Mythological Depictions of Colour in the Poetry of Akhavan-Sales

Abstract

Colour, as one of the observable elements of poetry in Mehdi Akhavan-Sales’s poems, is connected with symbolic and mythological aspects. He was a poet of the New Style and an archaist who had mastery over ancient poetry and mythological concepts. He frequently employed these concepts in describing his time’s social situation and the use of various colours represents a symbolic reflection of his mentality. This article examines the abundant depiction of colours in Akhavan’s poems in Nima Style (Sheʻr-e Nimaaʼi), which is also the arena of the emergence of myth and demonstrates his beliefs about the conditions of his time. Moreover, poetry provided the ground for revealing Akhavan’s unconscious and expressing the concealed and dark parts of his being. The features of his personality that could not appear in his contemporary society were depicted in the form of colours, symbolizing certain concepts and themes since the distant past. Akhavan-Sales has used colours to express his desired themes more precisely: white, black, green, red, yellow, and blue are the most frequent colours that symbolize various natural, abstract, or social issues in his poetry. He additionally has used ancient terms for colours such as lajvardi (azure), shangarf (cinnabar), nili (cerulean), zangar (rust), zebarjad (yellowish-green), simgun (silver), and khazra (green/ blue), which were common in old poetry and Khorasani style.

Keywords

• myth
• contemporary poetry
• colour in poetry
• mehdi akhavan-sales
• mythological criticism