نشریه نقد و نظریه ادبی
سال هفتم شماره 2 (پیاپی 14، پاییز و زمستان 1401)

Ecocriticism is the bridge between the environmental sciences and literature. Silverstein’s The Giving Tree and Dehrizi’s The Treeless World are both picture books that possess implied environmental themes and share a ‘tree’ motif. The canonical position of The Giving Tree in classical children’s literature functions as a touchstone in comparing similar works, among other nations. This analytic-descriptive research compares and contrasts the representations of environmental elements in the aforementioned works in the light of deep ecology and ecofeminism. Arne Næss, the Norwegian philosopher, coined the term ‘Deep Ecology’ in opposition to Shallow Ecology. Deep ecology connects the understanding of the relation between identity and nature to identifying oneself to a larger eco-cycle known as the ‘Ecological Self.’ Through equating the place of women with nature in a patriarchal system, ecofeminism criticizes the Ecological Self Theory for neglecting the role of gender in the formation of environmental crises. The present article studies the representations of environmental elements and the reciprocal relation between man and nature in the aforementioned works. This research shows that in The Treeless World, the dominant ecological representation is in line with deep ecology and in opposition to ecofeminism; also, it reveals that in The Giving Tree, the dominant ecological representation is in line with ecofeminism.

Semiotics, in a transformational process, moves from object-oriented semiotics to subject-oriented and then toward phenomenology, resulting in the formation of a relation in accordance with the challenge or adaptation among the subject, the object, and the world. In so doing, it influences objects and subjects. As a result of the object-subject entanglement, meaning is transferred from one to the other. Objects interact with or challenge each other in an inter-objective context, affecting the performance and cultural and social behavior of human subjects and determining the type of their interactions. In fact, with its legitimizing and authoritarian aspect, the object could reestablish or collapse the subject's presence. This article tries to understand how and through which features and discourses this process is completed. The present research investigates two central questions: what are the fundamental qualities and requirements in the transition from the sign system to the object system and its discourse functions in Golshiri's Shazde Ehtejab and what are the positions of the object’s semantic process and its role in the presence of the subject. The main goal of this article is to examine the transition from a sign system to an object system, its establishment, and its semantic processes. The result shows that in the transitional process from the sign system to the object system, the objects find an authoritarian, prosthetic, spatial, active, representational, ironic, referential, cultural, historical, and legitimizing position.

Ecocriticism studies the relation between literature and the physical environment and analyzes ecological concerns in socio-political contexts. In order to represent the effects of the discourse of power on the ecological identity of the characters in Dowlatabadi’s Kelidar, this article employs the descriptive-analytical method to study the characters’ ecological concerns in relation to nature. Subjectification of each of Kelidar’s characters manifests through their reactions when they are in authoritative positions of the discourse of power. In Kalmiši’s surrender to sedentism, his ecologic fear, and his displacement of desert identity; in Belqays’s mental breakdown and loss of identity; in Gol-Mohammad’s blasphemy, ecologic fear, unadaptability to the harsh climate where he was banished, and guardslaughter; in Beg-Mohammad’s migration and ecologic fear; in Khan-Mohammad’s ruminations and dialogues with the elements of nature and reflections on his existence. Through character analysis in relation to the environment and the discourse of power, we concluded that the authoritative discourse of power leads to the characters’ fabrication of a persona, and their objectification, distancing them from their ecologic identity and inner truth built in relation to the nature and seizing their freedom and rationality. In other words, the change in their ecology changes their nature and creates a powerful anti-discourse.

In his critical reading of Roman Jakobson’s “poeticity”, Yuri Lotman, interpreted the term as the outcome of a semiological dialog between linguistic and extra-linguistic elements which are not reduced to the surface-structural elements. It is in fact a deep-structure component that is potent enough to establish unconventional functions for poetry and reject the traditional distinctions between poetry and prose. This reading of poeticity offers a venure for fictional prose to reflect new horizons. The present article, through differentiating between poeticity and poeticalness in Mandanipour’s "Shargh-e Banafsheh," looks into a number of salient socio-historical characteristics of Iranian culture as depicted in the short story.

