A Silent Conversation with Literary History: Re-theorizing Modernism in the Poetry of Bizhan Jalāli

Abstract

Episodic approaches may point in the direction of general trends by examining the ideological presuppositions of dominant literary discourses. However, they necessarily reduce the aesthetic complexity of literary movements and fail to critically consider poets whose vision may not directly speak to common literary trends. Poets such as Bizhan Jalāli (d. 1999) have been rendered standalone figures whose visions of poetic modernism are understood only in the context of their “non-adherence” to the dominant literary discourse of their time or are overlooked altogether. This essay examines how the literary life and reception of Bizhan Jalāli intersect with the intellectual and aesthetic underpinnings of committed circles in the 1960s and 1970s. The twists and turns of Jalāli’s poetics do not speak directly but rather laterally to committed articulations of modernism. The article returns Jalāli to his literary milieu by analyzing the way his work has been received by poets, anthologists and critics. As the contours of literary commitment drastically change in the 1980s and 1990s, another image of Jalāli emerges: once marginalized for his “non-commitment,” he is championed as an “apolitical” poet.

Notes

1. Khorramshāhi, “Jalal dar She‘r-e Jalāli,” 115. All quotes translated by the author unless otherwise noted.

2. See Talattof, The Politics of Writing in Iran.

3. Samad Alavi has examined the plasticity and complexity of committed poetry in the works of three contemporary Iranian poets. See “The Poetics of Commitment.”

4. See Matthew C. Smith's dissertation on Bahar's oeuvre: “Literary Courage.”

5. She‘r-e sepid is sometimes rendered erroneously as “blank verse” in English. Originating in thirteenth century Italian poetry, blank verse has been a common poetic vehicle particularly for long works of drama and epic. The term in English suggests absence of rhyme but strict adherence to metrical rules (The Princeton Encyclopedia, 145). A highly contested term, free verse in English refers to a poem without a “combination of regular metrical patterns or consistent line length” (ibid., 522). In Persian, she‘r-e āzād refers to a poem that may or may not have any rhyme, but does adhere to non-classical ‘aruz metrical patterns (e.g. fa‘ūlun, fa‘ūlun, fa‘ūl in Sepehri's Beh bāgh-e hamsafarān). It is not quite clear whether or not she‘r-e āzād and she‘r-e Nima’i are interchangeable as there is so much slippage between the two. Lastly, she‘r-e sepid in Persian is broadly understood to be a poem with no rhyme or meter. Most definitions of she’r-e sepid are either negative or nebulous. Ahmad Shāmlu, an early champion of she‘r-e sepid, asserts that this form lacks meter, rhyme or any poetic adornments (arayesh va pirayesh). To sum up, the term she‘r-e sepid may have entered Persian through English or French (Vers blanc), as Shafi‘i-i Kadkani argues, all the same it reflects distinctly different poetic features than Blank verse in English poetry. If an English rendition must be offered, free verse approximates she‘r-e sepid for the former includes extensive formal diversity in English. See the short article “Estelāh-e she‘r-e āzād va she‘r-e sepid.”.

6. Jalāli, Didār’hā, 15. Italics mine.

7. Karimi-Hakkak, An Anthology of Modern Persian Poetry, 83.

8. Barāheni, Talā dar Mes (1992), vol. 3.

9. The question of whether Jalāli's work is prose, poetry, or prose poetry (she‘r-e mansur), the latter now an accepted poetic form in Persian, is beyond the analytical scope of this essay.

10. See Jalāli, Naqsh-e Jahān, 18.

11. Janacek, “Minimalism in Contemporary Russian Poetry,” 418.

12. Karimi-Hakkak, Recasting Persian Poetry, places Nima's poetic interventions in a long process of aesthetic and historical changes in Persian poetry.

