Gilles Deleuze and Molla Sadra Shirazi”s perspective. The concept of “becoming” in Deleuze corresponds with Molla Sadra”s “substantial motion” in the notion of “love”, both carrying out the phenomenon of perception and transformation. The concept of “love” in Deleuze”s theory appears as a rhizomatic experience of “expression of the other” and different possibilities with no message and centrality, just to reach a kind of individual and unique “affect”, and this singular affect is sufficient to generate transformation. Sadra, on the other hand, presents love as the seed corn of all being, leading to a hierarchical motion through “systematic ambiguity of existence” towards a kind of cosmic unity and reconciliation. The theories of Deleuzian “becoming in love” and Sadraian “substantial motion and love” have been applied to scrutinize the practicality and confrontation of the notions in the case of redeeming modern man from nihilism, sense of alienation, distress, and bewilderment.

The present research is a comparative study of Jacques Lacan's concepts of Desire, Love, and Lost Object in the selected poems of Nosrat Rahmani and Henry Charles Bukowski. It aims to locate and debate the psychological causes of this desire and endless search for 'objet a' in the narrators' psyches. Analyzing "The Story" by Rahmani and "Another Bed" by Bukowski, the researchers found that Love has always been accompanied by loss and separation in their poems. The narrators endeavor to discover their lost paradise in multiple lovers, unaware they are involved in a phallic Jouissance with repetitive compulsion. This study concludes that to discover the ideal object and be united with the ultimate mother, the narrators are involved with an imaginary love that never binds them to the perfect love of the Real Order. Like all signifiers, the object of their love constantly slips from its signified. The narrators have a narcissistic relationship with the object of their desires. They fall in love with themselves or with someone else who is supportive and reminds them of maternal love. In this continuous cycle of Desire, women are small objects that the narrators love for a while to satisfy their initial lack. When their desire is not satisfied, they leave them and look for another object of desire.

The present article is a comparative study of the causes of mutiny and morbidity in the works of two modern poets Nosrat Rahmani and Henry Charles Bukowsk in the light of Jacques Lacan's theories of three registers of Imaginary, Symbolic, and The Real. The research first explores these registers in these poets’ works and then analyzes their psychological and social motivations. One form of mutinous act in the poetry of Rahmani and Bukowsk is their persona’s explicit confession to their addiction in alcohol and drugs. Their insubordination has pushed the narrators’ to the threshold of ignominy, despair and death, yet still, none of these consequences seem enough to make them leave the world of fantasy. Jouissance, or pleasure associated with pain and guilt, pushes them towards death. The study concludes that the source of these issues is the repressed feelings that arise as a result of the subject's confrontation with the Big Other. The personas have been caught up in a symbolic cycle, and in order to bring it to an end, they have no choice but mutiny and morbidity. By entering into the Real order and recognizing the lack, they become traumatized and endeavor to retreat to the Imaginary realm of the mother to soothe their pains.

The purpose of this article is to examine different cultural factors which are necessary for African Americans to form their own culture and identity against the dominant white class of society in the beginning of the twentieth century in America, as presented in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s come and Gone, and to provide a cultural analysis of this play in the light of the objective and systematic theory of Pierre Bourdieu. The American playwright August Wilson (1945–2005) produced a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes. One of the basic issues which Wilson brings up in his ten plays, written in regard to each decade of the twentieth century, is the struggle of African Americans to construct their culture and consequently their identity in America. In Wilson’s plays, many newly freed African slaves move to the north in order to shape their identity as respectable citizens of great worth. Therefore, they are foreigners in a new and strange habitus, and because they have lost their contact with their past heritage and also do not have access to the social codes through which they could gain power, they search for means through which they could concretize the song they carry within themselves which is their true African heritage. And in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Wilson portrays the socio-historical and economic forces that led to the great migration of African Americans from the South to the North, reminiscent of the biblical exodus of the migration of Israelites. He depicts men and women who try to break themselves form the invisibles chains of slavery and cruelty and search for a new life, prosperity, empowerment, safety, individuality, and of course eventually their collective racial identity). And this play is surveyed in the light of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory. Influenced by great thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Jean Baudrillard among others, Bourdieu’s main concern is with the changing pattern of cultural forms of domination, competition for power and prestige with the aim of revealing and bringing to light the hidden forms of domination that are consciously and unconsciously reproduced in everyday life. Though the subject of Bourdieu’s studies is basically the French society of his time, his methodology and insights are applicable to all societies which are the domains of cultural conflicts. The key terms in Bourdieu’s theory such as culture, different forms of capital, taste, distinction, and habitus provide the ground through which we can diagnose the surface and hidden conflicts in social relations. One of the main advantages of Bourdieu as a social theorist is that he does not exclude the role of history in his studies. It is, finally, argued that without capturing different forms of capital and growing individual tastes and consequently real distinction within a specific habitus, the struggle of these people for structuring their social identity is futile. The significance of the current article is that its discoveries can be extended for the analysis of other dominated cultures throughout the world as well.

