Satire in Persian Literature.

• Author: Rahimieh, Nasrin

In the preface to his Satire in Persian Literature, Hasan Javadi points out that he originally planned his book as an anthology of Persian satirical poetry to be used in a course on the social history of Iran. Eighteen years after he began the project, Javadi completed a thoroughly researched and well-documented volume that bears distinct traces of the original design. The overabundance of examples Javadi provides throughout his ten chapters and his descriptive approach leave the impression that the anthology cast a heavy shadow over the analytical enterprise. For Javadi, however, there is a necessary link between the earlier plans and the present study: "I am aware that I have sometimes given too many examples. This excess may be justified by the fact that few of these examples have ever been translated into English, and that those translated have never been collected in one volume" (p. 10). What further motivated Javadi was precisely his initial pedagogical concern: "My intention, basically, was to survey the history of Persian satire in its various forms and stages, and at the same time to try to provide a glimpse of the social history of Iran . . . " (ibid.). Javadi meets both of these objectives and, in so doing, fills a void in Persian literary scholarship.

The first three chapters are devoted to the definition and the forms and techniques of satire in Persian literature. Although Javadi never loses sight of his primary focus, i.e., Persian satire, he also draws upon definitions and examples from world literature for a broader context of analysis. The remaining seven chapters are discussions of the various forms and objects of satire from the classical to the modem phase of Persian literature. Aside from providing a chronological survey of the development of satire, Javadi divides the discussion of socio-political and religious satire into generic groupings. For instance, satire in modem Persian poetry, modern fiction, modem drama, and journalism are each discussed in separate chapters. One chapter is also devoted to "Women and Satire." As in the other chapters, Javadi documents...