نامه فرهنگستان
سال دوازدهم شماره 3 (پاییز 1390)

Myth is one of the prominent issues in comparative literature studies. The relationship between myth and literature seems a bit problematic as the first one is oral and related to human beliefs and the second one is written and related to the realm of aesthetics. However, further study shows that there are lots of similarities between them and both follow the same logic which is that of the story. On the other hand, the logic of story has its own structure which is rooted in the principles of imagination. The transition from the oral form of myth to the written form of literature has been slow and has taken a long time, during which the story-teller, audience and context have been replaced by the poet/author, the individual reader and the literary story. This study proves that there are structural similarities between the world of myth and literature and, thus, both fit into a larger framework which is the world of story.

Kay Khusrau, the Persian ideal king, has been such a significant character in Persian mythology, history, national epic, folktales, transcendental philosophy and mystical literature that he has changed into a character type. This paper tries to examine the similarities between Kay Khusrau and similar characters in the myths, history and literature of other nations. Some similar cases could be found in Rigveda, Mahabharata, and the Chinese myths. In addition, there are significant similarities between Kay Khusrau and Feraydoun, Buddha, Ebrahim Adham, Cyrus the Great, Ardeshir, Al-Hakem, Romuluy, King Arthur, as well as Hamlet. On the basis of the present study, two hypotheses are possible. 1) All these characters have a common basis, i.e., their background can be traced back to Indo- European mythology, however, they have taken different manifestations in the East and West. In other words, it is possible to find an oriental origin for the Kay Khusrau type. 2) The origin of similarities can be attributed to Jungian archetypes and the collective unconscious of human beings.

The comparative study of literary movements is an important area of research in comparative literature. The School of Classicism yields itself to a comparative study with Persian Classicism. The Art of Poetry, written by Nicola Boileau, the French poet and literary theorist, is, in fact, the manifesto of the French Classicism in the seventeenth century. In the first part of the present essay, after a short review of the cultural and literary life of the seventeenth century France, the basic thoughts of Boileau are elaborated. Then, to better understand the place of Boileau’s art of poetry in the history of literary theory, an outline of this long tradition that begins with Aristotle and continues by writers like Longinus and Horace is drawn. The second part of the essay deals with the important ideas that Boileau expressed in the first chant of L’art poétique translated entirely here in Persian for the first time. This study shows that Boileau’s Art of Poetry can be used as an appropriate basis for a comparative study of Persian and European classical literature

″Arzesh-e Ehsasat″ and ″Nameha-ye Hamsaye″, two major works of Nima Yushij, the modern Persian poet, are among the most eminent early Persian literary criticism on free verse poetry. In these two long articles, Nima postulates upon the idea of how free versepoetry differentiates from the classical counterpart much practiced and advocated by the classical poets of both past and his contemporary. At first glance, and due to his revolutionary reaction against the classical heritage of Persian literature, Nima might have seemed to emanate a radical shift from the tradition of the classical basis. This, however, is annulled in the present article by an attempt to excruciate both the romantic and classical foundations of Nima’s ideas. To do this, the authors have compared and contrasted his literary theories in the works mentioned above with the two English counterparts in the realm of classical and romantic literary criticism – William Wordsworth and his Preface to The Lyrical Ballads (1800) and T.S. Eliot’s Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919) respectively. The result of this research introduces Nima as a poet who epitomizes the features of both Western classical and romantic spirit.

This paper is an interdisciplinary research in the field of comparative literature. Blake, the English Romantic poet and painter, has expressed his own reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost in his paintings. Generally speaking, the Romantic poets under the influence of the dominant discourse of the French Revolution (1796) were interested in rebellious, unknown and mythical characters. Thus, Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost which was considered an anti-hero in the 18th century neoclassical poetry, became a hero, who preferred to rule in hell rather than to serve in heaven, for the Romantic poets. However, Blake, the poet, has a completely different reading from other Romantic poets. Despite his youth interest in the French Revolution, later on Blake became disappointed with the Revolution after witnessing the aftermath violence. For him, the only solution lied in the creative imagination and thought. Blake drew his painting of Milton’s Paradise Lost in such a spirit. These paintings tell us more about Blake rather than Milton’s epic.

Although modern Spain has established relations with the European Union and has opened her political and economic doors to the rest of the world, the comparative literature used to be considered marginal. This article reviews and analyzes the causes of its marginalization and based on past and current status of comparative literature in this country predicts its future. Lack of attention to comparative literature in Spain has its roots in the decline of her political and economic power over Spanish colonies, domination of fascist regimes, closed doors to other countries, and involvement in civil wars. Fearing to lose their national literary identity, made Spanish researchers hesitant to adapt new theories of comparative literature as expressed in other parts of the world. Another reason is the multiplicity of languages and literatures in different regions of Spain, which has caused serious conflicts and disagreements among authors and poets. Regional authors usually claimed that the culturalidentity of Spain belonged to them and this created a gap between different languages and literatures of various regions. Thus, comparative literature was neglected as a discipline. From midtwentieth century with the establishment of the Comparative Literature Association of Spain, the number of comparative literature programs increased in the Spanish universities as well, and the researches of the prominent Spanish scholars, like Claudio Guillén, revived the academic life of this discipline in Spain.

The original article by Hussam Al-Khateeb does not include an abstract; however, due to our policy in Comparative Literature, we have added one. This paper has been chosen for translation for several reasons. 1) Hussam Al-Khateeb is a Syria-born comparatist and teaches at Qatar University, and has a comprehensive knowledge of comparative literature in the Arab world. 2) The conditions of comparative literature in the Arab world are very similar to those in Iran so we can benefit from their experiences. 3) This paper is written by an Arab scholar who has experienced these challenges closely and makes a scholarly and fair criticism. In general, the paper studies the emergence and development of comparative literature in the Arab world. For the first time, Egyptian comparatists seriously started to study comparative literature since 1980s. Most of Arab comparatists graduated from French universities and were naturally influenced by the French traditional school. The works of Guyard and Etiémble have been translated into Arabic several times. Mohamed Ghonemi Hilal is the only Egyptian comparatist who has had a long-lasting influence on comparative literature in the Arab world. Arab universities suffer from lack of experts in comparative literature. Many of instructors are not comparatists by academic training. According to Hussam Al-Khateeb, many of the papers and books written in Arabic do not have anything to do with comparative literature and just carry its title. Hilal also blames many of these works for their superficiality and lack of depth. To Hussam Al-Khateeb, many Arab researchers do not consider comparative literature more than a simple action of comparison. At the end Hussam Al-Khateeb refers to a trend developed by some Arab comparatists who have a better and deeper understanding of the new theories and methodology of comparative literature and hopes that they can successfully face the challenges of comparative literature in the Arab world as an independent academic discipline.