THE POETICISM

“He didn’t hate the West. He hated what we were willing to trade for it—our soul.” In a century where writers chased publication, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad chased fire. His fire was truth, wrapped in prose so raw it could blister regimes. He didn’t want to entertain. He wanted to interrupt —your thoughts, your identity, your borrowed desires. In modern Iran, his name is inked into debates like a bruise. But in the West, he’s barely understood. This is not a biography. This is a resurrection. I. 🔍 A Boy Torn Between Belief and Books Born in 1923 in Tehran to a conservative cleric’s family, Jalal was expected to become a religious scholar. But something rebelled in him early: a hunger for truth that couldn’t be satisfied by memorized verses alone. He studied theology briefly. Then literature. Then philosophy. Then reality . His intellectual coming-of-age occurred in the boiling crucible of early 20th-century Iran—a country trying to modernize without direction, democratize without founda...

Modern Persian literature, as distinct from its classical tradition, began to emerge significantly in the 19th century , marking a profound transformation in literary expression and purpose. This shift was catalyzed by increasing contact with the West and significant internal socio-political changes, moving Persian literary arts from centuries of established conventions towards more innovative and socially engaged forms. Historically, Persian literature had a rich and continuous tradition, with its written language remaining essentially the same from the 14th century up to the 19th century. Classical Persian poetry, often characterized by its conventional nature and focus on form over ideas, saw little allusion to modern inventions or new forms of literary expression until the mid-19th century. However, the 19th and early 20th centuries ushered in a literary renaissance , challenging the conservative nature of traditional Persian literature. Several key factors drove this modernizat...

Bozorg Alavi  (1904-1997), Iranian writer, novelist and political activist Bozorg Alavi (born Seyyed Mojtaba Alavi, 1907-1997) was an influential Iranian writer, novelist, and political intellectual . His contributions to Iranian Literature are considered profound. Here's a detailed overview of his life, works, and impact: Early Life and Education Born in Tehran, Iran, as the third of six children. His family had strong ties to Iranian political reform; his father, Seyyed Abol Hassan Alavi, participated in the 1906 Constitutional Revolution and later co-published the progressive newsletter Kaveh in Germany. His paternal grandfather, Seyyed Mohammad Sarraf, was a leading constitutionalist and member of the first Majles. In 1922, Alavi was sent to Berlin with his older brother Mortezā for his secondary and university education. Upon returning to Iran in 1927, he taught German in Shiraz and later in Tehran. Political Activities and Imprisonment During his time in Iran,...

Modern Persian literature, as distinct from its classical tradition, began to emerge significantly in the 19th century , marking a profound transformation in literary expression and purpose. This shift was catalyzed by increasing contact with the West and significant internal socio-political changes, moving Persian literary arts from centuries of established conventions towards more innovative and socially engaged forms. Historically, Persian literature had a rich and continuous tradition, with its written language remaining essentially the same from the 14th century up to the 19th century. Classical Persian poetry, often characterized by its conventional nature and focus on form over ideas, saw little allusion to modern inventions or new forms of literary expression until the mid-19th century. However, the 19th and early 20th centuries ushered in a literary renaissance , challenging the conservative nature of traditional Persian literature. Several key factors drove this modernizat...

Viktor Shklovsky taught that art must “make objects unfamiliar ,” shaking us from the automaton of perception. In cinema, this defamiliarization (ostransenie) can turn even the most familiar love story into something new and startling. When a couple’s first kiss or a simple song lyric is framed as if seen for the very first time, we pause and feel its strangeness. Such is the power at work in Mohit Suri’s Saiyaara (2025) and John H. Lee’s A Moment to Remember (2004): two romantic dramas that use memory, time, and silence to estrange the everyday. Both revolve around a young wife’s early-onset Alzheimer’s and her husband’s devotion, but each film’s tone, editing, and narrative rhythm make us truly re-perceive love, loss, and memory. In these films, the director’s craft — from lingering silences to abrupt emotional beats — breaks our cinematic habits and makes the familiar pulse with fresh intensity. “The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and...

In Elsinore’s cold night watch and in Sicilia’s sunlit garden, two tormented kings pivot on the sharp hinges of jealousy and grief. Hamlet Broods in the dim halls of his mind, dagger in hand but vision blurred by doubt; Leontes rages beneath the bright Sicilian sky, hurling accusations like lightning. Both kings become tragic sculptors of their own suffering – yet the raw emotions that rend their souls can be read through a common aesthetic lens. By the Indian poetics of Rasa and Dhvani (suggestion), Hamlet’s turmoil and Leontes’s anguish reveal unexpected harmonies. We see Hamlet’s fury and Leontes’s suspicion not just as plot points but as rasas – emotional “flavors” – that the audience savors. In Shakespeare’s tragedies, emotion is as palpable as action: Hamlet drops poison not only in a cup but in Claudius’s ear, stirring Raudra (fury) and Bībhatsa (disgust). The Winter’s Tale casts Hermione as a saintly goddess of patience, only to suffer Leontes’s baseless wrath – an ago...