شهرزاد محمدحسین

Enthusiasm in the field of comparative studies, concentrating on similarities, variations and influences enhanced in the early decades of the nineteenth century with the rise of Occidental interest in Oriental advancements. About a century later, Michael Foucault introduced his cutting-edge theory, in which he illustrated how the various discursive institutions in a society are related to the circulation of power/knowledge. Hayden White revolutionized the historical outlook towards narrating events by emphasizing on the relationship between the supremacy and the oppressed, while insisting on the disclosure of cause-effect relationships in historiographical analysis. It is the objective of this study to investigate and trace the key notion of “influence” as proposed by the French School of Comparative Literature in the selected pieces, “When in Rome” by Mari Evans and “The Teacher and the Student” by Simin Behbahani in order to reveal how the texts, under the influence of hyper-contextual links of causality which are present in socio-cultural discourses, lead and contribute to the circulation of power and knowledge. Findings will indicate how the comparison of distinct artistic works demonstrates similitude in the expression of views and intentions while relying on factors which are extrinsically appended to them.

Extensive interest in the field of comparative literary studies emerged in the early decades of the nineteenth century with the main focus of comparing similarities in perspectives and variations in beliefs which congregate or rupture world views, representing human thought. It is the objective of the present study to analyze and compare the components which yield to the New Historical analysis of two literary pieces to discover the existing nuances related to the artists’ socio-cultural milieu and to illustrate how this mirrors personality development in their poetry. For this means, two poems have been chosen: “I Am a Black Woman” from Mari Evans, a contemporary African-American poetess, and “Farewell” from Forough Farrokhzad, the influential, modernist Iranian artist. Results will indicate how the views of the two poets differ from one another in regard to the relationship between identity formation and the role that episteme plays in this process. Inevitably, there will be concern about the influence of zeitgeist in imagery production since literary work is the doings of historical-socio-cultural discourses as much as creative imagination.

The precedence of poetry can be traced to ancient times when man first realized that he could combine speech with rhythmicity and musicality to convey and express his inner-most thoughts and passions. The strengths and advantages attributed to poetry are galore; however, few think of employing it as a source for retrieving cultural facts. In the current study, the endeavor of the researcher is to display how poetry can be utilized to extract cultural concepts which are embedded in the mass cultural consciousness of a people by scrutinizing their poetry. The complexity of notions, expressed through poetry, can be revealed one’s verses are deconstructed and the poem is perused scholarly to single out hypograms which are the units carrying the essence of meaning. The inevitable result would be the revelation of different layers of meaning which are convoluted into leitmotifs and only a thorough analysis and meticulous reading can exhibit the relationship between signs, signifier and the signified. As both poetry and cultural studies share the characteristic of being implicit, it is necessary to employ methods which aid clarity and lucidity. A sophisticated analysis requires the use of thick description, a method which cleaves the kernels of thought to display intended meaning and acts as a viable catalyst expediting the process of comprehension through interpretation.