The study and analysis of the ‘form and content conflict’ in contemporary Persian literary criticism by relying on Reza Baraheni’s Story Writing

The criticism of fiction in Iran began with basic moral criticisms which reduced art and fiction to a means of refining morality. With the rise of the Tudeh Party and the specific historical circumstances of Iran, it gradually moved towards ideological criticisms and a kind of almost homogeneous Stalinism. From the 1960s and with the advent of avant-garde magazines such as Jong-e Isfahan (The Isfahan Anthology) and the translations and writings of such individuals as Abolhassan Najafi and others, Western literary theories were introduced in Iran. Reza Baraheniwas one of the few academics who managed to distance himself from the traditional atmosphere of the university and apply modern criticisms and theories in his articles and research books as well as in his creative works. However, unlike Najafi and Golshiri who managed to create a coherent system of humanistic commitment and form, he stood somewhere between social commitment and formalism at least in his book entitled Story Writing. By elevating the concept of ‘sacred art’ in the post-revolutionary years, some religious intellectuals sometimes encountered the same theoretical contradiction on issues related to aesthetics. Nevertheless, the more the passion of the revolution was reduced, the more Braheni turned to the theories of structuralism and formalism and distanced himself from the combative commitment of the 1960s which inevitably led to a conflict of form and content in his Story Writing. Therefore, it can be said that as one of Baraheni’s most prominent books, Story Writing is an instance of the criticism which formed in the transition from the paradigm of ‘committed literature’ to the paradigm of ‘art for art’s sake’ and consequently formalism.