Migration and particularly migrant’s identity occupy a special place in post-colonial studies. Separation from homeland and living in an alien culture make the migrant develop a “hybrid” identity that undermines the self/other binary opposition and other oppositions which have served as the basis of different forms of colonialism throughout history. Migrant’s “hybrid” identity, accordingly, questions the traditional views on identity and serves as an agent of change and resistance against fanatical nationalist and racist ideologies. In this study, the viewpoints of Edward Said and Homi Bhabha, two of the leading thinkers in postcolonial studies, have been studied to see the points of convergence and divergence in their views about the anti-colonial potentialities of the migrant’s hybrid identity and his capacity for showing agency and resistance. This investigation shows that whereas Bhabha relies on poststructuralist principles in his upholding of the migrant’s hybrid identity, Said adopts an eclectic approach and discusses the potentialities of the migrant’s hybrid identity mainly from a humanistic viewpoint.

Edward Albee (1928-2016), an outstanding American playwright, is one of the authors who tried to represent the social relations of individuals in his plays. The reflection of these relationships can be viewed not only in the characters' words, and in their silence, as well as their physical encounters. This characteristic reminds us of the attention to the visible and hidden aspects of behavior in the theory of symbolic interaction. The purpose of this study is to apply symbolic interactionism focusing on the viewpoints of George Herbert Mead (1931-1863) in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance. In this study, the method of directional qualitative content analysis has been used. Findings show the changes occurred in the beliefs of Americans after the middle of the twentieth century through the confrontation of two groups of characters. On the one hand, parents who are subject to the bourgeois patterns, values, and standards of traditional American society, and on the other hand, their significant others have lined up against them. The second group, despite transmitting from the traditional values of society, have not been able to continue their social life independently and are therefore dependent on the first group. This parasitic dependence that gives rise to conflicts and tensions of the characters; upset the delicate balance of the family. It Eventually leads to the evaluation and rethinking of the dichotomy of social responsibility vs. individual rights.

