Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, poems based on ‘social criticism’ in Persian literature made the idea of freedom more widespread among the public. These poems, which show the important political and social events of the period they were written in, with a satirical and humorous content, encouraged the Iranian people to think and make self-criticism while making them laugh. After the constitutional reform in Iran between 1905-1907, one of the most important satirical poets of the period, Sayyed Ashraf-al-Din Hosseini Gilani, a.k.a. Nasīm-e Šemāl wanted to inform the Iranian people about the realities of the constitutional monarchy, disruptions of this new regime and social life through the newspaper with a humorous and critical content that he established under this name. Ashraf-al-Din who is one of the representatives of the ‘new poetry’ has written his poems in the genre of ‘musammat’ in a simple style that can be understood by the people using street and market language and by publishing these poems in his newspaper, he reached out to large masses, mostly to people from the lower levels of society, and received great attention from these people. The poet never gave up this task he had adopted despite all the difficulties he experienced throughout his life and continued to say poetry in this context no matter where, under any circumstances. In this study, by being mentioned Nasīm-e Šemāl's life and literary style, his poems written in this context will be exemplified.