article about literature 10

A very short concentration on the impact of war on contemporary poetry of Iran

Written by Administrator

Dec 26, 2009 at 08:24 AM

Since the declaration of war against Iran by the former president and dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, the theme of war have been the major theme of contemporary literature of Iran. The war, that is called the imposed war in Iran, has had a pervasive impact on the consciousness of Iranian poets shaping a new period of symbolism mostly applying mystic and religious outlook toward literature consequently the application of poetry in the turn of political system was mainly provoking the crowd. Following this method many poets dedicated their pens to convey the newly raised Islamic values especially those were about the concept of jihad (holy war) and shahadat (martyr ship). In contrast to what they had in mind, all these attempts never ended to a well-formed epic because the national aspects of their poetry never superseded its Islamic aspects. The war nurtured a new style in poetry that portrayed it romantically instead of giving a tragic or realistic picture. The outcome of such a view was changing the imposed war into holy defense. After war although this style remained to be the dominant style of poetry patronized by the government but the theme of nostalgia, which was supposed to be applied any way, made the picture of war more and more far from realism. In the very beginning small spots of lights of change sparkled in free verse. Claiming to be avant-garde poets, they suggested some other different views. Following those, in the recent decade Qazal writers proposed other ways to convey the theme of war. How ever they inherited that from free verse but they themselves gave a new taste to it. The war between Iran and Iraq still has drastic impacts on contemporary poetry of Iran but recently these impacts are mostly canalized in the way that even some times the literary products contradicts the values of the government.