External and internal themes in the poetry of Massoud Saad Salman

The work of Massoud Saad Salman, a Persian poet of the eleventh / twelfth centuries, is one of the most important examples of the prison literature of the Muslim world and quantitatively the largest in the field of Persian literature. In the eleventh century, Persian experiences a period of transition, which can be traced particularly in the Massoudian work. The biographical particularities of the poet's life, especially incarceration, during the quarter of his life in mountain citadels, have greatly influenced a mid-panegyric poetry, partly personal, and at least more personal than his contemporaries. As such, Massoudian poetry, although structured around classical and predefined themes of Persian poetry, keeps extending beyond this framework to allow the prisoner to express the themes of his own obsessions. Thus, his poetry constitutes a paradoxical split between the strict and uncluttered form of the Khorasani style which precedes it and to which it would normally belong, and the lyrical content of the Araghi style to come, as well as the obsessive and personal style tackling life in prison. Sometimes prosaic, expressing with a specific restraint his conditions of imprisonment, sometimes in a way filled with emotions, his poetry continues to explore the patterns and "internal" themes of Massoud's subjectivity; a subjectivity made of loneliness, suffering, deep anxiety and aggression, as well as a life of a man consigned to oblivion in the Himalayan citadels.In this paper, the Massoudian work is tackled through a general thematic analysis which aims at determining the main patterns of this original and paradoxical poetry.