Analyzing the Point of view in the Poetry of Reza Barahani and Farouk Gouida from Todorov's Perspective

Point of view is one of the most important terms in contemporary narrative studies, because it is an attempt to reduce the narrator's control over the text and a method to show the narrator's perception and view of the target topics and relationship establishes with other characters. Todorov pays attention to the cognitive and intellectual aspect of the point of view and uses it to control the characters' insight into various events or to inform the narrator's understanding of other characters. Reza Barahani and Farouk Gouida are modern poets in contemporary Persian and Arabic poetry who pay attention to the events of the narrative and the behavioral changes of its characters when faced with various issues, as they value the narrator's participation in the narrative, so that the narrator in their poems has the freedom of action and the power to move to any place and time, but often, instead of direct intervention, they summarize and analyze the events after their occurrence. Since Todorov's critical theory in examining the point of view has a significant impact on literary criticism, the present research has applied this significant impact in the poetry examples of two modernist Iranian and Arab poets in order to understand the narrator's basic views on challenging issues in the real and imaginative worlds of the two poets. This descriptive-analytical article intends to examine the point of view patterns of two poets from Todorov's viwpoint, according to the American school of literature. The results indicate the dynamics of the three main techniques that Todorov has considered in the classification of the point of view, including the "back view" technique, which is distinguished by the narrator's preoccupation with the deep expression of the subject in the " Gouida " poem, and on the contrary, the narrator in the Barahani poem is evasive of it. The technique of "simultaneous vision" in Barahani's poem is distinguished by the peaceful coexistence of the narrator with the character or his participation in his life's affairs, and in Gouida's poem, it is used in the context of the narrator's conflict with the character and questioning him about his actions and thoughts. In the "view from outside" technique of Barahani's poem, the narrator deliberately hides the truth, and in Gouida's poem, it shows her inability to discover the truth.