 The African American female playwright Lorraine Hansberry in her great plays not only exposes the various brutal shapes that the powerful mask of colonialism takes, but also emphasizes the celebration of African American culture, custom, literature, experience, and achievements.  Hansberry’s second play, Les Blancs, can be considered the first brilliant work written by an African American dramatist focusing on Africa and deliberately and intentionally posing questions in the context of African Americans liberation debate. Hansberry  wrote Les Blancs as a reply to The Blacks written by Jean Genet, in which the French dramatist staged an awful portrayal of African Americans. Indeed, he presented them as the protagonists of whites[S1] . Lorraine Hansberry in all her plays, including Les Blanc, objects to the omission and disregard of the African culture, people, literature, history and custom in maintaining the Western European American hegemony.  She also denounces the stereotypical representation and depiction of African Americans. Henry Louis Gates is the most influential contemporary scholar in African American Studies. He believes in “double- voicedness”, speaking the language of the dominant culture and the language of the subordinated culture simultaneously, and asserts “Signifyin(g)” as its epitome .  Gates has adopted Saussure’s theories on signification and redefined the word and the concept. According to Henry Louis Gates, “Signifyin(g)” in African American context is a linguistic wordplay, or a deferral of meaning. It can even be considered as a self-conscious manipulation of meanings that highlights the playfulness of the mechanisms of language and meaning making. Gates believes that the African American concept of “Signifyin(g)” is completely different from its Saussurean meaning in Standard English. He states that by “Signifyin(g)” the differentiation between the “signification” of Standard English language and that of the African American vernacular meaning of the words are made and mentioned. Henry Louis Gates says that the Standard meaning functions according to the Saussurean law of meaning making, in which signifiers acquire meaning by differing from other existing signifiers. But the vernacular meaning is made in a very different manner. This paper intends to apply Henry Louis Gates’ notions of “Double- voicedness” and “Signifyin(g)” on Lorraine Hansberry Les Blancs in order to describe how this technique has made Hansberry’s works rich, prominent, and comprehensive as a significant contribution to the African American literature. The current article first, introduces and describes notions of “double- voicedness” and “Signifyin(g), second, discovers some epitomes and examples of them in the mentioned play, and, third, discusses how these two notions have made Hansberry’s work African.  This study concludes that Lorraine Hansberry’s drama attains its uniqueness from these African American voices and cultures.   Key words: Signification, Double-voicedness, Lorraine Hansberry, Henry Louis Gates

The concept of home carries with itself an emotional and secure weight which usually gives one a sense of belonging and stability; however, for the migrant or the colonized subject the world is “unhomely”. Using the theories of Homi K. Bhabha concerning the unhomely, the present research attempts to focus on the dislocated state experienced by Fatima, the protagonist-narrator, in Alia Yunis’s novel, The Night Counter (2009), and the plurality that comes with being caught in the space of unhomely. In this research, the major question is that is there hierarchal privileges in cultural hybridity or not? Bhabha holds that hybridity is free from hierarchal privileges; while attesting to the wide range of practicality Bhabha's concept of unhomely enjoys in regard to the postcolonial diasporic communities, the researcher argues that there are such cases, as that of Fatima, in which the migrant manages to move beyond his or her geographical displacement and live a fully articulated cultural life in a Eurocentric culture via recourse to his or her native religio-cultural heritage. This proves the priority of one culture over the other rather than its absence as Bhabha claims since the passage of years do not prevent Fatima from following her native culture.

Ralph Waldo Emersonʼs interest in the East is evident throughout his essays, poems, and lectures. He regards the East as an ignored territory of knowledge and mysticism that contains invaluable wisdom awaiting to be explored by Western thinkers. As the world witnesses an ever-increasing gap between the East and the West, Emerson represents the universal way of thinking, as he believes in seeking knowledge in every part of the world and advocates it. Besides the direct quotations from eastern texts, Emerson seems to integrate some of his knowledge of eastern and especially Islamic writings into his texts. This article aims to explore the implicit references to Islamic philosophy and Sufism in Emersonʼs works, focusing on the theoretical notions of Ibn Arabiʼs theosophy. Through careful reading of Emersonʼs works and Islamic mystical texts, this study shows significant similarities between Emerson and Ibn Arabi. The similarities reflect Emersonʼs deep reading and understanding of the Islamic and mystical texts, as he finds out in them sources of new knowledge and spirituality. This article unravels such implicit connections in Emersonʼs works under the notions of the Unity of Being and Imagination to confirm that Emerson has read the great Persian theosophical literary works, and through them, especially through Hafiz and Rumi, he learned Ibn Arabi's theosophy, and used his in-depth knowledge of them to substantiate his ideas in his works.

