The Emergence of the Political Subject and Prison Aesthetics with an Emphasis on Shamlou’s Poetry

Habsiyeh, a poem written in prison, is a kind in which the poet turns his experience of confinement and torture into artistic experience; however, the representation of the prison in habsiyeh is not the same in pre-modern and modern poetry. The pre-modern habsiyeh-poet is more of a fatalist and considers the current situation as predestined. Therefore, he identifies his agency with the situation he describes. Although habsiyeh is basically a type of protest literature, it is only in contemporary poetry that it is associated with the political subject. In contemporary poetry, the concept of prison has manifested itself in a different way with discursive implications and disjunctions. With the formation of the national state and the birth of the prison in the modern world, the concept of prison changes from a religious and individual matter to a political one. The history of the evolution of the institution of prison in the modern state is related to the discursive formation of the prison in contemporary poetry. The most important research hypothesis of the present paper is that the historical emergence of the political subject has led to the appearance of prison aesthetics. Therefore, using a genealogical approach, this article has followed two aims: The historical connection between the developments of the prison as an institution in modern Iran, and the representation of ideas and metaphors on the prison in Shamlou’s poetry as an example of a dissident poet. As the institution of prison has become more widespread and complex in modern states, prison metaphors have been overflowed with habsiyeh-poetry in protest literature. In Shamlou’s poetry, protest literature is related to the subjectivity of the poet. He does not limit the concept of prison to habsiyeh; rather, he connects prison metaphors to social symbolism. In other words, in Shamlou’s poetry, the concept of liberty has, in a complex way, extended the prison metaphors to poems other than habsiyeh as well.