The Poetics of Commitment in Modern Persian: A Case of Three Revolutionary Poets in Iran by Samad Josef Alavi A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Shahwali Ahmadi, Chair Professor Muhammad Siddiq Professor Robert Kaufman Fall 2013 Abstract The Poetics of Commitment in Modern Persian: A Case of Three Revolutionary Poets in Iran by Samad Josef Alavi Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Shahwali Ahmadi, Chair Modern Persian literary histories generally characterize the decades leading up to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 as a single episode of accumulating political anxieties in Persian poetics, as in other areas of cultural production. According to the dominant literary-historical narrative, calls for “committed poetry” (she‘r-e mota‘ahhed) grew louder over the course of the radical 1970s, crescendoed with the monarch’s ouster, and then faded shortly thereafter as the consolidation of the Islamic Republic shattered any hopes among the once-influential Iranian Left for a secular, socio-economically equitable political order. Such a narrative has proven useful for locating general trends in poetic discourses of the last five decades, but it does not account for the complex and often divergent ways in which poets and critics have reconciled their political and aesthetic commitments. This dissertation begins with the historical assumption that in Iran a question of how poetry must serve society and vice versa did in fact acquire a heightened sense of urgency sometime during the ideologically-charged years surrounding the revolution. But the dissertation departs from episodic approaches to modern Persian literature by demonstrating how the various discursive responses to the question--both in theory and in poetic practice--do not fit neatly into one concept of “political” poetry. Simply put, the term “commitment” (ta‘ahhod) refers to an on-going, unresolved debate in Persian poetics, not a discrete literary-historical phenomenon. Thus, even among ideologically aligned and/or self- identifying “committed” poets and critics, one encounters significant variations in the ways that each individual has understood poetics and politics to intersect. This dissertation investigates the ways that three modern Iranian poets work through the intersection of poetry and politics in both their theoretical writings and their verse. In each of the three cases, the poets agree that poetry serves as a locus of political resistance and in this sense all three poets might fall under the general rubric of commitment that supposedly marked the period in which they wrote. However, as I demonstrate, each case study also produces a distinct poetics of commitment. In Sa‘id Soltanpur (chapter one) the dissertation locates a militant poetics, arguing that poetry can participate directly in armed liberation struggles. In M.R. Shafi‘i Kadkani (chapter two) the dissertation encounters a poetics of moral outrage, arguing that the canonical traditions of Persian classical and Islamic mystical poetry provide the discursive means through which to intervene in contemporary socio-political conditions. In Ahmad Shamlu 1 (chapter three) the dissertation locates a humanist poetics that treats poetry’s invitation for critical reflective judgement as itself a form of resistance to repressive state and economic structures, but does not put forth any particular alternative structure in their place. Finally, the dissertation concludes by considering the the poetry and criticism of Mohammad Mokhtari (chapter four) as articulations of a post-revolutionary poetics of commitment. Methodologically, the dissertation takes special care to distinguish between the theories as they are articulated in discursive prose and the particular way that the poems themselves respond to, expand upon, or challenge the theories’ claims. For its theoretical framework, the dissertation attempts to place modern Persian poetics in dialogue with Sartre’s writings on commitment, Adorno’s response to Sartre, Frankfurt School aesthetics, and European and American poetries. Ultimately, the dissertation aims to demonstrate how the question of poetry’s service to society historically produced fruitful and variegated debates in Persian poetics and that the question remains relevant and unresolved today. The dissertation also includes an appendix with original, parallel translations of the Persian poems considered at length throughout the main body of the text. 2 To the memory of my uncle, Mehdi Alavi Shoshtari, 1955-1980, and the future of my children, Mina Kate Alavi & Zain Ali Alavi i. Table of Contents Acknowledgements v Note on Transliteration and