A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details Iranian Women’s Poetry from the Constitutional Revolution to the Post-Revolution by Mahrokhsadat Hosseini Submitted for Examination for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Gender Studies University of Sussex November 2017 2 Submission Statement I hereby declare that this thesis has not been, and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Mahrokhsadat Hosseini Signature: . Date: . 3 University of Sussex Mahrokhsadat Hosseini For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Gender Studies Iranian Women’s Poetry from the Constitutional Revolution to the Post- Revolution Summary This thesis challenges the silenced voices of women in the Iranian written literary tradition and proposes a fresh evaluation of contemporary Iranian women’s poetry. Because the presence of female poets in Iranian literature is a relatively recent phenomenon, there are few published studies describing and analysing Iranian women’s poetry; most of the critical studies that do exist were completed in the last three decades after the Revolution in 1979. Addressing the ethical questions of gender in Persian literature by women, this study seeks to offer a systematic and historical reading of women’s poetry in dialogical terms. It argues that Luce Irigaray’s deconstructive method can be used productively as a means to explore the ways in which women deliver a subversive discourse of gender relations in Iran. Irigaray’s transcendental theories of the duality of subjectivity, masculine and feminine, and the culture of dialogic exchange between different subjects will challenge existing readings of Iranian women’s poetry. This will be achieved using Irigarayian modes of resistance (mimesis, masquerade, strategic essentialism, utopian ideals, and employing novel language or structures of expression and subjectivity) across the three main conjunctures in the history of Iranian women’s poetry. The thesis presents an Irigarayian reading of selected women poets within the constitutional period, the Pahlavi era, and the post-revolutionary period. Through my assessment of these poems, a discussion begins which starts with the lived reality of female repression, and finishes with a prospect for women’s freedom and enunciation. I will argue, using Irigaray, that it is essential for Iranian women to create a “house of language”, a place in which they can practice living and articulating, so that they can achieve self-enunciation and the “sensible transcendental”. 4 Acknowledgements I would very much like to thank my supervisors Prof. Sally Munt and Dr Kamran Matin for their generous critical comments and feedback at various stages in the process of directing this PhD thesis. I particularly thank my husband, Mohammed-Bilal Malik, for his invaluable patience, continuous guidance, and unflagging support. I also offer many thanks to my parents and my brothers, Mahdi, Hamid and Ali, whose support and love was always with me during the long process of researching and writing the thesis. I also feel very fortunate to have benefited from Luce Irigaray’s extraordinary expertise and subsequent feedback in her seminars at the University of Bristol in 2014. Irigaray’s philosophy enabled me to shape the theoretical framework of the thesis and to gain a deeper understanding of the insights of her work on the relations within oneself and with the other. I would also like to gratefully acknowledge Prof. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak for his overall vision and his comments, that have made me carefully re-think arguments and articulate them much more effectively. 5 Table of Contents Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... 4 Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ 5 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 8 Statement of the Problem ....................................................................................................... 8 Scope, Aims and Basic Approach ........................................................................................ 11 Contribution to Knowledge .................................................................................................. 13 An Irigarayian Intervention in the Rhetoric of Women’s Poetry .............................. 13 Research Questions ............................................................................................................... 17 Methodology .......................................................................................................................... 17 Analytical Framework .............................................................................................. 19 Irigaray as Deconstructionist .................................................................................... 21 Poetic Writing and the Irigarayian Idea of Utopia .................................................... 23 Irigaryian Approaches .............................................................................................. 27 Irigaray’s Oeuvre Divisions ...................................................................................... 30 Structure of the Thesis .......................................................................................................... 32 Chapter One: The Constitutional Revolution, the Women’s Movement and Literature (1906-1922)................................................................................................................................. 37 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 37 The Theme of Modernisation ............................................................................................... 39 The Constitutional Revolution ............................................................................................. 41 The Women’s Movement in the Constitution Period ........................................................ 43 Arrival of the Printing Press ................................................................................................ 46 Women’s Rights Demands and Publications ...................................................................... 47 Women’s Constitutional Poetry ........................................................................................... 51 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 59 Chapter Two: The Pahlavi Era, the Women’s Movement and Literature (1925-1979) ..... 62 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 62 Reza Shah’s Era (1921-1941): Reform, the Women’s Movement and Literature .......... 62 The Women’s Movement in Reza Shah’s Period ........................................................... 63 Literature in Reza Pahlavi’s Era ..................................................................................... 70 Mohammad Reza Shah’s Era (1941-1979): Reform, the Women’s Movement and Literature ............................................................................................................................... 75 6 The Women’s Movement in Mohammad Reza Shah’s Period (1941-1978) ................ 77 Literature 1941-1978......................................................................................................... 79 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 81 Chapter Three: The Post-Revolutionary Women’s Movement and Literature (1979-2016) .................................................................................................................................................... 83 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 83 The Revolution and the Women’s Movement .................................................................... 84 The Post-Revolutionary Islamic Literature .................................................................... 87 Iranian Women’s Movements from the Reform to Rouhani ............................................ 95 The Inclination to Feminist Consciousness in Women’s Poetry ................................. 103 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 108 Chapter Four: