Maryam Hosseini: Seyed-Hosseini's Book Is the Cornerstone of Literary Schools in Iran

Maryam Hosseini, a researcher in literary criticism and textual studies, called Reza Seyed-Hosseini's book 'Literary Schools' the 'cornerstone of literary schools in Iran,' saying: 'No researcher in this field can produce a valuable work without studying it.' Praising Seyed-Hosseini's skill as a translator and his translations of Malraux, Sartre, Camus and Balzac, she identified two gaps in the book: the absence of modernism and postmodernism, and the imbalance in the length of its chapters.

Iran's Ambassador of Arjan's Literature Service (Arjan's Ambassador) - Marzieh Gardjan Maravi: 22nd Mehr 1405, one hundred years since the birth of Reza Seyed Hosseini (22 Mehr 1305 - 11 May 1388); Author, translator and one of the names of clear and precise prose in Persian translation. He was born in Ardabil, he didn't say a word of Persian before primary school and he read the first books with crazy enthusiasm; As he transcribed Kalila and Demeneh for himself because it was expensive. At the age of fifteen, he got access to foreign and Turkish magazines and started translating at the age of sixteen.

Later, he studied in Paris and Southern California and studied language and literature more deeply with professors such as Parviz Natal Khanleri and Pejman Bakhtiari. His translation of "Triumph of Thought" was reprinted dozens of times, and the supervision and translation of a large part of the six-volume "Culture of Works" together with Ismail Saadat, Ahmad Samii and Abolhasan Najafi is a lasting document of his efforts. But his name is most associated with one book: "Literary schools". He published it in 1334 and continuously made it more complete for forty-two years until the thirteenth edition was published in one thousand seven hundred pages. This book introduced several generations of students to the literary schools of the world and is still a main reference in Iranian universities.

To check the status of this work today, I went to Maryam Hosseini; Retired professor of Persian literature at Al-Zahra University, permanent member of Persian Language and Literature Academy and author of the book "World's Literary Schools" which received the Parvin Etisami Award in 2016. His presence has two advantages: the perspective of a generation that studied "literary schools" at its peak, and the perspective of a teacher who can measure the distance between this text and the needs of today's students. In the same way, he has dozens of books and more than a hundred articles and honors such as the country's educational leader (1400) and Alborz award (1401). A conversation with him goes beyond praising a book and answers why this work is still alive after seven decades.

The book "Literary Schools" was first published in 1334 and today its twentieth edition, in two volumes, is available to readers. In your opinion, what in this work made it remain both a teaching resource and a public reference for nearly seventy years? Is this permanence the product of the "firstness" of the book, or the quality of the text itself?

At the time when professor Seyed Hosseini started to publish various parts of this book, the concept of literary school had not yet emerged in the country's literary atmosphere, and attention to the world's literary schools and styles had been paid very little attention before him. Of course, there were also a few people who worked simultaneously with him and alongside him in the field of acquaintance with literary schools, for example, Hassan Artanari, who published the book "From Romanticism to Surrealism" in 1336, and of course, most of the Iranian researchers who wrote about schools at that time came from French literature; Every note that was published and every book and article that was published about the schools was influenced by French literature and its authors, and it was natural because the origin of many new literary schools was French literature; And it was obvious that Professor Seyed Hosseini, who himself had a complete command of the French language, would understand this and translate some of these works and write about their style and characteristics.

The introduction written by Professor Seyed Hosseini to the book - that is, the very beginning of the book - about the cultural situation of Europe in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and the formation of new literature, is one of the topics of the book; Also, his attention to the baroque school before classicism, as well as the examples of works that he brings from this school and other schools in his works, has added to the value of his book. We do not have a researcher in the field of literary schools who has studied all the literary schools like Professor Seyed Hosseini, and has translated many of the literary works of that school into Persian. Most of the translations in the book are his own, most of them translated from French, and sometimes there are examples from English and Turkish.

When professors discuss the baroque school, in addition to looking for its characteristics in the literature of their era, they discuss its formation in the visual arts in the readable introduction they write. They notice the visual arts and mention Bernini, the Italian Renaissance artist, and consider the spiral shape seen in the works of visual arts, in the columns of churches and ancient buildings of the Renaissance period, as a sign of the characteristics of Baroque art. And in the sequel, they use the same symbols to explain the literary characteristics of Baroque. I think that part is one of the most important articles about the baroque school.

Many of the examples that the professor chooses from the poetry of Nicola Bovalo are among the first texts that were translated from the books of the poetry. The teacher's attention to some of these works made the translators who were translating from French to consider these works and realize their importance in the French literary school and culture.

Seyyed Hosseini wrote this book to familiarize himself with isms, but the work actually turned into a history of western literature; From baroque and classicism, romanticism, realism and naturalism in the first volume, to symbolism, expressionism, cubism, dadaism, surrealism, existentialism, new theater and the metamorphosis of the novel in the second volume. Is this development the strength of the book or is it a sign of the lack of a documented methodological plan?

Today, when we discuss literary schools, we usually start with classicism, because it was formed exactly at the beginning of the Renaissance and is considered the first new literary school in the world. And you know that the school of classicism is a French school and its origin is also in France. Therefore, how did the professor notice these schools, it is natural that when they translate the works of many French authors, they also pay attention to the literary school to which those works belonged; And these notes that have been formed under the school of classicism, in fact, are all the result of his extensive study in the culture of classicism. The discussion about the Renaissance in France, French humanism, and the many examples they have mentioned, all of these have contributed to the richness of the classicism section of his book.

Today, when we enumerate the principles and rules of the classical school, we again notice the book of Seyyed Hosseini and learn from it; The characteristics of this school have been repeated many times in different books of literary schools after him. Of course, many of these materials that appear in different parts of the book are the product of translation that Professor Seyyed Hosseini has translated from encyclopedias and books of literary schools. However, choosing them to be included in the book of literary schools was his own work.

However, regarding the school of classicism, the professor does not limit himself to the works of French poets and writers and also addresses the presence of that school in German literature. They also talk about Lessing, enter neoclassicism and discuss it in different countries - especially the literary works of England.

Regarding you asking why the contents are scattered in the book, the professor himself mentioned this issue in the introduction he wrote on the book in 1371. In fact, their goal has been to answer any question about literary schools, and therefore, they also addressed the side streams and paid attention to some entries that may not be a very important issue. They realized that these materials should actually be included in a book titled "Culture of Literary Schools"; Therefore, on page 13 of the book's introduction, they have made a proposal on this topic and write that they hope to write an independent volume as "Culture of Schools and Literary Movements", but in the meantime, they introduced many of these sub-titles in this same book.

When professors talk about romanticism, naturally, the works of poets of three countries have had the greatest impact on the formation of this school in Europe, which are French, English, and German romantics. One of the notable cases in this book is the comparison between the school of classicism and the school of romanticism, which is continued and parts of it are quoted in all books related to literary schools. Also, many authors of books of literary schools, after Professor Seyed Hosseini, have benefited from the parts of his book about the era of pre-romanticism and the era of romanticism itself.

Masoud Jafari was also in the writing of the book "Romanticism in Europe", he noticed the book of Master Seyyed Hosseini and benefited from the contents of this book.

You yourself have worked in the field of literary criticism and textual research; If we want to criticize "literary schools" from the point of view of method, what is its most important strength and most important structural weakness? For example, to what extent does the French-centered division and the historical order of the schools give a comprehensive picture of the world's literary schools, and where does this picture remain incomplete?

What makes us notice a kind of inconsistency in terms of size or shape when comparing the chapters is the result of the special attention that the professor had to include everything that was discussed about the schools of romanticism or classicism in the book and to include all the information provided from different sources. Today, every researcher in the field of literary schools can make more logical choices among the different chapters of this book to prepare a book; Because the main materials of this work have been provided by Professor Seyed Hosseini and it can be compiled in a logical and appropriate order.

The next point is that after his book, more extensive research has been done in the West itself. When we now look at the books of the new schools of literature written in Western countries, we see that these works are much more extensive, detailed and complete than what existed in Western culture about 100 years ago. Naturally, the professor did his best to benefit from all the important sources of that time. If you start researching about literary schools today, you have other sources in your hand except the book of Professor Seyed Hosseini, which have been published in different languages ​​in recent years, and naturally, they have conducted more extensive studies on literary types and their schools, and the researcher's hand is open to write in this field.

One of the most readable parts of Professor Seyyed Hosseini's book are the examples that he translated from various works and included in the book. In my opinion, it is even possible to publish these sections separately under the title "A selection of translations by Professor Seyed Hosseini". For example, when they translate the introduction of "Cromwell" by Victor Hugo and put it in the book, they pay special attention to man, his desires and his utopia, which was present in the ideas of Victor Hugo and was manifested in "Cromwell". Paying attention to this book, i.e. "Cromwell" itself, is very important in my opinion, so that today we can understand how the master has touched the best examples of literary works in the world.

Another important feature of Master Seyed Hosseini's work is that when examining literary schools, they pay attention to the place of that school in other arts, especially painting. For example, when they start the discussion about the school of realism with "Human Comedy" by Balzac, we see that they mention the paintings of "Gustave Courbet" and the exhibition he set up; An exhibition that was the first realist exhibition in Paris. Some of these paintings, which are now kept in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, are excellent examples of the changing perspective of French artists in the 19th century.

Another outstanding feature of Professor Seyed Hosseini's book is that they examine schools from the point of view of the owners of that school, and this makes the work more valuable. For example, in the short section entitled "Flaubert and Realism" in the first volume, Flaubert's realism is discussed; The author who wrote "Madame Bovary" as the greatest book of realism or the "holy book of realism". In the following, he narrates critical views about this school and the relationship between novel writing and realism. It is very interesting how this poet and writer changed his direction from romanticism to realism.

Another discussion of the professor in the field of realism is the comparison of this school with romanticism; As before, they compared romanticism with classicism and listed the characteristics of these two schools. Also, the discussion about realism in other countries also continues, and after examining French realism, the professor deals with English, German, and American realism.

Russian realism, naturally, should be discussed in more detail; Both critical realism and socialist realism. For this reason, this issue is considered in more detail. They quote a sentence from Pushkin according to which all Russian literature should be studied from a realist point of view and point out that Russian realism is something different from French realism. Therefore, in the discussion about Russia, the professor is fully aware of the difference between Russian realism and critical and socialist realism prevalent in Russian literature at that time.

Another important point is that the professor not only points out in which countries realism has been most spread and popular, but also points out in which countries it has not been noticed. In this context, they mention Italy and say that in Italian literature, in a period when famous writers such as Dickens wrote works in England and writers in France, we do not find such examples in Spanish and Italian literature.

After socialist realism, the master's attention to magical realism is also significant. They introduce magical realism with an article by Yusa and settle for a short story by Borges; It should be noted that the sources in those years were very limited and did not have much information about magical realism. After that, the professor stopped discussing magical realism; A school that later became very important and gained many followers in world literature. Obviously, with the publication of the book "One Hundred Years of Solitude" in 1967, magical realism opened its place in world literature; But this book was published ten years after the publication of Master Seyed Hosseini's book. And for this reason, in the books written after Master's work, García Márquez is paid attention to and a detailed chapter is opened about magical realism.