Translation vi Introduction vii Rise and Fall of a Discourse vii The Dissertation x Historical Development of the Poetics of Commitment: A Brief Socio-Political Chronology xiii Chapter One: A Type of Struggle, A Type of Verse: Sa‘id Soltanpur and the Poetics of Militancy 1 I. Introduction: A Poet Takes the Stage 1 II. The Current Scholarship: A Siyahkal Decade in Poetry 3 Chronological Considerations 3 Formal and Thematic Considerations 4 Challenges to the Existing Scholarship 6 III. Theorizing a Poetics of Militancy: The Demands on Combative Art 7 Founding Documents: Soltanpur’s A Type of Art, A Type of Thought 7 Defining Objectivity 8 Fellow Militants: Khosrow Golesorkhi and Mahmud Darwish on Poetic Objectivity 10 The Sloganeering Question 11 Complicated Slogans: Naser Purqomi’s Critical Take 12 Sloganeering and Armed Propaganda 13 A New Classicism: Combative Poetics as Anti-Formalism 14 Anti-Formalism in Practice: The Critical Response 16 Contemporary Militant Poetics: American Guerrilla Poetry in Practice 18 Sa‘id Soltanpur From Theory to Practice 21 IV. Hovering Above the Meeting: The Poetry of Sa‘id Soltanpur 23 Prison Lyric (Ghazal-e Band) 23 In Pahlavi Prison (Dar Band-e Pahlavi) 26 Communist Victor (Jahân-e Komunist) 33 V. Conclusion: Problems in Biography 42 Chapter Two: Living in Lyric: Shafi‘i Kadkani’s Poetics of Moral Outrage 44 I. Introduction: Poems in Prison or Prison Poems? 44 II. The Current Scholarship: Neoclassical Poetics as Radical, Reflective and Reactionary 47 Three Critical Views 47 The Siyahkal Paradigm 48 ii. The Canonical View 50 The Anti-Classical Critique 52 Rethinking Neoclassicism 54 III. Imagined Realities: Shafi‘i’s Poetics in Theory 55 The Poetic Image As Constitutive Element 55 The Poetic Image in Political Dimensions 57 The Poetic Image in Mystical Dimensions 62 Mysticism in Political Dimensions 64 Liberation in Return 66 IV. Radical Returns: Reading On The Garden Pathways of Nishapur 67 On The Garden Pathways of Nishapur (Dar Kucheh Bâgh’hâ-ye Neshâbur) 67 The Opening (Dibâcheh) 68 Encounter (Didar) 75 On Living and Lyric (Az Budan o Sorudan) 83 V. Conclusion: Contemplation is the Cause 87 Chapter Three: A Weapon of the Masses: Ahmad Shamlu and the Poetics of Humanism 90 I. Introduction: A Call to Arms 90 II. The Commitment Debate Revisited 92 The National Call to Commit 92 European Counterparts 94 Persian Responses 95 Resistance Poetry 97 Historical Margins of a Debate: From Constitutionalists to Guerrillas 99 III. Symbolism and the Subject: Poetry’s Humanist Commitment 101 IV. Lyric Vanguard, Imagined Masses: Voice and Commitment in Shamlu’s Poetry106 Standard Bearers of Humanity 106 Individuals, Masses, and Multitudes 108 Singular Martyrs at the Vanguard 110 The Poet as Vanguard 114 The Poet as Subject 115 The Disillusioned Voice 117 V. Bloodied Nightmare of the Awakened: Humanism After Revolution 119 Chapter 4: Conclusions and Afterlives: Commitment After Revolution 122 Ruptures and Repercussions: Literary History Following The Islamic Revolution 122 Post-Revolutionary Commitments: Mohammad Mokhtari and Ja‘far Puyandeh 124 Poetry After Velâyat-e Faqih: History and Memory in a Poem by Mohammad Mokhtari 126 Conclusion: Resurfacing Commitments 131 iii. Bibliography 133 Appendix: Parallel Translations 140 iv. Acknowledgements I cannot imagine having started this dissertation, much less finished it, without the guidance and support of many colleagues, friends, and loved ones over the years. My chair and mentor, Wali Ahmadi, has encouraged and promoted my work generously, lending his profound knowledge of Persian literature, critical theory, and cultural studies to every facet of my doctoral degree, from course work to conference papers to the countless drafts and revisions that preceded the present work. Muhammad Siddiq guided me through both the Arabic language with its endlessly rich literature and through a broader body of modern poetry, fiction, and criticism under the aegis of his exacting and rigorous scholarship. Robert Kaufman opened my eyes to a boundless world of critical theory and poetics. If this dissertation gets anything about Marxian theory, Frankfurt School aesthetics, or, indeed, commitment, right, it is undoubtedly thanks to Professor Kaufman’s graduate seminars and his meticulous comments on the many papers and drafts that I have sent his way. Saeed Yousef at the University of Chicago has contributed his incomparable expertise to much of my work over the years. He has offered his profoundly insightful feedback to nearly all my translations and continues to answer my endless barrage of questions on Persian poetry and Iranian politics at any time of day or night.