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The Village in Contemporary Persian Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Fatemeh Shams Open the ORCID record for Fatemeh Shams [Opens in a new window]
Fatemeh Shams*
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University of Pennsylvania
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Abstract

This paper explores the ever-shifting symbiosis between the village motif, social justice and populist politics in Iran over the past three decades. The village has remained a recurring motif in Persian literature, employed by a variety of writers and state institutions for a range of means. As a symbol, it has been a conduit into which any ideology can be poured; the village allegory can be manipulated to both condemn and support the official policies of the state. A comparison of Iran’s pre- and post-revolutionary literature sheds light on the ways the state literati perpetuated an idealized picture of the village as an authentic, sacred space, increasingly associated with religious nationalism during the 1980s. The paper examines the key socio-political influences on the evolution of the pastoral motif, the work of state-sponsored official poets, and the impact of the village on the cultural doctrine of the Islamic Republic.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , May 2018 , pp. 455 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Association For Iranian Studies, Inc

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference on “Writing the Revolution: Memory, Testimony, Time,” held at the University of Washington, Seattle (May 12-13, 2017). I am grateful to Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi for his valuable comments and to conference participants for their insightful suggestions. However, I remain solely responsible for any shortcoming.

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