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A Star Ceases to Shine

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A Star Ceases to Shine PERSICA XVII, 2001 A STAR CEASES TO SHINE Ehsan Yarsharter Center for Iranian Studies Columbia University With the passing of Nader Naderpour (1929-2000) Persian literature lost an outstanding poet, a great imagist, and a superb crafter of words, as well as a literary critic of remark- able insight and courage. The two decades that followed World War II were among the most remarkable peri- ods of Persian poetry. A movement away from the traditional norms of Persian poetry had begun earlier, notably by Nima Yushij (1897-1960), but had remained isolated and lacked a conspicuous following. With the forced abdication of Reza Shah in 1941, the lifting of autocratic constraints, and the opening up of the country to a torrent of new ideas and ideologies, the movement gained momentum. Nima was recognized as the leader of the new trend in Persian poetry; and a number of gifted young poets, generally belonging to leftist political camps, championed the new mode advocated by him. He had argued that the canons of classical Persian poetry no longer responded to the changed conditions of the modern age, that the exacting rules of Persian prosody (‘aru∂) which called for adoption of a single meter in all the lines of a poem and a single rhyme in the qaÒida, the gazal, and the qe†‘a were restricting poetical expression, that the classical forms of poetry were outmoded, and that the age-old stock of poetic imagery was no longer pertinent to the poetical concerns of a modern poet. He proposed that the length of lines need not be the same throughout a poem, but different numbers of poetic feet may be used depending on the requirement of the meaning; that different but compatible me- ters may be used in a poem; that rhyme should be used only as an organizing principle; that the poet should sincerely express his own feelings and impressions rather than imi- tate those of past masters and in so doing he should use imagery that suited his purpose. These principles were employed more or less by Nima himself after the first phase of his poetry, when he had complied with the traditional patterns,1 and was followed by such poets as Tavallali, Golchin-e Gilani, and a number of younger poets including Naderpour, Farrokhzad, Shamloo, Akhavan, Moshiri, and Rahmani. 1 On Nima and a judicial critique of his theories and his poems, see Nader Naderpour, Rouzegâr-e- Now, no 125, June, 1992, pp. 51-57, and no. 126, July 1992, pp. 39-42, both in extended interviews with Sadreddin Elahi; see also, E. Yarshater, “Modern Literary Idiom”, Iran Faces the Seventies, New York, 1971. 138 EHSAN YARSHARTER While a few poets broke away from the traditional norms with a vengeance, a more moderate new school of poetry, controversial in its early stages, but steadily gaining ground, developed which, without banning meter and rhyme altogether, afforded the poet greater freedom of expression, allowed the use of a more modern language, and was marked by images independent of classical Persian imagery. A body of “modern poetry” took shape, particularly in 1950’s and 1960’s, much of which was initially published in the Persian Marxist presses of the time as well as in the progressive journal Soxan edited by Parviz Natel-Khanlari (1913-1990). At a later stage some of the poets developed their own styles and quite a number took to free verse, shun- ning meter and rhyme, and not infrequently also grammar, logic, and even sense. The principles advocated by Nima and supported in its broad outlines by Soxan were adopted and refined by Nader Naderpour.2 In fact, Naderpour represents the perfec- tion of Nimaic poetry or what he himself has called the “Soxan School”.3 If Nima could be considered the Rudaki of the modern school of Persian poetry, I consider Naderpour its Farrokhi or Ferdowsi. Several points may be made about Naderpour at the outset. First, he took his poetry very seriously and considered it his true vocation. From about 1947 he consistently pro- duced poetry of the highest order. Ten volumes of his poetry were published from 1954 to 1996.4 His post-1995 poems have been published in various periodicals, but not yet in a daftar, as he called each collection of his poems.5 Second, his poetry is throughout brilliantly crafted. While many of his contempo- raries, notably Shamloo, were attracted to various literary currents and experimented with different styles, Naderpour’s diction and his style of poetry exhibit remarkable consistancy. This does not mean, however, that his poetry has not evolved. On the con- trary, we see growing maturity in his diction and gradual perfecting of his verse forms. Early in his poetic career, he chose a stanzaic form consisting of a sequence of a number of quatrains (câr pâreh ‘foursome’) with abcb rhyme pattern as his verse form of choice. Only occasionally did he use the traditional monorhyme (e.g., in Barahneh “Naked” written in 1951 and in three gazals, the first two written in 1978, and the third in 1987). The form afforded him greater freedom of expression than would have been possible in a monorhyme. But in the course of time he gave himself greater flexibility in varying the 2 For Naderpour’s reasoned support of Nimaic principles see particularly his eloquent and perceptive Introduction to the tenth collection of his poems: Zamin o zamân,1996, pp. 24-26. 