The attempt to ‘post-modernize’ Iranian writers sometimes goes so far that the critic, without adequate justification, considers outstanding Iranian works which are rooted in the culture and tradition of this land to originate in and serve the same function and purpose as their Western counterparts. In this research, the authors unravel these Eurocentric interpretations in the case of Bahram Beyzaie’s Death of Yazdgerd. Meanwhile, the goal is not to introduce Beyzaie as an exclusively Iranian playwright and overlook his cosmopolitan bent. More specifically, Beyzaie’s Death of Yazdgerd will be explored in terms of Bertolt Brecht’s epic theater. Thereby, Beyzaie’s twofold accomplishment in tailoring Brecht for the Iranian context and drawing on indigenous traditions of performative arts will be elaborated. Out of the vast body of Brecht’s method, this study focuses on his approach to history and his conviction in the contingency of the status quo and, hence, the possibility for change and reform even at the bleakest moments. The second line of this study concerns the parallel usage of certain techniques by Brecht and Beyzaie to achieve the so-called “distancing effect.” Given the multiple and occasionally incompatible readings put forth regarding Brechtchr('39')s drama, the authors have adopted the holistic approach of Fredric Jameson to the subject matter.

Edward Albee (1928- 2016), is one of the leading American playwrights (Bottoms, 2005: 8) in the twentieth century. He refers to the issue of the American dream and its changes in most of his works. A dream that, as a national belief, has rooted in certain socio-cultural beliefs of American society, but has lost its meaning. Researchers intend to explore the origins of this deviation within the paradoxes of the American society by looking at George Herbert Mead’s theoretical approach to analyze the effect of the other generalized patterns of society on the formation of an organized set of mental attitudes in the individuals. The research method, in this paper, is qualitative with the approach of directed content analysis. The main question of this study is how does the loss of meaning of American dream happen in these two Albee’s plays? The plays of Tiny Alice and The Death of Bessie Smith have been analyzed in this study.

According to Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Literary Anthropology, there are common signs of Independent Art in Taste of Cherry by Abbas Kiarostami and Hamletmachine by Heiner Muller criticizing mind control and isolation of the artist in the machinized world. Both withstand the field of power through some dialectics in-between: cultural capital versus social capital; fancy versus reality and text versus transtextuality which are discussible from three aspects including social act, aesthetic act and transtextual act. Having an outstanding placement in the world’s independent art movement, American School of comparative literature is used in this study to compare the common themes, modes, images and performative techniques between the two selected works. In addition, a descriptive method is used for the content analysis of “power” and the study of the interactive relations among contextual signs. The results show both works raise consciousness in the audience and change her/him into an active human subject. Opposite to Hollywood or popular art, these works do not imitate realities reflected in the media, but they discover the truth through intercultural dialogues and discussions made for the audiences. Their semiotics signify the ability of pure art in the conversion of media language and deconstruction of stereotyped realities. However, it signifies the influence of reflexivity dialectic on socio-economic structures to moderate the power field through the development of values in the conceptual art. Therefore, both postmodern works put the contradiction between objectivity and subjectivity in Symbolic violence under question through the application of cultural capital and postdramatic techniques.

Eugène Ionesco in his play, The killer (1960) depicts a true reflection of the human condition; he depicts the images of life and death, being and non-being, and the reality of man’s reduction into the cypher of non-being. He wants man to come to grips with his true situation; hence, man's existence is fundamentally a conflict between the infinite extensions of the human urge as opposed to the necessary and limited state of being. The aim of this paper is to examine Ionesco's ideas on the loneliness of man in this alienated universe, his hidden anxieties and his struggle for survival within an Existential framework of Søren Kierkegaard; examples are drawn from The killer (1960) in order to fully examine Ionesco’s particular vision of life. Such a study aims at bringing about a realization and understanding of the conditions man is exposed to in the universe. It is too hard for Bérenger to believe that nothingness precedes, envelops, and conditions all being. He faces the two coexistent side of living: in felicity and in the shadow of death.

The present article attempts to analyze and compare the views of Charles Darwin and Michel Foucault from an ontological point of view, claiming that there are serious ontological common grounds between the two. At first glance, such a comparison seems to be a bit odd and somehow impossible. The oddity of such a comparison is due to the point that, on the one hand, Michel Foucault is deemed as one of the vanguards of postmodern movement and as a result emphasizes and is associated with concepts such as relativism; on the other hand, the Darwinian viewpoint, or simply Darwinism, as a biological theory is more concerned and associated with "objectivism," as opposed to "relativism." In contrast to the views of many Darwinists and postmodern Foucauldian thinkers, the researcher attempts to, through an ontological study, demonstrate that the Darwinian and Foucauldian viewpoints share common ontological bases, namely, materialism and positivism.

