Analysis and Pathology of the Most Important Approaches to Criticisms of Akhavan- Sales' poems in Indexed Articles (1991-2016)

One of the main branches of contemporary poetry criticism, paying attention to the features of poets' works, is based on approaches common in criticism. Among the prominent poets of this century, Mehdi Akhavan-Sales (1928-1990), has a prominent status in contemporary poetry research and many critics have criticized his poems from various perspectives. Considering the importance of the research conducted so far, the present article, to better understand approaches taken in the research performed on poems of Akhavan-Sales, along with the criticisms of his poems, has employed the content analysis method, with the emphasis given to three main approaches of aesthetics, symbolism and archetypal mythology. To accomplish this, 52 articles indexed in the period (1991 to 2016), have been classified, introduced and critiqued. The findings show that aesthetic criticism with an emphasis on abnormality have had the highest frequency in research conducted in this field. In the reviewed articles, while more attention has been paid to the archaic, narrative and mythological aspects of poems of Akhavan-Sales, many other aspects of his poetry have been neglected by academic researchers. Among the scientific and methodological drawbacks of the articles, it is found that researchers have neglected the research background, chose repetitive topics, failed to assign specific research scope, and have,at times, conducted research based on their personal tendency.