The Approaches of Contemporary Poetry to the Indian Style

As the cognition of the Poem belonging to each period of Persian poetry, especially when it comes to the study of its metamorphosis, would not effect on understanding other periods promptly, the judgment of contemporary poetry would not be correct without getting familiar with traditional poetry, the coordinates of thought and linguistic and aesthetic features of it. Indian style, in the traditional Persian literature, with all of its uncommon beauties, was prosperous in catching the attention of its contemporary poets and adapt some of its linguistic and aesthetic features with imported linguistic and aesthetic coordinates which were up-to-date to show off in order to revive its lost credibility during the period of literary rebirth (=Maktab-e Woqu or the realist school). This essay describes a part of the author's research on the influences of Indian style on the contemporary poetry, under two headings of the linguistic and the aesthetic approaches of contemporary Persian poetry to the Indian style:1- The approach of contemporary poetry to the linguistic coordinates of Indian style:The Persian poetry, in the first period of its prevalence, known as so-called Khorasani Style, is a plain and simple poetry, a poem that does not screw up the reader of getting confused, and immediately, passes him through the vocabulary sphere and goes beyond to the realm of meaning. Hence, whatever that spoils the simplicity of the word and meaning is considered as a fault. Whereas in the next few centuries, the complexity and difficulty of words and meanings become one of the coordinates of the Safavid poetry to the extent that the ability of a person to understand complex poems had been a measure of his knowledge of poetry. The attitude of the contemporary period to the poetry had been able to restore the lost reputation of Indian style, pull it out of the chambers of silence and forgetfulness, and attract the poets to it. This is where we should speak about Nima Youshij and his honor. For Nima, poetry is mixed up with ambiguity and difficulty. His poetry is complex and difficult to understand, while it is not empty of language weaknesses. For Nima, poetry is not a concept without ambiguity and difficulty, so it is not surprising that Nima considered Indian style –which is defined by its ambiguities - as the “highest degree of Persian poetry’s progress” and “a sample of the evolution of poetry”. With these explanations, it can be argued that the approach of contemporary poetry in the post-revolution years to the Indian-style was not without an origin. The much-used Indianized style of post-revolution Poets is the continuation of the moderate Indianism of Nima Yoshij. Indeed, the effects of admiring the Indian style and finding its difficulties from Nima to the post-revolution poets -If doesn’t made the poetry of that period totally ambiguous- Caused the difficult-writer poets of the Indian style not to be rejected but also being admired. In this new era, Difficult-Writing and ambiguity is not considered as the weakness of poetry, but the strength of it, and even the poets of this period -being proud of themselves- follow the great Indian-style poets.
2- The approach of contemporary poetry to the aesthetic coordinates of Indian style:The new definition of Rhetoric in poetry of the contemporary era makes the Indian style being more attractive to the poets and makes them admire and imitate it, because the aesthetic coordinates of Indian style poetry are similar to European poetry and its statements. Nima, as it was mentioned, is passionate about Indian style, and he does not hesitate to put some of its poetic images into his poems while reading Indian style poems. But Nima Yoshiej was more interested in the linguistic complexity rather than elegance and illustrations of Indian style poetry before and more than anything else. Apart from the recreation of Indian style themes by Nima, Shafiei Kadkani, Sepehri, Salman Harati, etc., each of the available methods of Indian style is somehow normalizing poem which makes it emphasized, and this method is used by contemporary poets in creation of surrealist poetic images. Irony ambiguities, Allegories, Numerical affiliations, linguistic derivations, and multiplicity of word meanings are the most prominent stylistic approaches that could be traced in contemporary poetry, whereas, neither the extent of their use (the poets) is equal with each other, nor their proficiency in utilizing the alleged features.
The result of this research Indicates that the Indian style due to the late domination of the Khorasani Style on the literary atmosphere of Iran, was ridiculed by poets of the “Literary Return” period. From the very first decades of the present century and consequently during the post-revolution years, Indian Style recovered its lost reputation and became the scope of poetical influences and thoughtful researches. Within this period, contemporary poetry while being affected by European literature, was not totally unaware of traditional Iranian literature and in various linguistic and aesthetic areas had approaches to Indian style and made many adaptations from it. Using the aesthetic features of Indian style, its themes and elegances was to the extent that kept away part of the poetry of post-revolutionary years from the pains and concerns of the day and in the other words, the necessity of the temporal features of language was neglected.