13. See Behbahāni, Payām-e Hamun.

14. Jalāli read literary journals such as Qat‘nāmeh and Khorus-jangi in Paris.

15. Ahmadi, “Goftogu bā Bizhan Jalâli.” Republished in Naqsh-e Jahān, 16–32.

16. Ibid.

17. Extracted from Akhavān-Sāles, A Conversation with Modern Persian Poets.

18. Ābedi, Zamzamehʹi barā-ye Abadiyāt, 41.

19. Hāfez-e Shiraz .

20. Akhavān-Sāles has extensively written on Nima's poetic theories in Persian. For English-language studies, see Akhavān-Sāles and Talattof, Essays on Nima Yushij.

21. Other attendees were Rezā Farokhfāl, Kasrā Anqā’i, Human Abbāspur, Maftun Amini, Firuzeh Mizāni, Ahmad Mohit, Omrān Salāhi. The conversation appeared in Kelk (1992) and was later reprinted in Jalāli, Naqsh-e Jahān.

22. Jalāli, Naqsh-e Jahān, 20.

23. Ibid., 19.

24. Karimi-Hakkak, Recasting Persian Poetry, 235.

25. Ibid., 134.

26. Barāheni, Talā dar Mes (1968), seven (haft).

27. The claim that Ferdowsi was denied a burial site in his own land is attributed to Nezāmi ‘Aruzi.

28. Hasanak (d. 1077) served as the vizier of the Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud from 1024 to 1030. He was later removed from the position, yet he remained an influential figure in the Ghaznavid state. Hasanak eventually fell out of favor and was executed by Mas’ud I. Mas’ud Sa‘d Salmān's (d. 1121) life was connected with the Ghaznavid court in India, where spent most of his professional career composing qasidas in Lahore and Ghazna. He was twice imprisoned on false charges and spent a total of eighteen years in prison. Mirza Taghi Khān Farāhāni (d. 1852), known as Amir Kabir, was a reform-minded prime minister in the court of Nāser al-Din Shāh. He was assassinated in Kāshān.

29. While modern poets engage different literary periods in crafting their poetic genealogy, it is worth noting that most if not all overlook the literary production of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Reduced to the essentialist and ethno-geographic framework of sabk-e Hendi (Indian style), the vast and varied literary production of this period is largely dismissed for its “aesthetic excesses.”

30. While Barāheni, Talā dar Mes (1968) harks back to Ferdowsi and Akhavān-Sāles is preoccupied with the Shāhnāmah, Shāmlu questions Ferdowsi's status as a canonical poet in his remarks at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1990s. This is only one instance of the contentious nature of forging a poetic genealogy.

31. See Hafez-e Shiraz and Mafāhim-e Rend.

32. Barāheni, Talā dar Mes (1968), sixteen (shanzdah).

33. Ibid., nine (noh).

34. This point is also articulated by Alavi's The Poetics of Commitment.

35. The manifesto of She‘r-e hajm was signed by Yadollah Royā’i, Parviz Islāmpur (poet), Mahmud Shojā’i (poet and playwright), Bahrām Ardabili (poet), and Hushang Azādivar (filmmaker and poet). The initial list also included participants who had not yet signed the manifesto.

36. Barāheni, Talā dar Mes (1968), included a critical review of Royā’i's poetry. Barāheni argues that Royā’i has borrowed heavily, if not copied, parts of Saint-John Perse's Amers. He also concludes that Royā’i is a romantic poet whose poetic technique lacks solid worldview. I do not suggest that the manifesto of She‘r-e hajm is a personal response to Barāheni's criticism. That said, it is important to note how modern poets respond to and comment on each other's work. See Barāheni, Talā dar Mes (1968) 557‒669.

37. See Negin, no. 123 & 124 31 Shahrivar 1354/22 September 1975. (in conversation with Gholām-Reza Hamrāz).

38. Barāheni, Talā dar Mes, 524.

39. I was unable to find where Mohājer's commentary originally appeared. It was republished in Ābedi, Zamzamehʹi barā-ye Abadiyat.