For its style and content, Nafsat-al-Masdur, the work of Shahab al-Din Mohammad Nasavi Khorandezi Zeydari, has always been considered as a canonical text in classical history and literature. In line with the new approaches in narratology and interdisciplinary studies, this work moves beyond the traditional classical studies of history and literature and enters into new domains of narratology and contemporary criticism. Genre and narratological studies of Nafsat-al-Masdur present different genres embedded in the work. These genres, such as autobiography, epistolary, and nonfiction, are intertextually intermingled in a historical context and problematize simplistic literary categorizations of Nafsat-al-Masdur. Also, different academic readings, in line with the narration and aesthetics tradition of the sixth century (S. H.), have degraded Nasavi’s peculiar narration style in restating the events to an insignificant piece of literature and deformed his primary objectives. The present article studies the generic and narrative structure of Nafsat-al-Masdur in an attempt to categorize the work as Ekhvaniyat and claims that although it has earned historical recognition due to its treatment of important people and events in the Mongol era, it cannot and should not be regarded as a multi-genric work.

‘We’ narratives possess a unique structure which remarkably differs from narrative structures in stories told through the first-person singular or the third-person points of view. From this perspective, one may consider the plural narrator as the technical sum total of the aforementioned points of view. In line with this claim, this paper aims to discuss the different aspects of the ‘we’ pronoun as the narrator in creating diverse narrative potentials. To reach such a goal, we handpicked and reviewed a number of contemporary Persian stories narrated by ‘we’ pronoun. The analysis of the narrative pattern of these stories proves that the expansion of the plot is affected by the relation between the ‘pronoun’ and the referencing process, ‘singularity’ and the narrative mood concept, and ‘plurality’ and the addition as well cohesion in characterization. Each of these possibilities strengthens narrative organicism and forms and advances the structure of the story. In addition, apart from justifying the selection of ‘we’ pronoun by the narrator, the article offers a conventional categorisation of the stories narrated in such a structure.

Inspired by Foucault, Judith Butler suggests that the structure of power is constructed and socially interconnected in a way that women are on its lowest layer. The overt and covert power systems distributed in the society deprive women of their rights. Adopting a descriptive-analytical approach, the present paper studies Alice Munro’s The View from Castle Rock and Fariba Vafi’s Razi dar Koucheh-ha (A Secret in the Allies). The findings of the article demonstrate that Munro and Vafi expose complicated dynamic networks, revealing how women are driven back through stereotypical women’s affairs. In a straightforward narration, Munro provides explanations and signs of power discourse in the lower strata of the society, inspiring women to focus on their rights. Vafi discusses the boundaries of male domination. According to Munro, literature is one of the areas which redefine hidden social and civil conflicts that have political, cultural, and even theological dimensions. In Vafi’s work, this is made possible by demonstrating the skills, strengths, and abilities of women, both mentally and socially. The feminist mindset of Munro and Vafi in these collections is compatible with what is known as the three waves of feminism, but owes much to the feminist reflections of the post-structuralist scholar Judith Butler who is associated with the third wave of feminism.

The French poststructuralist philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who based his philosophy on an ontology of Immanent desire, also wrote separate books and monographs on arts, and especially on literature. These two orientations, which have developed simultaneously throughout his philosophical life, raise the question of the relation between the new understanding of desire and the function and purpose of literature in Deleuze's philosophy. Criticising the Oedipal process of the unconscious in the tradition of Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis, Deleuze does not see the construction of desire as merely a process of filling a Lacanian gap. In his view, desire is the creator of something new, positive, and narrative. In Deleuze's opinion, literature presupposes fidelity to Events and Puissance, which create a new relation with the state of affairs. By conceptualising the Line of Flight, Deleuze considers the schizophrenic vocation and function of Literary Machines to be the creation of Pure Affects and Singularities, the visualisation of invisible forces in any situation, and taking life to a state of Impersonal Puissance. This article discusses how Deleuze's new understanding of desire as Desiring-Machines can be central to his philosophy of literature, and what the positive consequences would be; in other words, it argues how Desire, as a condition for the possibility of literature, can open a new Transcendental foundation.

