Authorial compositional models in the ghazals of Simin Behbahani (1927–2014)

Abstract

This article aims to study the composition of modern Persian ghazals on the material of selected poems by Simin Behbahani, a master of this genre in Iran, who is rightfully recognized as “Mistress of the Modern Ghazal” (“Bānu-ye qazal-e mo‘aser”). The ghazal is the dominant form in Simin’s work. She has written more than six hundred poems in this form. Simin Behbahani not only demonstrates continuity with Persian classical poetry in her choice of imagery and poetic syntax, but also “modernizes” the ghazal with her own “invented motifs” (“ma‘āni-ye exterā‘”), which have no equivalents in classical literature. The changes that Simin introduced to the traditional form of the ghazal also affect the formal aspect — composition of the text. The classical Persian ghazal tends to be divided into two categories according to the nature of the connection between the bayts, which are referred to as mosalsal (“linear”) or parākande (“disparate”). Most of Simin’s ghazals belong to the first type and are characterized by a unity of theme and figurative-semantic structure. In her ghazals, Simin often prefers various variants of ring composition. There are few examples of this type of composition in the ghazals of the classical period. The purpose of this work is to use selected representative examples to show how Simin Behbahani develops this compositional model. This will allow us to take the first step in the theoretical understanding of the poetics of the modern ghazal (qazal-e mo‘aser) as the changes that have occurred in it at the current stage have not yet been studied properly. Using the example of three different texts, it is shown that, by working with the original methods of constructing a ghazal, Simin Behbahani as a poet who worked in the era of the individual creative type of artistic consciousness chooses a preferred compositional method for unfolding the lyrical situation in each poem.

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