3 Rouzegâr-e-Now, no. 126, p. 44. 4 These are in the order of their appearance: Casmhâ va dasthâ “Eyes and Hands”, Tehran, 1954; Doxtar-e jâm “Daughter of the Cup”, Tehran, 1955; Se‘r-e angur “The Grape Poem”, Tehran, 1958; Sorme- ye xorsid “The Healing Kohl of the Sun”, Tehran, 1960; Giyâh o sang, na âtas “Not plants and Stones, but Fire”, Tehran, 1978; Az âsemân tâ rismân, “From the Sublime to the Ridiculous”, Tehran, 1978; Sâm-e bâzpasin “The Last Supper”, Tehran, 1978; Sobh-e doruqin, “False Dawn” (1356-1360), Paris, 1981; Xun o xâkestar, “Blood and Ashes”, Los Angeles, 1988; Zamin o zamân, “Earth and Time”, Los Angeles, 1996. Two anthologies of Naderpour’s poems were published: 1) Bargozideye as‘ar (1326-1349) “Selected Poems of Nader Naderpour (1947-1970)”, Tehran, 1972; 2) False Dawn: Persian Poems (1951-1984) by Nader Naderpour introduction and translations by Michael Craig Hillmann with an afterword by Leonardo P. Alishan, Austin, Texas, 1986. The citations from the first seven collections, except Sorme-ye xorsid, has been drawn from1972 anthology. 5 The date of “Scorpion and Clock Hand” (‘Aqrab o ‘aqrabak), the last poem in Zamin o zamân, should be read 15 January 1996, not 1995, a misprint. A STAR CEASES TO SHINE 139 number of lines in each stanza, in modifying the length of lines, in using compatible me- ters in the same poem, and in using rhyme with greater freedom, even occasionally aban- doning it — all in behalf of better expressing his meaning, as Nima had urged. He uses rhyme essentially to punctuate and organize his stanzas and to add musicality to his po- ems. He generally avoids radif, so common from Hafez onward. Third, his diction is invariably polished, refined, and melodious. In this respect Naderpour stands in sharp contrast with most modern Persian poets who often prefer rug- ged expressiveness to harmony of sound and felicity of diction. It should be noted that Moshiri, Behbahani, Shafii-Kadkani and, to a certain extent, Akhavan are obvious excep- tions to this tendency. His true rival in this respect is Moshiri, a poet of exceptional verve and serenity, whose poetic brilliance Naderpour acknowledged, although he considered Moshiri’s poems somewhat facile.6 Naderpour’s language is informed by the adroitness of Persian classics, but he has no constraints against the use of the vernacular. In the In- troduction to his fourth collection of poetry Sorme-ye xorsid, he boasts of using the lan- guage of his own era, of being the poet of his own time, and speaking for his own genera- tion (p. 13). But his sense of consonance and harmony of sound is such that he produces an elegant diction in which the best of classical language and the vernacular are combined in a fine, even texture. In the polished fabric of Naderpour’s language, even his mention of some unseemly sights or deeds, far from jarring the senses, fits nicely in his poetic tex- ture. (E.g., “the steaming bucket of dung” in “A Future in the Past”, (Âyande-i dar gozasteh)7, or “droppings of its precious dogs” in “Paris and Tais” (Pâris o Tâ’is)8. Al- though the poet refers to his agonizing over conceiving and perfecting his poems (Intro- duction to Sorme-ye xorshid, pp. 10-11), his poetic gifts and verbal dexterity are such that his poems appear effortless; even his rhetorical devices are hardly noticable, as they be- come natural elements in the texture of his verse. Fourth, he is an undisputed master of innovative imagery. The core of poetic imagi- nation is the ability to make one’s inner thoughts and sentiments palpable through con- crete images. This is generally done through metaphors, consisting mostly of visual repre- sentations (e.g., ‘Rostam was “ablaze” with rage’ or ‘he “roared”), and by imparting life to objects and making them act as living beings (e.g., ‘the autumn wind “mourns” the “death” of the summer’). In both cases the appeal is to our primitive self which, unlike our intellect, does not easily grasp the abstract but well understands and is affected by concrete and sensory images.
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