A comparative study of Nazar Ghabbani and Ahmad Shamlu’s elegies

    The elegy as one of the oldest genres of poetry in the poems of Nazar Ghabbani, Arab, contemporary, romantic poet and Ahmad Shamlu, Iranian contemporary poet, who were both the origins of great poetic movements in Persian and Arabic, is a remarkable subject.
    Considering the elegies of Nazar Ghabbani and Ahmad Shamlu, it has been concluded that Nazar Ghabbani in his personal and social elegies, has pointed out subjects such as sorrow for the loss of his family members, war of Arabs against Israel, places such as Beirut and Palestine as well as warriors and martyrs, on the other hand, Shamlu has not mentioned his family members in his elegies, instead, he has pointed out the social and political sublimes such as Forough Farrokhzad, Jalal Al-e- Ahmad, Vartan and Ahmad Zibaram. Additionally, regarding language structure, both poets have used a simple language in their elegies.
    The difference is that Ghabbani in his poems tries to be close to what is known as the daily language but Shamlu's language and thoughts in his elegies have many dimensions and sometimes they are philosophical. Also, from the imagination point of view, Ghabbani's attitude is superficial while Shamlu's breaks the common boundaries and travels beyond layers of language.
      
Key Words: elegy، Nazar Ghabbani ،Ahmad Shamlu ، comparative literature

1.1.Introduction
According to theorists of comparative literature, literary lending and borrowings are always present in different forms in the world literature, and few kinds of literature can be found which move within closed and limited circuits and which do not cross their own borders. Out of these, Arabic and Persian literature, because of geographical closeness and also because of some common customs and traditions, have had more cultural and literary interchange compared to other nations. Considering the subject matter in this issue, by relying on the comparative American literature (which does not insist on finding historical documents and proofs and accepts that some similarities between literary works arise from the common spirit of all mankind), Ghabani and Shamlu’s elegies are analyzed and described. The most important questions presented in this study are as follows:
-          What are the individuals and subjects presented in individual and social elegies of Ghabani and Shamlu?
-          What are the differences of elegies in terms of linguistic structure, imagination and imagery?
Nezar Ghabani is the greatest contemporary writer of love poems and the most popular poet in the Arab world. He was born in 1923 in Damascus. Ghabani finished his studies in Damascus and then was employed by the Syrian Foreign Ministry. He entered the world of politics at the age of 22, and was determined as the delegate of the Syrian embassy in Cairo. From then to 1966 (when he left politics forever), he worked with different titles as the representative of the Syrian government in Britain, France, Spain, China and some other countries (Bekar, 1977: 21).
Ahmad Shamlu was born in 1925 in Tehran. He passed his early years of education in different cities such as Rasht, Semirom, Isfahan, Abadeh, Shiraz, Khash, Zahedan and Mashhad. His marriage to Aida Sarkisian in 1962 was a turning point in his life. He eventually breathed his last on 23^rd July 2000. “In the Shamloii poetry, the formation of every piece, instead of being based on the meter of the line, is based on the combinability of every term, and phonetic similarities of the syllables, words as well as compounds. Combinability and lexical movements in every line take its force more from the quintessential movement of the poem in the poet’s feeling and in the poem’s capability than from external elements of meters” (Mojabi, 1998: 84).
1.2.Research methodology
This article compares elegies of Ghabani and Shamlu on the basis of the American comparative school with the descriptive-analytical method, and analyzes and interprets the collected subjects and data.
1.3.Discussion
In a categorization, Ghabani and Shamlu’s elegies can be divided into two distinct groups: the first group of the two poets’ elegies express disasters and loss of those people who had been present in the lives of the two poets, although they had social popularities as well. Some of the most important events Ghabani has written elegies for are his mother’s death, his father’s, sister’s, his young son’s death, and also his wife’s assassination. In this survey, to avoid prolongation of the subject, one of his most important elegies is discussed. One of his remarkable elegies is Ode to Bel-Qeis published in 1982 i.e. one year after the death of Bel-Qeis Al-Ravi. In fact, this ode is an elegy in which the poet, alongside mourning the loss of his beloved, uses a satirical and ironic language to attack the murderers and causers of that savage crime.
Some of the most important figures whom Shamlu has mourned their losses are Forough Farrokhzad (poet), Jalal Al Ahmad (writer) and Nima Yushij whom he had known closely and has dedicated these elegies to them. However, what seems to be important here is that Shamlu has not written any elegies for his family members. As if he considers the great figures of literature as his family members because most elegies of Shamlu are for these literary figures who were heralds of liberty. In addition to that, what increases the value of Shamlu’s elegies is not the various intellectuals and figures he has mourned, but it is the type of Shamlu’s presentation of elegies which arise from specific conditions of his literary life.
1.4.Conclusion
If as the contemporary thinkers say, we consider poetry as an influencing factor on the audience, stimulator of emotions, and element of honesty, elegies are the top forms in this regard. However, the attitudes of poets in the emotional and sensational stimulation in the area of elegies could be different; so much so that most elegies of Nezar Ggabani mourn the loss of family members such as mother, father, and child, whereas, in poems and elegies of Shamlu, no mourning of family members are found.
On the other hand, both poets have written elegies for their homelands and their oppressed people with this difference that the collective characteristic of Nezar’s elegies are mostly formed about places and cities especially Beirut, whereas characteristic of Shamlu’s most social elegies are heroes, fighters, and politicians who have lost their lives because of their ideals.
In his terminology, Nezar Ghabani uses an easy, handy language that is borrowed from people’s everyday language to create his elegies, whereas, in Shamlu’s elegies, we hardly find such an attitude. His poetry and the language of elegy contains a specific sobriety and dignity which is observable in his other poems, too.
On the other hand, in terms of imagination and emotion, too, Ghabani tries to remain loyal to emotional and sensational stimulation by the use of imagination that flies only in the surface level, and because of that, his imagination hardly rises further away from the context. On the contrary, the existing imagination and even emotion in Shamlu’s elegies mostly leave the context far behind and rises into higher layers of language. This expands the horizons of the possibility of different interpretations on Shamlu’s elegies.
In addition to that, Nezar’s elegies include a mild music as well as terms with soft and influential phonemes which adds to the attractiveness and sweetness of the elegies he has written in memory of the late persons. However, in Shamlu’s elegies, sometimes the words lose control and the poem takes the form of a satire against the oppressors and murderers. In other words, Nezar Ghabani’s elegies are compounds of sorrow, regret, whereas Shamlu’s elegies are compounds of fury and sorrow.