Continental Philosophy, through dialogues with German Idealism and Romanticism, and in accordance with Subjectivism, Criticism, Traditionalism, Historicism, and Anti-authoritarianism, has influenced many literary theories, especially phenomenology and hermeneutics. Although continental and analytical philosophies have influenced other literary theories, the present article contends that in the conflict between the ‘continental’ and ‘analytical’ approaches, continental philosophy is characterized by ‘taste’ and ‘literary’ insights as well as uncertainty, multiplicity of methods, and even antagonism. The method exhibits radical differences with natural sciences (Positivism), Existentialism, and subject orientation, and it can be regarded as a much more suitable medium for the development and application of reader-response theories. Therefore, in the present article, while enumerating the common features of continental literature and philosophy, we will show that the relation between philosophy and literary theory, often formed through continental approaches and reader-centered theories, are visibly compatible with this approach. We will also discuss that in addition to the political and academic origins that played a role in the emergence of schools such as Constance, numerous drawbacks in Enlightenment philosophy, including the failure of rationality, the undesirable consequences of Capitalism, the gradual disappearance of Christian values, have profoundly influenced the formation of reader-response theories.

For many years, philosophers have studied methods of epistemology through different approaches. The challenges in this area mainly focus on the question of the nature of the subject and object as well as their relation. These issues have led to two general but diverse movements: Idealism and Realism. Deconstruction, like its predecessor, Structuralism, is essentially epistemological. Structuralists conceptualised ‘structure’ in such a ways as to go beyond the subject and object duality. Deconstruction, positively and negatively, established deep bonds with structuralism. This study interprets this relation and argues that structure in structuralism is transformed into textuality in deconstruction. The difference is that the text is not as rigid as a "structure" and continues to exist as a flux. The constant evolution of the text as a whole eliminates the subject and object duality.  In this way, the concept of text acts as a bridge between linguistics and ontology. When Derrida discusses the text, he means any kind of being. This kind of being includes both concepts and objects. Derrida’s interpretation of language can be linked to the epistemological and ontological functions of language.

The conceptual levels analysed within Text World Theory are discourse-world, text-world, and sub-world. The sub-world enables the critic to analyse the epistemological aspects of the text by focusing on deictic phrases, nouns, and adverbs. This descriptive-analytical research discusses the impact of deictic worlds and the system  of metaphors in recognising the epistemic world in Ali Babachahi’s “Farness and …” The present article aims to answer these questions: Considering the chronological course of the poem’s deictic world, how we can unveil the poet’s epistemic world, and how does the systematic network of cognitive metaphors reveal the poet’s epistemological system? The results show that the poetic narrative expresses concern about the past which is relieved by the poet’s predictions and return to traditions.

The Modernisation of societies resulted in the emergence of the novel which truthfully reflects the society. This article tries to analyse women’s social position in the society, before the Islamic revolution, through a sociological reading of Simin Daneshvar’s novels, including Suvashun (1969), Wander Island (Jazireh-e Sargardani) (1993), and Wandering Cameleer (Sarban-e Sargardan) (2001). Simin Daneshvar is among the most prominent contemporary novelists. Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist, philosopher, anthropologist, and critic views capital not only in term of economics but also from other perspectives such as culture, social life, and symbolism. In this comparative study, we have analysed the influence of capital in the lives of the female characters of each story and explored the degree to which they managed to increase it. The present article reveals that women are not very successful in acquiring all kinds of capital. Zari and Hasti, the main activists of the stories, are comparatively more prosperous than other women. They both represent ideal women in their societies; Hasti, who lives three decades after Zari, has more concrete cultural and social capital and is more dynamic in acquiring economic capital.