| While avoiding generalizations or any attempt to essentialize the already problematic concepts of East and West, or North and South, by ascribing some permanent or pre-destined essence to them, the present study compares the poetries of Ahmad Shamlu (1925--2000) and Bertolt Brecht (1898--1956) as the most representative poets of respectively Iran and Germany in the 20th century.;The problem of differences in poetic language and tone and mood between Persian and European poetry, even between poets sharing the same worldview and writing on similar subjects, is the main issue here. To what extent are these personal differences of individual poets and to what extent could one observe patterns that could be attributed to (however socially-conditioned) cultural differences? Modern poetry was introduced in Iran by poets who were directly influenced by European poetry. The question, then, is: How much of the old identity---all that can be associated with that image of the classical Persian poet---still persists and shows even in the works of poets who are so strongly influenced by European thought and imitate modern European poetry?;The paper's search for an answer is done in the form of a close study of the works of these two poets with each poem bringing new aspects into focus, and gradually a pattern appears from the miniature pieces of this jigsaw puzzle as they are put together. The two poets sharing the same cause and ideology are finally seen as gravitating one (Shamlu) predominantly to pathos and humanist idealism, the other (Brecht) predominantly to logos and pragmatist rationalism. How this affects the methods they employ (Verfremdung [estrangement] method in Brecht and social symbolism in Shamlu) to achieve the desired effects, how this is manifested in their poetic language or reflected in their approach to various issues (choice of audience, portrayal of women, and so on), is demonstrated throughout the paper when discussing their poems. |
