Persian Literary Studies Journal
Volume:1 Issue: 1, Winter-Spring 2012

In this paper Taqi Modarresi’s life and his works are discussed briefly. He is one of the early Persian writers in diaspora who left Iran decades before the Islamic Revolution. His novels have been published both in English and Persian. Azra-ye Khalvatneshin [The Virgin of Solitude], which was published posthumously in an English translation in 2008 and in the original Persian in 2010, both in the United States is his last novel in which he explores the theme of identity in the modern globalized world.

The so-called “third world” has often experienced modernity and its version of the “city” in some of their most grotesque forms where Iran has not been an exception. In other words, North-Atlantic powers have historically played the midwife for a father-figure-like modernity and its “third world” concubines, the result of which has been the birth of “monstrosities” of all kinds. Focusing mainly on the Iago-Roderigo-Othello trio in Othello (ca. 1603–4) and the relationship of a titular hero and those who besiege him in Halu (1963) by contemporary Iranian dramatist Ali Nassirian (b. 1935), the present article contextualises these play-texts and tries to examine the broader social frameworks which gave rise, amongst others, to socio-economic, political, and cultural contradictions. Whilst each of these dramas may be seen as the product of the distinct version of modernity which informed it, the article puts forward the thesis that Othello, as the epitome of Eurocentric modernity, is only seemingly a “domestic” play addressing a “micro-politics of transition” in the West from feudalism to capitalism; the play’s major undercurrent, the article further argues, concerns a wider “macro-politics of empire-building” by the West which subsequently dictated overall modernisation routes to peripheral, hence underdeveloped, countries like Iran. The article also sees Nassirian’s work – which, to follow Adorno’s theorising, at the level of form manifests many social contradictions prevalent in post-“White Revolution” Iranian society–as an instance of a “lopsided” modernity stemming from Iagoesque/Faustian projects orchestrated by these powers to lead all the “moors” by the nose.

The humanist mission of translation is believed to be rooted in the universal humane urge to spread knowledge and to eliminate misunderstanding among people as well as to generate a broader space for communication. What is absent from this philanthropist definition is the workings of power and the political agendas that influence the translator''s stance and his/her interpretation of the text that he/she is translating. The translation of an oriental literary text by a scholar who is actively involved in the discourse of colonialism would be an ideologically pregnant text, and a rich case study for cultural translation. Sir William Jones, an English philologist and scholar, was particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages. Jones translated one of Hafez''s poems—if that Shirazi Turk—into English under the title of «A Persian Song of Hafiz.» His Translation denotes a large cultural formation that emerges through the encounter between the colonizing West and the colonized East. In this paper, we have examined how Jones’s Western perspective affects his translation of Hafiz’s poem and changes its spiritual and mystic core into a secular and profane love.

According to the French Structuralist Gerard Genette, the term “point of view” is not an all-comprehensive one for the discussion of narration because, in his view, there is often a difference between the person who tells about an event and the person who sees it. He has, thus, proposed the term “focalization” to make a distinction between the two components of narration. Later critics also proposed new aspects and dimensions to Genette’s term and made it a key issue in Structuralist criticism. In this article, drawing on Genette’s and other critics’ views, we have tried to analyze how, through the interaction of different components of focalization, meaning is shaped. The study shows that “Kanizu” includes narrative complexities that are often ignored in traditional criticism.

In literary histories written in both Iran and the West it has generally be assumed that early modern Persian literary works are (technically inferior) copies of Western literary works. This has been and is still a claim. Almost no academically and scientifically sound works has substantiated this claim. While there is no point in denying a European influence on early modern Persian literature, there is a need of looking at earlier indigenous Persian literary works in order to see if there are other beginnings or influences on early modern Persian literature. This paper intends to show that Persian travelogues from the 19th century, and especially Hâj Sayyâh’s Safarnâme, reflects a new world view which is a forerunner of the world view that can be found in early modern(ist) Persian literature, indicating that developments in 19th century literary works and intellectual history of Iran also has a role to play in influencing later literature, next to European literary influence. The paper is a description of some aspects of Hâj Sayyâh’s Safarnâme compared to one of the earliest modern(ist) pieces of literature, Mohammad ‘Ali Jamâlzâde’s short story Bile dig, bile choghondar.

Love and its transformative power have long been at the center of Islamic Sufism. For Sufi writers profane love, perceived as the love of worldly beloved, was the first step on the path toward the union with the divine. Farid al-Din ‘Attar (1145-1221) was one of the most significant authors to espouse and articulate profane love as a representation of both earthly and heavenly love. ''Attar’s use of the theme of transgressive love and his inclusion of marginalized members of society such as social pariahs and transgressors as earthly manifestations of the divine is particularly noteworthy. The present article traces the intersections of transgression, law, inclusion and exclusion, self and Other in ‘Attar’s treatment of class, gender, sexuality, and religion. In creating an understanding of human diversity and ''Attar’s inclusiveness, this article refers to the concepts of law and justice in its modern sense as well as acknowledging the medieval understanding of these notions. In pursuing this argument, a few theoretical notions concerning transgression and law are used. Although applying modern theories to medieval society might appear anachronistic, it is essential to inquire whether modern insights and theories can help us to better understand medieval works, or whether they are exclusive to early modern and modern scholarship. Without such an analysis, we are left with an inadequate understanding of medieval culture and literature. This article fills this gap by exploring the reasons for ‘Attar’s inclusion of transgressors and peripheral characters in his works from a modern theoretical perspective.