Moslem Zolfagharkhani
Abstract
Introduction Ecocriticism in literature concentrates on literature and the environment or the Nature; it means it focuses on literature and the physical environment. Such study calls for collaboration between natural scientists, writers, literary critics, anthropologists, historians, and other disciplines. ...
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Introduction Ecocriticism in literature concentrates on literature and the environment or the Nature; it means it focuses on literature and the physical environment. Such study calls for collaboration between natural scientists, writers, literary critics, anthropologists, historians, and other disciplines. Poets and authors have always been under the influences of the world around and the environment so that nature changed to be a source of inspiration to them. Background Studies Ecocriticism and Environmental literary studies were first introduced to the world of literature in 1970 in world’s most important assembly “The Western Literature Association” (WLA). After the Industrial revolution, human being transformed his connection with nature and started to experience a new season in his life. The earlier connection was based on a mutual relationship, but the new one was entirely shifted to something far from a mutual link. In other words, after the Industrial revolution, human being occupied an upper position and nature suffered from a banal one. Incidentally, the ecocritics enjoy various methods of analysis in their studies; some believe that nature is not more than a humanized structure which some poets like William Wordsworth started to form in their works. Many of these critics put nature as a counterpart of culture, or identify nature as instinct. Instinct is the main inner motive which transfers its effects to other creatures. It is identified with nature or the animal’s desire to do profitable deeds. Materials and Methods The present study attempts to reveal ecocritical works and thoughts of two most significant Persian and American poets/authors, Nimā Yushij (1897-1960) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). To do this, the poetry and the letters of Nimā together with Emerson’s book titled Nature (1836) have been selected. It is indicated how Nimā and Emerson’s idealism is closely related to nature, and how it is based on Human-God-Nature-Justice circle. It is shown that nature is the major source of this circle. Hence, the present study, by the use of American School of Comparative studies, while applying a library-analytical approach, tries to compare and contrast the major thoughts of Nimā Yushij and Ralph Waldo Emerson due to their literary environmental writings. Furthermore, it is emphasized that these two poets belong to different languages and literatures; however, as far as the American School is based on Eclecticism in comparative studies, it is hoped that the major nature-oriented themes and ideas of these poets might be revealed in this essay. It should be also considered that the American School of comparative studies does not concentrate only on the effects or influences in literary studies; to such school, literary movements, genres and literary types, and the topics and themes of world literature are the fundamental spots of studies. Results and Discussions The study discloses how Emerson’s outlook to nature is more philosophical than Nimā’s. When he talks about nature his idealistic motives start to appear. Both poets insist on the unity of human being and nature by unifying human history and natural history. The beauty of nature is another major theme of their poetry; both look at nature as the source of beauty and its pleasures. Emerson believes that the ultimate end of the cosmos is a desire to the beauty. Why human being is so much interested in the beauty is beyond the thoughts and logics of man. Furthermore, Nimā’s ecocritical tendencies are closely related to coexistence of man and nature, and the poet’s thoughts are not separated from the beauties of nature and its inspiration. Nature, environment, and the world around are at the core of both Nimā and Emerson’s thoughts and writings. To live naturally and to get involved with nature are their ideal way of life. To them, solitude and primitivism are man’s solution to release him/her from the chains of society. Both of them complain about human being’s distance from nature; they believe that solitude is mankind’s opportunity to conform his/her soul to nature.
Roshanak Akrami
Abstract
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s idea of metamorphosis and metempsychosis, as traceable in his essays “History” and “Poet,” has recently attracted the attention of Emersonians such as Michael Corrigan and Michael Cowan. According to these scholars Emerson has expanded the Indian and ...
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Ralph Waldo Emerson’s idea of metamorphosis and metempsychosis, as traceable in his essays “History” and “Poet,” has recently attracted the attention of Emersonians such as Michael Corrigan and Michael Cowan. According to these scholars Emerson has expanded the Indian and Greek definition of these notions and has come to give a metamorphic quality to almost every aspect of life and his idea of the ideal poet. Cowan has also traced two metamorphic processes in Emerson’s famous poem “Bacchus,” which according to scholars such as John D. Yohannan is an imitation of Hafiz’s “Saghinameh.” This point allows this article to go back to “Saghinameh” and show that the metamorphic quality attributed to “Bacchus” is rooted in Emerson’s translation of “Saghinameh.” This article also argues that a few other poems of Emerson that have metamorphosis as their main theme are in one way or another related to his translations from the Divan of Hafiz. In this way, on the one hand, this paper is contributing to the discussions about metamorphosis in Emersonian thought; and on the other hand, it is contributing to the studies that address the function of Emerson’s engagement with Persian poetry and its relation to his career as a thinker and a poet. Research Background: Emerson’s respect for Persian thought and poetry is a well known subject to most Emersonians and those interested in transnational studies. The different ways in which Perisan poetry has influenced Emerson’s poetry have been addressed by many esteemed scholars such as F. I. Carpenter, Arthur Christy, and John D. Yohannan. More recently scholars such as Lawrence Buell have come to give a more central place to Emerson’s engagement with Persian poetry and his related translations. For scholars such as Jan Stievermann this aspect of Emerson’s career is best demonstrative of his cosmopolitanism and his openness to World Literature. Finally and more recently, the Doctoral dissertation of Roshanak Akrami: “‘The Sense of a Half-Translated Ode of Hafis’: Emerson’s Translations of Persian Poetry” (2015), which examines Emerson’s poetry notebooks and the drafts of translations he has left, focuses on Emerson’s theory of translation and the different ways in which Persian poetry affects Emerson’s career and is affected by it. Nevertheless, the relationship between Emerson’s idea of metamorphosis and his translations of Persian poetry has not been addressed in any other research. Method: This article examines three original poems of Emerson and looks at his translation of Hafiz’s “Saghinameh.” It traces Emerson’s idea of metamorphosis highlighted by Michael Cowan in Emerson’s “Bacchus” back to Saghinameh and Hafiz’s notion of “wine of awakening.” By examining Emerson’s original poems, his translations, drafts of these translations, and the German and Persian versions of these poems, this study is using a genetic reading method that allows seeing the process of production of these poems and the concepts that have emerged in this process.Conclusion: The metamorphic quality that wine has in Emerson’s “Baachus” is directly taken from Hafiz’s “Saghinameh.” In both poems wine awakens and gives vision and access to the unseen and past and future. In “Proteus” and “Poet of Poets” Emerson employs the Divan’s concept of love in two different ways. That is to say, while in both poems love is used as a metaphor for metamorphosis; in “Proteus” Emerson adopts the Divan’s notion of suffering and loss that follows mystical love and uses it to attribute pain to his idea of metamorphosis. In “Poet of Poets,” on the other hand, wine gives the power of metamorphosis to the poet and makes him a seer and an insider. In this way it can be said the mystical power of love and wine has found a new life in Emerson’s writings.