Critically reading Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, the present paper attempts to explore the impacts of colonization on indigenous subjects, plants and animals. To trace the detrimental effects of colonialism on both environment and people in Sea of Poppies, this study foregrounds the reflection of the obligatory cultivation of poppy under the rule of British colonizers in India. Sea of Poppies is indeed a portrayal of the catastrophic policies enforced in India by British colonizers in the nineteenth century. In his seminal novel Ghosh deals with the changes brought about by the lucrative cultivation of poppy in the exacerbation of the financial status of indigenous subjects. Environmental devastation and the changes in the normal behavior of animals are also dealt with. Focusing on the theoretical frameworks proposed by Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin, this paper explores the convergence of postcolonialism and ecocriticism in Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies to indicate that not only were native people impoverished during colonialism in India, but also the ecosystem was severely damaged.

Mohammadreza Mirzadeh Eshghi in Persian Literature is comparable to Percy Bysshe Shelley as one can compare the reign of terror that emerged in Iran after the Constitutional Revolution to the reign of terror that existed in England after the French Revolution. Mirzadeh Eshghi and Shelley composed poetry and drama in response to the ruling powers of their eras. They both showed resistance and questioned the ruling discourses of their time in order to make their voices heard. This can be interpreted from the point of view of Cultural Materialism. Allan Sinfield, a notable figure among cultural materialists, suggests dissident reading of texts and talks of faultlines in texts that challenge the ruling discourses. This study argues that the difference between the poet’s voice and the ruling discourses of the era depicts faultlines in such discourses and thus challenges them.

One of the recent inquiries in the field of hadith studies is the investigation of transferred traditions and their causes and impacts on Shi‘i hadith circles. By exploring some traditions in the hadith collection of al-Shaykh al-Saduq and comparing the textual similarities and also the chain of transmitters, this research attempts to show that traditions of Jewish origin in the Shi‘i hadith circles are often transferred traditions and more care and attention should be paid in transmitting and relying on them. However, such traditions in the Imami School are but few and had less chance of appearance, mainly because the Sunni transmitters of such traditions were critiqued and the Imams of the household of the Prophet, peace be upon them, stood against the transmission of these traditions and restrained their effect on the Shi‘i scholars of hadith.

This article is an investigation of the theories of Derrida in Yazmina's Reza's Art. The deconstructive strategies which have been applied include the concept of the floating signifiers, differance, paradoxes, and decentralization. The question of the aesthetic values of modern abstract art has been raised in this study. But more importantly, the research shows that the author confronts us with miscommunication as shortcoming of language and therefore a rift in a longstanding friendship of the three characters of the play. The name of the play is Art, focusing on a white painting, but the color of this art is not determinate. Each character in the play observes the painting in a different color. It seems that color acts as a sign which is caught up in a chain of signifiers that never rests on a definite signified. In addition, it is shown how a centre is deconstructed; the white painting is the centre around which the relationship between the characters are centred but according to Derrida a text is replete with many other centres as well. Therefore, the researcher tries to change this centre and put Yvan, a character in the play, at the centre which can itself be deconstructed as the text is full of paradoxes. At the end, it is demonstrated that the text of this play is indeterminate without giving us any definite answers as the meaning becomes a floating sign.

A noteworthy fashion of objectification of the subject in modern societies_ in reference to Michel Foucault_ is dividing practices through which individuals are silenced and become marginalized. In terms of Foucault''s dividing practices، the present article delves into reasons why Lord Byron was stigmatized and divided from his contemporary poets. With this end in view، the paper sheds light on the propensity romantic intellectuals had to construct a precedent for a perfect society in the aftermath of the French Revolution، the poet''s imagination، and the Napoleonic Wars. Furthermore، the research endeavors to survey the vitriolic remarks directed to the alleged immorality existed in his Don Juan. Finally، Lord Byron''s pessimistic and political response to his contemporaries'' idealistic penchant for a perfect society and their vituperative comments on the publication of his masterpiece was elucidated in each section.

Nima Youshij، the founder of modern Persian poetry، composed several poems challenging conventional Persian meters، forms and contents. He manipulated rhyme، rhythm، and length of a verse. Similarly، Walt Whitman، the father of free verse in American literature، published Leaves of Grass to challenge conventional forms and contents of poetry. They both showed resistance and questioned dominant literary discourses of their time in order to make their voices heard. This can be interpreted from the point of view of Cultural Materialism. Allan Sinfield، a notable figure amongst cultural materialists، suggests dissident reading of texts and talks over faultlines in texts that challenge dominant discourses. This study argues that the difference between the poet’s voice and the ruling literary discourse of the era depicts faultlines in such a discourse and thus challenges it.

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the events in the aftermath of waterloo war and the ideology arising from it in the 19th-century England. The researchers are inclined to survey post-waterloo discourses in the light of New Historicism which is grounded on the mind-sets of the illustrious 20th-century philosopher, cultural historian, and archeologist Michel Foucault. The research elaborates on the crucial role the guardians of post-waterloo war ideology take in highlighting the significance of the battle in addition to explicating their role in foregrounding the weight of the English Army and its Tory commander, Lord Wellington in the victory. In this regard, Lord Byron's contemporarie's part as the cultural arm and propagandists of the dominant Tory Party has been discussed. What is more, the dominance and significance of major Tory publishers as staunch defenders of the English power structure has been analyzed in this paper. Last but not least, Lord Byron's revolutionary stance and response towards the above-mentioned ideology was illuminated in each section.

Although America claims to be the savior of the world and its invasions of other nations have been justified as attempts to maintain peace and security، America’s international interventions have not always been without expansionist aims. America considers itself a Messianic force on the earth. This moral aloofness has served as a justification for imperialist projects. In the light of post-colonial studies، this article tries to discuss the manifestation of America''s messianic discourse in the works of a leading science fiction writer of the 1930s، Stanley G. Weinbaum. In his planetary stories، Weinbaum portrays Americans as the harbingers of peace، security and enlightenment to the lands they invade. Moreover، Weinbaum pictures Americans as those who bring about reconciliation and، having eliminated hostile criminals and vicious natives، save all the planets and its tame، pliable inhabitants. The results of the analysis show that the Messianic discourse of the US has been so pervasive that it has deeply affected its literature and culture.

To date، the Indian style of poetry has been known by many scholars and literary critics as comparable to the European baroque in the seventeenth century، to which it is almost contemporaneous. Consequently، many comparative studies can be found which have focused on the affinities between Persian poetry and the baroque school. In the present research، Sa''ib Tabrizi، who is acclaimed as the sole representative of the Indian style، has been selected for investigating his verses from a baroque perspective. Far from presenting Sa''ib as completely identifiable with the baroque in its entirety، by utilizing a structural analysis، the authors have tried to investigate some of the unique properties of the baroque، theatricality and chiaroscuro، in Sa''ib''s sonnets.

In this paper, the writers try to compare two authors, the Iranian leftist, Bozorg Alavi (1904-1997) and the Polish Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), in their novels Her Eyes (1952) and The Secret Agent (1907), respectively. Although these two writers have different attitudes to Socialism and the question of revolution, both share Romantic idealism and a tragic sense of personal and social life. Moreover, they both are precursors of modernist novel in their countries, and share a humanistic attitude to life. However, both are intellectual elites and their relation to their homeland is problematic. All this make possible a comparative study of these two writers. Their political proclivities tint their views of life and politics and thus they have a dissimilar interpretation of nationalism and socialism, two political subjects they are entangled with. The very same political attitude colors their ideas of human agency and the ethics of human responsibility. Nevertheless, each writer critiques and questions the premises of his political belief in his work, which is the most characteristic modernist attitude they share. The paper will bring similarities, differences and contradictions in Conrad and Alavi’s opinions to politics and individual ethics into focus and conclude that the reason for greatness and fame of these two writers is their attempts at reaching an understanding of humanity rather than reporting on the political taste of a people or time.