Walt Whitman, a world poet and the father of American free verse, has been read by diverse audiences from around the world. Literary and cultural scholars have studied Whitman's interaction with social, political and literary movements of different countries. Despite his continuing presence in Iran, Whitman's reception in this country has remained unexplored. Additionally, Iranian reception of Western literature is a field still in its infancy and under-researched, particularly due to contemporary political circumstances. The Persian Whitman examines Whitman's heretofore unexplored reception in Iran. It is primarily involved with the "Persian Whitman," a new phenomenon born in diachronic and synchronic dialogue between the Persian culture and an American poet.
Where did Walt Whitman get his religious ideas? This book follows in detail the similarities of the religious beliefs of the American writer/humanist and two major classical Persian poets, Hafez and Rumi. Other books have tried to explain Whitman's religion, but none so far has done justice to the topic. Some critics have labelled Whitman a pantheist and let it go at that. Others have dismissed the topic of religion in Whitman's poems as posturing to gain a readership. This work contends that Whitman took religion very seriously. His poems are full of religious references. He knew the Bible well. He also had read Emerson on the poets of the East as well as some of the same poets in translation. This book postulates that the counterparts of Whitman's ideas about religion are best found in the Orient and that his ideas on religion have much in common with those of the Sufis. The book focuses on the works of the three poets. Lines from Whitman are quoted and compared with lines from Rumi and Hafez to illustrate that the three poets conveyed their message through very human actions and emotions. Their message, which is mystical, is conveyed through a secular language, and their symbolism is unconventional. They attract the reader through their humanness and in doing so attempt to lead the reader to recognition of the divine existing both inside and outside of themselves. Like Whitman, Rumi and Hafez realise that God is both transcendent and immanent and as a result encourage their readers to seek the Divine everywhere, especially within themselves. Man's "true home", they contend, is his Divine origin. Man is infinitely bound up with God, is never separate from God. Whitman's long poem titled "Song of Myself" has created much controversy over the years, and Whitman has often been labelled an extreme egotist. Walt Whitman and the Persian Poets illustrates that all three poets see their egotism as a result of their complete faith in God's omnipresence and their ability to recognise Him in every aspect of creation. As did Emerson, all three hold a belief in the simultaneous transcendence and immanence of God. In short, they see themselves as God-intoxicated, as reflections of God in the phenomenal world. Therefore, as do the Sufi poets, Whitman sees man and God as one.
Emerson in Iran is the first full-length study of Persian influence in the work of the seminal American poet, philosopher, and translator, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Extending the current trend in transnational studies back to the figural origins of both the United States and Iran, Roger Sedarat's insightful comparative readings of Platonism and Sufi mysticism reveal how Emerson managed to reconcile through verse two countries so seemingly different in religion and philosophy. By tracking various rhetorical strategies through a close interrogation of Emerson's own writings on language and literary appropriation, Sedarat exposes the development of a latent but considerable translation theory in the American literary tradition. He further shows how generative Persian poetry becomes during Emerson's nineteenth century, and how such formative effects continue to influence contemporary American poetry and verse translation.
The reader and observer is constantly reminded that “there is nothing new under the sun.” We no sooner find some rare gem of thought or expression than we discover that it is only an old diamond, polished anew, perhaps, and offered as an original stone. Neither the reader nor the writer is always aware that the gem is antique and the setting alone is new. The rich mine where the treasure was first found was exhausted in a few brief years, and then became like all the dust of all the worlds; but the gem polished and worn by time and use, ever sparkles and shines, regardless of the fact that the miner’s name is forgotten and his work alone remains. Thus Nature, the great communist, provides that the treasures of genius, like her own bountiful gifts of sunlight, rain and air, shall remain the common property of all her children while any dwell upon the earth. Current literature seems to point to the ascendancy of what is often termed the “pessimistic school.” In one sense this philosophy uncrowns man and places him in his proper relation to the great universe, of which he is so small a part; but while it makes less of man, it expects less from him, and covers his deeds with that cloak of charity, which is the legitimate garment of the great Unknown. But these modern reflections on life and its problems, its purposes and lessons, are far from new. Without venturing a guess as to their origin or age, we take up that old Persian Pearl,—the “Rubaiyat,” and find on its musty pages the great thoughts and searching questions, which have ever returned to man since the intellect was born, and which will still remain unanswered when the last word shall have been spoken, and the race have run its course. It is nearly eight hundred years since Omar Khayyam, the Persian astronomer, philosopher, and poet, mused and wrote upon the uncertainty of life, the eternity of time and the mutability of human things. Since the rose bush was planted above his grave, the material world has been almost made anew. Art and literature have given countless treasures to the earth, and science has solved its mysteries without end. But the riddles of existence—the problems of life, the deep heart of the universe, the cause and purpose and end of all, are mysteries as dark and inscrutable as they were eight centuries ago.