40. The question of artistic reception is multifaceted. The samples of commentary I have offered are representative of broader literary changes and do not fully reflect the entirety of Iran's literary scene in the 1960s. Many critics worked within frameworks that were not at all informed by the poetics of commitment. For instance, Karim Emami published a number of reviews of Sepehri's work in Kayhān International in the late 1960s. See Emami and Yavari, Karim Emami on Modern Iranian Culture.

41. Other figures include Hushang Irani (d. 1973), Ahmad Reza Ahmadi (b. 1940) and Kiyomars Monshizādeh (b. 1938).

42. Karimi-Hakkak's An Anthology is the first anthology that featured Jalāli's poetry in English. Others include Kiānush's Modern Persian Poetry and Mohit's The World Is My Home.

43. The first meeting of Iranian Writers’ Congress was held in Tehran from 25 June to 3 July 1946. It was attended by Nimā, Mohammad Taqi Bahār, Ehsān Tabari, Nātel Khānlari, and tens of other writers, poets and members of the literati.

44. In 1965, Girdhari Tikku, the scholar of Persian literature, traveled to Tehran to speak with modern poets on many different questions. Their conversation appears in Tikku and Anushiravani, A Conversation.

45. Poet of Modern Iran has admirably challenged biographizing approaches to Farrokhzād's oeuvre. The collection examines many aspects of the poet's life, but does not mention this anthology.

46. Farrokhzād and Rawshangar, Az Nima ta bʿad, features works (in order) by Nima, Shāmlu, Akhavān-Sāles, Farrokhzād , M. Āzād (d. 2006), Manuchehr Ātāshi (d. 2005), Farrokh Tamimi (d. 2003), Yadollāh Royā’i, Mohammad Hoquqi (d. 2009), Sepehri, Jalāli, Ahmadi, and Nāder Nāderpur (d. 2000).

47. Ibid., 1.

48. Robyn Creswell contextualizes Adonis’ Diwan within its global context. Tracing manifesto writing to Filippo Marinetti's I poeti futuristi in 1912, Creswell demonstrates the prevalence of anthologies across literary traditions in the twentieth century. See “Crise de verse.”

49. Asked to comment on Sepehri's poetry, Shāmlu famously referred to the first line of Sepehri's Āb (Water) which reads “Let's not muddy the water.” In conversation with Reza Barāheni, Shāmlu says, “While the innocent are being beheaded by the stream, am I to stand a few steps away and advise [everyone]: ‘Do not muddy the water!’ I imagine one of us has completely missed the bigger picture, either me or him. Perhaps I will be proven wrong if I were to revisit his work, and [then I would] drown his innocent hands in kisses in my dream. His poems are sometimes extremely beautiful; they are extraordinary. But I don’t imagine we would get along. At least for me ‘mere beauty’ is not enough, what can I do!” See Barāheni and Hariri, “Goft va Shenudi ba Ahmad Shāmlu.”

50. In Daftarhā-ye zamāneh (101), Farrokhzād comments on the question of meter in modern poetry. She writes, “Shāmlu goes to the extreme sometimes, even in having no meter. In this regard I have only encountered two poets whose poetry I feel does not need any meter: one is Ahmad Reza Ahmadi and the other Bizhan Jalāli.”

51. Karimi-Hakkak, Recasting Persian Poetry, 134.

52. Alavi, The Poetics of Commitment, 120.

53. For an academic discussion of literary commitment and its impact on literary production (fiction) and historiography, see Khorrami, Literary Subterfuge.

54. Ibid., 1.

55. These interviews and commentaries have appeared in such journals as Āyandegan, Sokhan, Ādineh and Donyā-ye Sokhan.

56. For instance, Ātashi opines “There was a reason why the late Forugh insisted on [the inclusion] of Jalāli among lesser known prose-poets when she was editing Az Nima ta bʿad. Indeed Jalāli, like all honest poets, only responded to his heart's call and not to the noise of literary-minded journalists.” See Ābedi, Zamzamehʹi bara-ye Abadiyat, 74‒5.

57. Ibid., 53.