Document Type : scientific-research
Author
Corresponding Author; Assistant Professor of Persian Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
The oldest example of free verse in Nimā Yušij's literary output is commonly assumed to be the poem "Phoenix" (Qoqnus), which is dated 1316 Š. /1937. This poem was published in the Music Magazine (Majalla-ye Musiqi), a literary and cultural journal edited by Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Minbāšiān, in 1319 Š. /1940. The year before, in 1317 Š. /1938, the poem "Raven" (Ghorāb) was also published in the same magazine. Despite the historical importance of these two poems, Nimā's articles and notes do not explicitly mention them. In his writings, Nimā only refers to the period in which he published his innovative poems in the Music Magazine and gives examples of his creative poems, leaving them open to everyone's judgment. However, among Nimā's documents in the archive of the Persian Language and Literature Academy, there is an unpublished poem from Nimā's manuscripts called "Unknown Light" (Rowšanāei-ye Majhul), which carries great historical significance. This poem, dated 1310 Š. /1931, shows that Nima had already experimented with heteromeric lines in his poems six years before writing "Phoenix", the oldest poem in his work that has been found so far. However, the rhyme system in the poem is a mixture of the Mathnavi and the Čahārpāra scheme, which is far from the "rhyme bell" (Zang-e Qāfiye) theory that he later adopted in creating his innovative poetic form. Considering the starting point of Nimā's free verse his diverse experiences in the form of Mostzād, of which many examples have recently been published, the poem "Unknown Light" marks the boundary between these experiences and the poems of the "Phoenix" type. Accordingly, it can be assumed that Nimā's free verse is the result of an evolutionary process that gradually moved away from the tradition of Mostzād towards free verse, starting from the beginning of the second decade of the 14th Š. / 20th century.
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