The Analysis of Social Symbols in Hooshang Ebtehaj's Poetry

Symbol is one of the means of imagary and its most important characteristic is not having a distinct and definite meaning. That is why the same symbol can have different meanings. In Pahlavi era, since the writers and sociologists were not allowed to explicitly criticize the system and the social values of the time, the use of symbols in artistic works became quite prevalent. Efficient use of symbol for social purposes was started by Nima and later developed later by such poets as Naderpur, Akhavan, and Shamloo, to name a few. Ebtehaj, who seems to have been a committed poet being concerned about the social issues of his time, has used symbol as a tool for expressing social concepts. As a matter of fact, the symbols he has used in his poems mainly originate from «Nature», «Colours» and «living tools». His social poems are characterized by two main groups of symbols: one, ordinary symbols (night, morning, sea, forest, spring, sun, light, etc.), and the other, innovative symbols)grass, lawn, curtain, window, axe, grass, meadow, etc.). Using these symbols along with other figure of speech such as congeries, paradox, Similie, etc has given symbol a more prominent status among the other literary ….. Sayeh has used symbol not only in social poems but also in in his sonnets; however, his social symbols are more prominent and efficient than those of his sonnents.