Contemporary Persian Literature

Abstract The composition of Persian poetry based on the repeated metrical foot Fāʿelāto is a relatively recent phenomenon dating only to the twentieth century. Neither the poetry of earlier Persian poets contains verses constructed through the repetition of Fāʿelāto, nor did the classical authorities on Persian prosody recognize a baḥr (metre) consisting exclusively of repeated Fāʿelāto feet. Consequently, this homogeneous (mottafeq al-arkān) metre remained unidentified and virtually overlooked throughout the history of Persian poetry until it attracted the attention of contemporary poets and was subsequently described, analyzed, and theoretically explained by modern scholars of Persian prosody. Using a descriptive-analytical methodology, this study examines the historical background of the Fāʿelāto metre in Persian poetry and addresses two principal questions: What is the prosodic significance and status of the Fāʿelāto metre within the Persian metrical tradition, and which metrical patterns derived from this foot have been employed by contemporary Persian poets?
The findings suggest that the earliest poem composed entirely on the repetition of Fāʿelāto is “Tarāneh” (Song) by Houshang Ebtehaj (Sayeh), first published in September 1954. The publication of this poem marked the emergence of the Fāʿelāto metre as a recognized prosodic pattern and drew the attention of both poets and prosodists. Since then, poems have been composed in more than ten metrical patterns derived from this metre. Among contemporary Persian poets, Simin Behbahani and Hossein Monzavi have made the most extensive and creative use of metres based on Fāʿelāto.

Abstract This article draws on the Foucauldian concept of panoptic surveillance and on theorists who have extended this concept to the domain of narrative in order to examine Bijan Najdi’s short story “Hotel Naderi” through the logic of surveillance and the instability of perceptual position. Its central concern is the narrator’s transformation from an observing subject into an object under observation, and the reflection of this process in the narrative structure. The article argues that surveillance in this story is not merely a thematic element; rather, it penetrates the level of form and shapes point of view, the distribution of information, temporal organization, and the text’s perceptual experience. The analysis proceeds in three stages: first, the narrator occupies the position of a hidden and apparently dominant observer in the restaurant of Hotel Naderi; second, this position is destabilized by the activation of political memory and the return of past repression; and third, in urban space, especially in the shop-window scene, the boundary between observer and observed collapses, and the narrator finds himself exposed to the same gaze he had previously directed at another. The study concludes that “Hotel Naderi” is a notable example of surveillance narrative.

Abstract Gender dominance is considered one of the most unknown dimensions of dominance. Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), as the founder of the theory of "male dominance", believes that this type of dominance is rooted in the collective unconscious of humans and that women, like any dominated group, participate with their dominators without being aware of it. In this qualitative research, the authors employ a descriptive-analytical method, based on the text of Belqis Soleimani’s novel Neashan Kardeh and the classification of characteristics of male dominance from Bourdieu's perspective, to answer the following question: What patterns of male dominance does Bourdieu reveal in the novel? And to what extent are each of these patterns compatible with the experiences of the main character of the novel? How is male dominance reflected, and its effect on the main character of the novel shown? The findings show that the main character of the novel is unknowingly influenced by the patriarchal system and socio-cultural traditions that dominate rural society; especially since these structures create the basis for intense social control and surveillance, gender inequality, deprivation in various forms, and as a result, the identity crisis of women in these societies, each of which is somehow consistent with the patterns of social construction of the body, the latent dominance in the body, masculinity as a superior, feminine existence as a perceptual existence, and domination and love in Bourdieu's theory.

Abstract Climate is one of the concepts whose reflection can be sought linguistically in the text of literary works. One of the best vehicles and platforms for describing climate and its constituent components are novels that are narrated in a specific climatic space, relying on local-indigenous components. Tuqi can be considered one of the novels in which local-indigenous components are abundant. Therefore, this novel has the potential for analysis with an emphasis on the theory of climatic identity. In this research, using the qualitative analysis method, we have tried to find the indigenous-local components in Tuqi's novel and analyze them with an emphasis on the theory of climatic identity. The findings of this research show that the climatic identity in Tuqi's novel is not the result of a single component, but rather a networked, multilayered, and biocosmic construct that is formed in a close connection between place, body, livelihood, social ethics, and cultural rituals. The analysis of the examples suggests that climate in this novel does not merely play the role of narrative background, but rather, as an active force, organizes the various areas of the characters' lived experience. Climate identity is a multi-layered construct that begins with place and climate, is lived in the corporeality of experience, is established in livelihoods and habits, is judged in social ethics, and is reproduced in ritual and belief. This network structure allows for a coherent explanation of evidence and prevents the reduction of analysis to mere description.

Abstract The short story, by its very nature, requires a distinctive form of economy in both lexical choice and the deployment of narrative elements. Accordingly, narrative techniques such as narrative compression, image-centered narration, and lyrical structures can be examined within this framework. Among these techniques, imagistic parallelism functions as one of the foregrounding devices that organizes narrative structure and reinforces story elements. Particularly in contemporary modern short stories, which frequently focus on lyrical themes and individual experience, imagistic parallelism provides an effective means of employing narrative elements economically while preserving structural unity and enhancing the reader's aesthetic engagement. This general framework is also applicable to contemporary Persian short fiction. Drawing on a descriptive-analytical approach, the present study examines five contemporary Persian short stories with lyrical and modern themes to investigate the manifestation of imagistic parallelism and its contribution to narrative elements. The findings indicate that imagistic parallelism operates across four principal domains—event, characterization, description, and theme—by establishing implicit correspondences between images and situations, thereby conveying deeper layers of meaning without explicit exposition. The analysis further demonstrates that imagistic parallelism frequently interacts with other foregrounding devices, including allegory, metaphor, symbolism, and simile, and through this interaction contributes to the foregrounding of narrative elements. Accordingly, within the corpus examined, imagistic parallelism functions not only as a means of narrative economy and organic unity but also as a significant foregrounding device in contemporary Persian short fiction.

Abstract The change in perception towards reality and time is one of the main influences of modernism on the novel. Given that modernism in the novel immediately followed realism, the issue of "reality" remained important for modern novelists. But reality in the modern novel was completely different from reality in realism. Modernists believed in a higher reality that was formed in the mind. This type of reality was not expressed directly and required techniques such as monologue and the fluid flow of the mind. Another important issue was the connection between the new view of reality and the concept of time. Modernists argued that even if events in the external world were linear in nature, our subjective experience of them was never linear. This issue created important changes in the field of epistemology and historiography. Interestingly, attention to these issues in the modern novel sometimes led to the creation of novels whose main theme was these issues. The novel "Goethe Street Cafe" by Hamidreza Shahabadi is one of the Iranian examples of these efforts. Therefore, this article attempts to examine and analyze the author's representation of reality and time using an analytical-descriptive method. The results show that Shahabadi has chosen topics such as the effect of narrative in shaping perception, the effect of relativity on the perception of time and reality, and the narrative nature of historical reports as the main themes of his novel.