"In Sholeh Wolpé's memoir in verse, the poet wields an abacus as an instrument of remembering. Bead by bead, she takes the reader on a journey of love and exile, loss and triumph"--
The 1979 Revolution in Iran caused the migration of millions of Iranians, many of whom wrote, and are still writing, of their experiences. Formed at the junctions of Iranian culture, English language and Western cultures, this body of work has not only formed a unique literary space, offering an insightful reflection of Iranian diasporic experiences and its shifting nature, but it has also been making a unique and understudied contribution to World Literatures in English as significant as Indian, African and Asian writing in English. Sanaz Fotouhi here traces the origins of the emerging body of diasporic Iranian literature in English, and uses these origins to examine the socio-political position and historical context from which they have emerged. Fotouhi brings together, introduces and analyses, for the first time, a significant range of diasporic Iranian writers alongside each other and alongside other diasporic literatures in English. While situating this body of work through existing theories such as postcolonialism, Fotouhi sheds new light on the role of Iranian literature and culture in Western literature by showing that these writings distinctively reflect experiences unique to the Iranian diaspora. Analysing the relationship between Iranians and their new surroundings, by drawing on theories of migration, narration and identity, Fotouhi examines how the literature borne out of the Iranian diaspora reconstructs, maintains and negotiates their Individual and communal identities and reflects today's socio-political realities. This book will be vital for researchers of Middle Eastern literature and its relationship with writings from the West, as well as those interested in the cultural history of the Middle East.
This collection is the first published anthology of writings by Iranian immigrants and first generation Iranian Americans. This collection is the first published anthology of writings by Iranian immigrants and first generation Iranian Americans. Wide ranging and deeply personal, these pieces explore the Iranian community's continuing struggle to understand what it means to be Iranian in America. The selections come together to present a rich, humanizing portrait of a growing community Americans tend to view negatively. Many are intimate reflections on the pain of being alienated from the language, history, and geography of one's childhood. Others grapple with the complexities of cultural and personal identity. Iranian Americans, like any other immigrant community, must face the ongoing negotiation between past and present, their native home and their adopted home. A World Between gives voice to their unique and moving stories.
Complete set of the thirteen woodcut illustrations used in the 1924 edition of Song of the Broad-axe by Walt Whitman, published by Centaur Press in Philadelphia. Each woodcut is titled and numbered "16". The titles are (as they appear in the book): No.I, Ship struck in storm, Beauty of woodmen, building, the forger, hell of war, The great city, of the best-bodied mothers, the hammers-men, the headsman, solid forest, the liquor-bar, and No.II.
This book reveals the rich, but generally unknown, influence of Sufism on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literature. The translation of Persian poets such as Hafiz and Sa'di into English and the ongoing popularity of Omar Khayyam offered intriguing new spiritual perspectives to some of the major American literary figures. As editor Mehdi Aminrazavi notes, these Sufi influences have often been subsumed into a notion of "Eastern," chiefly Indian, thought and not acknowledged as having Islamic roots. This work pays considerable attention to two giants of American literature, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, who found much inspiration from the Sufi ideas they encountered. Other canonical figures are also discussed, including Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, along with literary contemporaries who are lesser known today, such as Paschal Beverly Randolph, Thomas Lake Harris, and Lawrence Oliphant.
An analysis of the aesthetic, cultural and political aspects of alternative poetic movements and individual poets in three periods: the Constitutional Revolution (1900–1920), the post-constitutional era (1920–1940), and the ascendency of modernism (1940–1960). Farshad Sonboldel shines new light on the history of modern Persian poetry by re-imagining the roles that the aesthetic experimentations of alternative poets played in different phases of the literary revolution in modern Persian poetry. Dominant narratives portray modern Persian poetry as a gradual, rational, and moderate change in the classical regime of aesthetics as well as a response to – and reflection of – cultural and socio-political changes within Iranian society. They also disregard the significance of radical experiments by alternative poets and undervalue the part they played in the initiation and progress of the so-called "literary revolution." These mainstream narratives minimize the socio-political engagement of literary works with the direct reflection of the social reality, and thus neglect the way many alternative poems struggle with socio-political issues through deconstructing the old and constructing new aesthetic systems. Each chapter of The Rebellion of Forms in Modern Persian Poetry is centred around poems chosen for their potential to showcase notable experiments of pioneer movements and individuals in each given period. Examining the formal and thematic aspects of these poems, this book reformulates the story of modern Persian poetry and unravels the relationship between radical aesthetic changes in the practice of poetry and resistance against political and cultural domination in society.
