LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM
Year:2017 | Volume:1 | Issue:2 |Papers Count:7

According to Ricoeur’s concept of the ‘hermeneutic arc’, an interpreter follows three stages in interpreting a text: explanation, understanding, and appropriation. The ‘explanation’ stage is concerned with the analysis of the text’s verbal structure; it is, indeed, a prologue to the ‘understanding’ stage which makes it possible to delve into the semantic depth of the text, i.e., into the (implied) author’s intention. However, the ultimate goal of interpretation is‘appropriation’, in which the interpreter, with a subjective viewpoint and by involving expectations, biases, presuppositions, and his interpretive position in the final reading of the text, appropriates it and makes it his own. In the Persian hermeneutic tradition, Meybodi’s commentary on the Quran, Kashf al-Asrar, pivots around three stages called ‘turns’ or ‘sessions’. In the first stage, Meybodi provides literal translations of the verses. Usinghadiths and Islamic narrative traditions, he deals, in the second stage, with the occasions and causes of revelation of the verses so as to unveil the intention of the author (God); and, finally, in the third stage, notwithstanding the views of the author (God), Meybodi interprets the verses with reference to their context as well as mystical experience, and in accordance with Sufi traditions and heritage. Without attempting to establish a one-to-one relation between the stages in Ricoeur’s hermeneutic arc and Meybodi’s tripartite stages, this paper analyzes the latter’s interpretive methods in light of the former’s hermeneutic arc.

The majority of magazines and reviews published between the early 1940s and the late 1960s in Iran were, in one way or another, linked to the Tudeh Party of Iran and, thus, left-leaning. Therefore, the ideas of the writers in these magazines were connected to Hegelian aesthetics, via Marxist aesthetics.Hegelian aesthetics subordinates artistic form to philosophical thought and concepts, and holds that the ultimate goal of art is to move towards philosophy and the production of thought. In Iran, critics such as Fatemeh Sayyah, Ehsan Tabari and others approved of the novel only within the framework of committed realism. But in the early 60s, critics like Abolhassan Najafi and Houshang Golshiri gave priority to artistic form and narrative techniques for the first time. The present study explores these critics’ ideas and arguments with reference to the theories of Kant and Hegel and demonstrates the influence of Western philosophy and theories of literature on Iranian critics. The study argues that in their criticisms, Sayyah and Tabari have more affinity with the ideas of Hegel and Hegelians, while Najafi and Golshiri represent a type of formalism rooted in Kant’s theories.

The theme of death is one of the most important subjects represented in world literature. By simulating death, confronting the readers with multiple worlds and crossing ontological borders, postmodernist writing has moved this theme to the surface of narratives and emphasized its undeniable role in the formation of human stories. Brian McHale, a scholar of postmodernism, has pointed out the thematic connection between death and discourse in different periods, especially in postmodernist literature. Rereading Mohammadreza Kateb’s fictional narratives, this study aims to deal with the following questions: is the above-mentioned connection detectable in Kateb’s narratives? And, in representing the theme of death, has this relationship to postmodernism been preserved? This paper is an attempt to demonstrate the thematic connection between death and post-mortem discourse in postmodernism, and the interdependence of these themes in the fictional narratives of this contemporary writer.

Using postmodern elements in children’s fiction has its own difficultiesbecause the non-experienced audiences of such fiction may not have a clear understanding of these elements and, thus, the process of understanding the story would slow down. Nonetheless, a considerable number of postmodern elements can be detected in Mohammadreza Shams’ and Syamak Gloshiri’s fictions for children: breaks in the plots, creation of alternative worlds, presence of imaginary characters, unreliable narrators, and the willing suspension of disbelief. In order to demonstrate the differences between postmodern and conventional fictions, this study examines Shams’s postmodern fictions, Me, My Stepmom, and My Dad’sNose, and Me, the Big-Head, and Golshiri’s Tehran, Ghost Alley, using Maria Nikolajeva’s narratological ideas. With her poststructuralist tendencies, Nikolajeva presents the tool that narratology can provide us for the examination of children’s fiction. Simultaneous narration of three stories in Shams’ works and story-within-the-story in Golshiri’s are examples of narrative breaks and gaps. At the end we also witness the opening of a window onto a new story.

Since we have bodies, we are always in situations determined by our bodies.Therefore, even though the body, as an identity-constructing element, organizes any individual’s personal and social life, it is itself affected by technologies and cultural traditions offered in society to such an extent that its cultural aspect overshadows its biological dimension, and prescribes or envisages actions or positions for every individual, which should be called social roles and regarded as the basis of their identity. One example is the organization of bodies according to the sexual and gender modes imposed by society’s cultural forces.This paper studies stereotypical gender and sexual roles, i.e., the Iranian man and woman’s sexuality, as well as their sociological differences in exhibiting the ‘ideal body’ and the ‘desired body’ in accordance with the cultural model in children’s and young adults’ poetry. The theoretical framework of the discussion is informed by ideas of some of the authorities in sociology of the body and the research methodology is based on the analysis of qualitative and quantitative content– experimental phenomenology. The paper concludes that the cultural model of organizing the body in children’s and young adults’ poetry is more in line with the traditional Iranian world and rejects the modern and consumerist viewpoint. Therefore, the roles have been divided between men and women or are expected of them in the form of the ideal and desired body.

Literary ‘reading’ has two aspects: first, approaches and theories, and, second, the logic of reading. This paper attempts to explore the logic of reading, which has rarely been noticed as an independent subject in literary studies. The paper’s research plan includes the following items: 1. introducing reading as a different way of understanding the text’s literariness, 2. studying the current methods of reading, 3. introducing dialectical reading as an anti-thesis to other methods, 4.criticizing the methods mentioned above, 5. explaining the reasons for the rejection of literary reading, 6. explaining the major factors in the act of reading, and 7. presenting a model for the analysis of the processes involved in reading in the course of teaching texts. The main aim of this paper is to identify the value and place of reading in teaching literature, and arrive at a coherent model for the study of the logic of literary reading. Therefore, except on rare occasions, the paper does not consider the development of the hermeneutic theories of literary reading.

Most magical realist novelists enjoy a powerful imagination and sense of creativity. In order to create an atmosphere different from other literary genres, the writers of this type of novel try to modify the conventional narrative techniques of traditional realism. This transformation affects different levels of writing, ranging from setting to characterization and narrative language. These writers, therefore, have to develop special techniques at the level of language.They let defamiliarization into their novels, albeit in a new way. These novelists literalize both figures of speech and thought, and breathe a new life into old and hackneyed metaphors. They also upset the balance between the intensity of an incident and its language of narration. They usually make the common, everyday phenomena look fantastic or the other way around. This way of using language in magical realism helps the writers to flavour their texts with more magical, but at the same time concrete and ironic, imaginative pictures.