1st Edition
Poetry and Revolution The Poets and Poetry of the Constitutional Era of Iran
Compiled by experts on the works of each individual poet, this book covers the poetry and poets of the Constitutional Revolution of Iran.
Following a two-pronged approach, this volume studies both those who were influenced by the Constitutional Revolution in their works and those who addressed the Revolution with their work, influencing it directly. Through the analysis of their works, this volume explores influential poets and writers from the period, including Iraj, Vaziri, Afrāshteh, Yazdi, Bahār and ‘Eshqi. It covers female poets who are often overlooked, as well as the major satirical poets whose work educated and entertained the readers and criticized socio-political events. Analysing the mainstream and marginal poets, this volume argues the margins initiated the evolution of Persian poetry. As Persian poetry and its multifunctional legacy became the standard-bearer of the Constitutional movement, this volume is an important contribution to an understanding of Iran.
This volume will be of interest to historians of the Constitutional Revolution and Iranian poetry, as well as to students and scholars of comparative revolutions. It is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate courses on Iranian history, Middle Eastern history and comparative studies of literature and revolution.
Introduction
Homa Katouzian and Alireza Korangy
1. Iraj, the Poet of Love and Humour
Homa Katouzian
2. The Silencing of Qamar-ol-Moluk Vaziri: Extravagance and Myth-Making in Iranian Historiography
Leyla Rouhi
3. Mohammad ‘Ali Afrāshteh’s Gilaki Verse and the Legacy of the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911)
Nasrin Rahimieh
4. Freedom’s Song: Women and the Canonization of Constitutional Era Poets
Matthew C. Smith
5. Social Education through Satirical Verse: Ashraf Gilani and Ali Akbar Dehkhodā
Parvin Loloi
6. Margins, Resistance, and Transformation in Classical Persian Poetry: Yaghmā Jandaqi as Precursive Kernel of the Constitutional Revolution Poetry
Farshad Sonboldel
7. Politics, Prison and Poetry: Analysis of Farrokhi Yazdi’s Poetics
Saeedeh Shahnahpur
8. Singing Modernity with the Language of Tradition: Situating the Literary Theory and Practice of Mohammad-Taqi Bahār
Salour Evaz Malayeri
9. Crying on the Stage: ‘Eshqi the Playwright
Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari
Biography
Homa Katouzian is Roshan Institute Visiting Academic in Iranian Studies, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He is Editor of The International Journal of Persian Literature and co-editor of the Routledge Iranian Studies book series. His numerous publications include Sa’di, the Poet of Life, Love and Compassion (2006), Sadeq Hedayat, the Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer (2006), Iran: Politics, History and Literature (2013) and The Persians: Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Iran (2010).
Alireza Korangy received his Ph.D. from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. His research is on Classical Persian and Arabic philology and literature; poetics, rhetoric, and Iranian and Semitic linguistics; and Kurdish folklore. He is (with Dr. Homa Katouzian) the editor of The International Journal of Persian Literature.
