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"Re-orienting Modernism in Arabic and Persian Poetry is the first book to systematically study the parallel development of modernist poetry in Arabic and Persian. It presents a fresh line of comparative inquiry into minor literatures within the field of world literary studies. Focusing on Arabic-Persian literary exchanges allows readers to better understand the development of modernist poetry in both traditions and in turn challenge Europe's position at the center of literary modernism. The argument contributes to current scholarly efforts to globalize modernist studies by reading Arabic and Persian poetry comparatively within the context of the Cold War to establish the Middle East as a significant participant in wider modernist developments. To illuminate profound connections between Arabic and Persian modernist poetry in both form and content, the book takes up works from key poets including the Iraqis Badr Shakir al- Sayyab and Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati and the Iranians Nima Yushij, Ahmad Shamlu, and Forough Farrokhzad"--
List of contents
A Note on Transliteration; Acknowledgments; Introduction: mapping a modernist geography in Arabic and Persian poetry; Part I. Crafting a Modernist Geography Across Arabic and Persian Poetry: 1. Formal connections, literary criticism, and political commitment; 2. Travel forms: Arabic prosody, craft, and N¿m¿ Y¿sh¿j's Persian new poetry; Part II. Imagining New Worlds: 3. A¿mad Sh¿ml¿'s manifesto and proto-third world literature; 4. Badr Sh¿kir al-Sayy¿b between communism and world literature; Part III: Aftermath: Modernist Ends in Arabic and Persian Poetry; 5. Honoring commitments: ¿Abd al-Wahh¿b al-Bay¿t¿'s existential trials; 6. Winter in the modernist garden: Fur¿gh Farrukhz¿d's posthumous poetry and the death of modernism; Conclusion: re-orienting modernism; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Levi Thompson is Assistant Professor of Persian and Arabic Literature in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the Journal of Arabic Literature, College Literature, Middle Eastern Literatures, Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, and elsewhere.
Summary
This book situates Arabic and Persian poetries in relation to each other and to the development of modernism as a global phenomenon. Academics interested in Arabic and Persian literatures or in the concept of world literature will find a compelling case for studying Arabic and Persian modernist poetries comparatively.
