Document Type : علمی- پژوهشی
Author
Departement of Persian litrature &language, Faculty of Humanities, Urmia Branch, Islamic Azad University, Urmia, Iran.
Abstract
The season of autumn and all of its elements and phenomenon is one of the vital subjects of nursery rhyme. In this article, the child poets approach and their inspiration in observing the visual attractions, natural and biological capabilities of autumn are pointed out; also the way of using the symbols and legends of autumn is discussed and explained. The results of the research show that some of the autumnal themed poetry that were created in the field of children’s poetry, were affective in creating an emotional-artistic connection; also at introducing the reader to the changes that are happening to the outside world with the arrival of the season. Based on the referred samples of the autumnal poems of nursery rhyme, can be broken down in four different approach categories: the classic, the cognitive, the pictorail and the general approach; and each one of these approaches have their own specific and special natures. The result of the ideology is the general and expressive style that the child poets are benefiting from it.
Highlights
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Seasons of the year and the changes that are associated with them in the geographical and social environments have been important issues throughout history and have had significant influences on the understanding of humans of their environments and natural phenomena. Hence, taking into account the climate and the dominant culture and beliefs of the people of each country, we can state that each season has acquired ritualistic, symbolic and mythological dimensions and has been associated with psychological and contractual meanings and concepts. These meanings and concepts have gradually found their way into art and literature and into literary works. From centuries ago, Persian poets have made use of seasons of the year as their subject matter in order to create new meanings, themes and symbols with different motivations and according to their attitudes and worldviews. This is not limited to a particular period of Persian poetry, as we can see autumnal poetry in nearly all the periods, whether classic or contemporary. Many examples can be found in the works of Persian poetry in which the mythological, natural and symbolic potentials of each season are employed with the aim of artistic expression according to the style of each poet.
Review of Literature
In contemporary children’s and adolescents’ literature, seasons are the usual subject matter and poets in this field use them according to their different styles. As such, the potentials and the affordances of each season of the year, whether environmental, natural, mythological or folkloric, is widely reflected in children’s poetry. These poems have had various effects beyond the poetic and aesthetic values for children. One of these effects is providing a novel and effective context for a new knowledge and understanding of nature and the changes in the surroundings, which is deeper and more comprehensive than the kind of knowledge that children can acquire based on their own individual experiences and capacities. Poems which revolve around a season of the year will directly or indirectly present the landscapes and images of the nature and natural phenomena to their readers and through this, they not only show the changes related to each season, but also exhibit the effects of these seasonal changes on human life. Another effect of choosing seasons as the subject matter of poetry is the discovery of poetic potentials in these seasons which arise from their archetypal significances and their mythological and symbolic meanings in Iranian culture.
Discussion
The season of autumn has found its way into the works of a few writers of children’s and adolescents’ poetry as a contractual subject matter. In the eyes of these poets, autumn has always carried common and usual concepts and meanings. However, some poets, having their own special and atypical perspectives, have tried to look at autumn from fresh and different angels and embed messages and themes concomitant with their view in the different semantic, imagistic and figurative layers of their poems. This approach has helped poets to recreate, describe and picture new dimensions and themes about autumn, thus discovering new capacities and perspectives for this season and its elements. Studying the various and copious works that have been written by different poets in the field of children’s literature, one can claim that these poems, while having common characteristics, reveal differences that are the result of the particular style, attitude and method of these poets. These differences have created different approaches to autumn as a subject matter of poetry. In this study, these approaches are divided under the general categories of “imagistic approach”, “classic approach”, “imagistic-cognitive approach” and “general approach”. This categorization is suggested based on the works studied in this research; therefore, it should not be deemed a comprehensive and ultimate categorization because some of these approaches may overlap in some poems or may exist simultaneously in different poems, or may not be applied to all children’s poems.
In imagistic approach, the poets use imaginative and imagistic expression to artistically recreate a scene or landscape of autumn. The classical approach is the result of the influence of the historical view of the Iranians to autumn as well as the work of the previous poets who have used autumn as a tool in creating meaning, concepts and themes. The imagistic-cognitive approach is related to poems which have a cognitive or didactic purpose based on aesthetic and artistic values. The general approach is applied to those poems which, while having some distinctive characteristics, show many similarities in their content and subject matter; therefore, they cannot be conveniently divided into different categories.
Conclusion
Among works of poetry written for children on the subject of autumn, there are poems in which, intentionally or unintentionally, this season is described as the season of ugliness, despair, passivity and isolation. These poems, which are generally the result of the influence of the general and traditional perspective of Persian literature toward autumn, reflect the symbolic, mythological and folkloric narratives of the past as they present a structure and narration of the dominant views and beliefs in Persian literature in general. On the other hand, there are also works of poetry in which the writers have had a different perspective toward this season and have used autumn as a novel and rich subject matter. These poets have tried to expand the children’s views toward the changes that autumn brings to their surroundings and thus influence their mental and behavioral growth as well as their intellectual capacity. They have also been successful in creating a kind of kinship and emotional relation between the atmosphere and nature of autumn and the children’s world, thus helping the children to recognize autumn as a special and unique manifestation of nature and life and to understand it and to believe in its necessity.
Keywords: autumn, autumnal poetry, children, children’s poetry
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