A Critical Analysis of Satire in Isfahan’s Naqour Newspaperin the Constitutional Period

Humor in terms of content is a literary genre in which the writer and the poet express the causes and reasons of backwardness, defects, corruptions, and painful inadequacies of a society with an intentionally adjusting look with a taste of laughter in an exaggerated way. The four main elements of "laughter", "exaggeration", "social criticism" and "reformism" are involved in the formation of any humorous writing. Although a humorous look to reveal political and social anomalies and problems has always existed in the Iranian history and literature, it can not be compared, in terms of frequency and stylistic characterization, with the humor of the constitutional era. The relatively free and temporary atmosphere which was created for the writers and poets along with the emerging of newspaper media provided enough appeal for satirists to write. In Isfahan, the Naqour newspaper began to be published, imitating Mollansereddin and Sur Israfil. In the column "Ugly and Beautiful", which was probably written following Dehkhoda's "Nonsense and Birds", interesting humorous content was inserted. This article is qualitative research and examines the text of the column "Ugly and Beautiful" in the whole statistical community published for one year. The method of analysis is documentation (newspaper) and content analysis from a satirical perspective. Naqour newspaper (published in Isfahan from 1326 to 1327) was published under the management of Mirza Masih Tuyserkani. Its first issue was published on the 26th of Rabi al-Awal, 1326 AH, in Isfahan. This newspaper criticized the events of the society of that time and the activities of the Isfahan Provincial Association with a humorous and sometimes satirical expression. In its humor, Naqour, while playing with words and interpreting them, has used allegories and anecdotes to criticize the political situation of the country, and in this way, it has made humorous use of proverbs and presenting the letters of the readers. Most of Naqour's political satires are interpretive and how those satires deal with current events. Its distinctive feature is the use of humor, language, and folklore, especially since this newspaper was one of the local newspapers and was published in Isfahan. It has tried to use the dialect and idioms of Isfahanians and sometimes the Armenian minority. In the ‘Ugly and Beautiful’ column of Naqour newspaper, most of the content is related to the country. The relatively high level of political issues in the newspaper is influenced by the main function of this newspaper as a political tool, and the most important political issue raised in the Naqour newspaper is the criticism of the Isfahan Governors’ Association. In this newspaper, occasionally dealing with religious issues is only for the sake of the judiciary and the unjust behavior of that power. Otherwise, the humor and joke of the newspaper do not include this field, because the writers use religion as a lever of pressure or threat when they want to clarify something that is religiously understandable to the people or to respect the rights of the people by the authorities with a humorous and of course softened look.