Nima Yushij
Founder of modern Persian poetry ('she'r-e now'), who transformed the millennium-old conventions of Persian verse (1897–1960).
Read in context →At a glance
- Field
- poetry (founder of modern verse)
- Pioneering work
- the poem 'Afsaneh' (c. 1922)
- Innovation
- freeing the line from traditional meter
- Birthplace
- the village of Yush, Mazandaran
Biography
Nima Yushij, born Ali Esfandiari (1897–1960) in the village of Yush in Mazandaran, is regarded as the founder of modern Persian poetry. With his long poem 'Afsaneh' (c. 1922) and the more mature work that followed, he broke with the equal-length hemistichs and the traditional order of Persian meter and rhyme, making line length follow meaning and poetic image. This transformation opened the way for a generation of modernist poets — from Ahmad Shamlou and Forough Farrokhzad to Akhavan-Sales and Sohrab Sepehri. His language is often naturalistic and steeped in the rural atmosphere of northern Iran, and in poems such as 'The Phoenix' (Ghoghnus) and 'Moonlight' (Mahtab) he created a new symbolism. The contested point is that Nimaic verse met fierce resistance from traditionalists in its time, who saw it as breaking the music and heritage of Persian poetry, while modernists viewed it as a necessary liberation of poetry — a debate still echoed in literary criticism.
Related entities
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Nimā Yušij"
- Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, Recasting Persian Poetry (1995)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Nima Yushij"