Recite in the Name of the Red Rose: Poetic Sacred Making in Twentieth-Century Iran

fatemeh keshavarz

Recite in the Name of the Red Rose introduces Western readers to constructions of the sacred in twentieth-century Iranian poetry. Sifting through the lives and writings of modern and classical poets, Fatemeh Keshavarz provides a systematic examination of the array of religious impulses in recent Persian verse. Viewing poetry as the site of the emergence of the self and the sacred, she confirms that sanctification is not static in its forms but continuously in flux and that the poetic modes used to articulate the sanctified are equally fluid.

Keshevarz begins by introducing the core concepts that define and detach religion and secularity in contemporary Iranian society. By thoroughly discussing the nature of classical Persian poetry she makes clear that expressions of the sacred in verse have been open to negotiation and change even in the premodern period. However, in Iran's modern poetic landscape Keshavarz uncovers many new patterns of expressing the sacred. In individual chapters on the writings of Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967), Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1981), and Ahmad Shamlu (1925-2000), she discusses the paradigmatic ways prominent poets of the twentieth century have related to the sacred in a nation forging its vision of modernity.

While most scholars perceive current Iranian culture to be sharply divided between literalist conservatives and secular progressives, Keshavarz identifies provocative shades of spiritual expression less rigidly defined and hence neglected by the established critical tradition. Bringing such expression to the fore of scholarly attention, her study invites a more nuanced appreciation of the crosscurrents of religion and literature in recent Middle Eastern culture.

Genres iran

193 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1,2006

Series

Studies in Comparative Religion

This edition

Format: 193 pages, Hardcover
Published: April 28, 2006 by University of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570036224
ASIN: 1570036225
Language: English

About the author

fatemeh keshavarz

Fatemeh Keshavarz is an Iranian scholar, poet, and academic specializing in Persian studies and the works of Rumi. Since 2012, she has been the Roshan Chair of Persian Studies and Director of the Roshan Institute for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland. Previously, she taught for two decades at Washington University in St. Louis, where she chaired the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures.
Born and raised in Shiraz, Iran, Keshavarz earned her B.A. from Shiraz University before completing her M.A. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies at the University of London. Her scholarship includes works such as Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi (1998), Recite in the Name of the Red Rose (2006), and Jasmine and Stars: Reading More than Lolita in Tehran (2007), which critiques Western portrayals of Iranian society. She has also written poetry in both Persian and English.
A vocal advocate for peace and cultural education, Keshavarz received the Hershel Walker 'Peace and Justice' Award in 2008 and spoke at the United Nations General Assembly on the role of cultural education in world peace. That same year, she was featured in the Peabody Award-winning NPR program Speaking of Faith: The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi.