Plant Symbolism in Contemporary Persian Poetry: Case Study of Poems by Akhavan, Shamloo and Shafiaee Kadkani

Plants in ancient fictional texts describe the relation between low world and super worlds and appear in forms including ritual resurrection, human reincarnation in plant and vice versa, identification of human and plant, and etc which relate human's spirit to supernatural. Contemporary Persian poets are taking advantage of a new language that is full of mythical concepts for expression of their defiant thoughts. According to political and social condition dominating Iran and introduction of new subjects into contemporary Persian poetry, using symbol and code in poetry changes into a necessity and meantime plant symbols have significant contribution. Akhavan, Shamloo, and Shafiaee Kadkani, three mythopoets in Persian Literature of contemporary era, have utilized symbolic and mythical expressions of plant as totemism, animism (personification), human reincarnation in plant and fetishism in their poems. These poets have been influenced more by Iranian-Islamic narrations rather than Jewish- Christian and Greek- Roman ones in using herbal symbols.