LITERARY CRITICISM
Year:2010 | Volume:3 | Issue:9|Papers Count:10

The banishment of poets from Plato’s Republic in order to reach at a society free from irresponsibility is the first step in the Western speculative philosophy to criticize poetry. From a Platonic point of view, irresponsible, irrational writing, of which poetry, due to its inspirational nature, is an outstanding realization, puts the ideal Greek society in disorder and thus should be avoided; philosophically speculative writing, which arises from rationality and truth-orientated thinking, should replace it. Although it is almost impossible to examine the credibility of such judgments, they have been raised in different guises throughout history to explain crises in human societies. With a special attention to the modern era, this paper argues that due to the shortcomings in the Western “philosophical discourse, ” Western philosophical writings seem to be really dangerous and the cause of political and social crises. Conversely, writings arising from a “literary discourse” might turn out to be more responsible.

Cubism, which revolutionized the visual arts during the first decades of the twentieth century, had a significant impact on literature. It is often considered to be the twentieth century’s mode of expression. This article examines the influences of the cubist style on Hajm poetry-an avant-garde movement in contemporary Persian poetry which is mainly associated with Yadollah Royaei’s works. The main question of the article is how it is possible to apply the visual aesthetic principles and techniques to literature. The article is divided into three main sections. In each section, one of the common fundamental concepts between these two movements is introduced. These concepts are as follows: (1) the essence of the thing and the representation of reality; (2) three-dimensional image and the movement of the image; (3) and the concentration on the process of the creation of literary work through focusing on the materiality of artistic medium. These concepts are concretized by using some devices which create an effect similar to the cubist visual techniques, the consequence of which is to challenge the concept of representation in art and literature.

Despite its extensive use and its historical background in the Western rhetoric, not only the definition of allegory but also the determination of its functions has been a matter of debate among the critics and rhetoricians. This problem is partly due to some commonalities and differences between allegory and other rhetorical figures, such as metaphor, symbol, emblem, irony, and so forth. As a result, the significance of allegory in different historical periods, according to the intellectual currents of the society, has undergone many ups and downs. For the first time, it was during the Romantic period that the rhetoricians studied the features and functions of allegory as compared to symbol, in order to distinguish the borders of these two terms and to provide a precise definition for each term by characterizing them. In fact, the modern conception of allegory is indebted to the Romantic commentators such as Goethe, Schelling, August Wilhelm Schlegel, and Coleridge. These rhetoricians made the first systematic effort to clarify and define the term “allegory”. On the same basis, this article presents a report on the functions and features of allegory among the Romanticists, most notably Goethe, Schelling, A.W. Schlegel and Coleridge.

The novelty in typography coupled with narrative techniques has turned Bivatan (Tehran, 2008) into a quasi-metafiction, i.e. a story which explores the process of its own construction. While in Bivatan the author is supposedly trying to produce a metafictional effect, a closer investigation into the novel will prove this claim void. In fact, Amirkhani’s novel fails to step into the realm of postmodernism.

Narratee is one of the major roles in each narration and its analysis can reveal the features of the narrative text. This study is an analysis of the influence of the narratee’s predilections and responses on Masnavi’s plot. Moreover, we tend to examine the other functions of narratees in Masnavi. Being addressed directly, the narratee is highly overt in Masnavi and plays a significant role in the course of the narration. The narratee’s questions and acts can determine or even shift the course of the plot. This paper examines four major functions of Masnavi’s narratee.

An orientational metaphor is a metaphor in which concepts are spatially related to each other, as in the following ways: up or down, in or out, front or back, on or off, deep or shallow, central or peripheral. Such metaphorical orientations are not arbitrary. They originate from our physical and cultural experience. An orientational metaphor organizes a group or system of metaphorical concepts in terms associated with spatial orientation, for instance “up-down” and “front-back”. An example would be the fact that many metaphorical concepts concerning happiness (e. g. “feeling up”, “spirits were boosted”, “in high spirits”) have to do with the spatial orientation of “up”, whereas many metaphorical concepts of unhappiness (e. g. “feeling low”, “feeling down”, “sinking spirits”, “falling into depression”) have to do with “down”. These spatial orientational metaphors are so common that we often use them unconsciously. Those metaphors using the spatial orientation of “up”, “forward” and “on” seem to be associated with positive feelings and events, while terms such as “down” and “back” are associated with the negative. The majority of spatial orientational metaphors employed in the Qur’an can be divided into those that convey a positive experience or feeling and those that express a negative or less satisfactory event or emotion.

“Pain and suffering” is one of the tragic aspects of the human life which, as a recurrent motif in art and literature, particularly in women’s contemporary poetry, requires a particular attention. This article presents an ontological analysis ofthe concept of “pain and suffering” in ForoughFarrokhzad’s and SiminBehbahani’s poetry with respect to its quality, quantity, and instances. Accordingly, the article consists of a criticism and analysis of the concept of “pain and suffering, ”its objectives, and its effects on the contemporary women’s poetry. Furthermore, an ontological discussion on the examples and different types of “pain and suffering” in ForoughFarrokhzad’s and SiminBehbahāni’s poetry is presented.