Literary Arts (Sep 2018)
Formalistic analysis of the three domains of language, music and aesthetics in "Arghavan" a poem by Hushang Ebtehaj
Abstract
Based on the formalism school, the discovery of the beauty of a text, or so-called "text literacy", is one of the most important issues to be considered in the critique of a literary work. Focusing on the "text" itself, the theorists of this school try to discover the causes and factors that turn the ordinary and everyday language into a poetic language. According to them, using different techniques such as "defamiliarization", the world of the text can be alienated from the viewpoint of audiences. In the formalistic approach, the form and content of a literary work are not independent of each other, rather the content is represented in form; hence, the content and the theme of a literary work can be comprehended through the study of the form and structure. "Arghavan" is a brilliant poem with a social theme by Hushang Ebtehaj who is one of the famous figures of contemporary poetry. The dominant feelings in this poem are sadness, grief, and regret that, because of the lack of freedom, are imposed on the heart of the imprisoned poet. But his idealistic mind craves blowing up for flight and release. In a formalistic and analytical approach, this research aimed to study the linguistic, musical and aesthetic domains in "Arghavan". The formalist analysis of this work shows that the artistic techniques used at the three mentioned domains help to discover hidden aspects beyond the thought and ideas of the poet. Therefore, going beyond the words, linguistic interpretations, and syntactic functions in the poem, it was aimed to find answers to the following questions: 1- How are the grief- and regret-centered emotions of the poet represented in the form and structure of this poem? 2- How effective are formalist features in the acceptance and durability of "Arghavan" poem? 3- How can focusing on the form and structure reveal the implicit and latent ideas in the poem? This review shows that this literary work has two major characteristics that have a profound and long-lasting influence on the mind and thought of the audiences that make the poem acceptable to them. The first one is the use of the communicative language in the poem which creates an intimate and close relationship between the poet and the audience. The other characteristic is the focus on the quest for freedom and the hope to release, which is a pervasive and universal human-social concept. Accordingly, the poet's ideas and social concerns, as well as his emotional and personal feelings are intermingled in a coherent manner and properly represented in the form and structure of the poem, making it a perdurable literary work. In addition, there are other reasons for the success, attractiveness, and durability of this poem that can be detected in the three domains of language, music, and aesthetics, which include: 1. Domain of language: use of lexical terms connoting negative emotions, such as gleam, wretched, forgetfulness, penetration, pale, prisoner, mourning, and sorrow, which imply the grief and sadness of the poet, use of the attribute of art instead of the noun, anomalies in the construction and application of verbs, transposition of the parts of speech in a sentence, "Archaism", establishment of a variety of semantic relations, and use of colloquial language. 2. Domain of music: use of heavy and dragged mater consistent with the content (faeilaton), the artistic use of the accompanying music (bringing rhymes in seven strings out of the total of ten lines of poetry and applying the row in six cases), amplifying internal music through the repetition of consonants and vowels (phonemes), and use of different types of puns. 3. Domain of aesthetics: use of images in balance, consistent with the poet's feelings, use of metaphors, metaphorical combinations, personification, metaphorical symbols that make up the dominant part of the poem, use of allusion to avoid explicit expression of items, use of various rhetorical instruments and verbal and semantic artifacts such as simile, repetitions, synesthesia, hyperbole, paradox, etc. Ebtehaj used the mentioned features, and applied formal elements and various techniques to create an artistic and enduring work called "Arghavan" and he succeeded in transferring his emotions and feelings to the audience. Because of these features, critics place a high value on "Arghavan".
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