After realism, the school of naturalism is the most important school that receives the attention of the professor; which is also a French school. Emil Zola is the founder of this school, and naturally the professors also pay attention to Zola's works. In this book, after talking in detail about the intellectual, social and economic developments in France, he specifically discusses Zola. As we know, Zola himself takes the basis of the discussion of naturalism from physiology, geology, and the like, and for this reason, a chapter entitled "Naturalism and Science" is written. The master translates the most beautiful examples from Zola's works; Zola's most important works, i.e. both a chapter of Zola's experimental novel and the story "Asomvar", which in my opinion is one of Zola's most readable works. After that, they narrate the story of "Tepli" from Guy de Maupassant, and then "Nana", to show how the naturalistic novel pays attention to the issue of heredity.

Symbolism and surrealism, which are discussed by the master in the second volume, are the most important French schools whose representatives are introduced in this book; Like Charles Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé, today we know how much the School of Symbolism influenced Iranian literature and poetry and how important these discussions were in those days. After that, they enter the discussion of surrealism, and first they discuss surrealist art and give examples of surrealist works; They quote the works of Andre Breton, Philip Supou, and Alwar and extensively discuss these schools.

Existentialism school, because it was considered a French school through Jean-Paul Sartre, has been noted and mentioned in the master's book in the second volume. Of course, its volume is also small compared to other sectors; For example, in about thirty pages, the professor discusses existentialism along with examples of Camus's works, while this topic should have been studied in much more detail.

Besides these, other literary trends such as Cubism, Dadaism and Expressionism are also considered and mentioned. The last parts of the second volume are also about the "new theater", where we see the continuation of Brecht's works and examples of their works are also introduced and translated, and the book ends with the discussion of the "new novel" in the fiction literature of the world. It is obvious that the discussion about the new novel spread a lot after that. The most important features of the new novel are introduced with the works of Joyce and Virginia Woolf. In this book, the professor uses the works of French Alain Rabgrier and introduces Joyce, but does not pay attention to its continuation in the following years. This is natural, because many of those works were not yet published or researches about them were not yet extensive; And the teacher ends the text here, while the literary schools continued.

The book is almost completely focused on the western schools and there is no place for the literary trends of the East and Iran. Do you think this gap is more a product of the author's time limitations or is it due to his perspective and choice? If a supplementary work were to be written today, what parts should be added to it?

One of the parts that the professor did not have the opportunity to address is the school of modernism; As you know very well, the school of modernism is the most important event that happened in the literature of the countries at the beginning of the 20th century. Also, after that, postmodernism, which appeared in literature from 1960 onwards, both poetry and fiction, and many works were written based on this school. After that, other subtypes of schools have been formed, which are naturally not included in the collection of works of Master Seyyed Hosseini.

Today, we should not expect the Iranian researcher of the 1930s to introduce all the Western and Eastern schools in one book and to include the literary schools of Iran in that book. At all, the new literature of Iran had not been formed yet to be able to criticize its schools and styles. Every book should be placed in its time and then its importance should be discussed. Today, using artificial intelligence, you can learn about the most difficult scientific topics in Persian language in a second. At that time, a translator like Seyed Hosseini had to first know the important books of each literary period, and then find the book, which was one of the most difficult tasks, and then translate it. The next stage of translation was research on it. This process took years for a translator and researcher. Something you can do with today's sites in less than a few hours.

Above all, Seyed Hosseini was a master translator; With works by Malraux, Sartre, Camus, Gorky and Balzac and translated from French, Turkish and English. What effect did this translation experience have on the language, tone and narration of the book? And in general, how much is the teaching of literary schools in our universities today indebted to this text and how much does it need newer sources and new approaches of criticism?

It is obvious that a translator like Seyed Hosseini has been able to show his scientific mastery in this book, both in terms of content and language and expression. Undoubtedly, every researcher in the field of literary schools cannot present a valuable work without studying this book, but this claim does not close the way for extensive research on this topic. Seyyed Hosseini's Hajar Zawiya book is the cornerstone of schools in Iran, but the sky of knowledge is wide and every day we are faced with new creations of world literature and we are waiting for the formation of new schools and styles.

In the end, I must say that Master Seyyed Hosseini's book not only has the right of precedence over the books of literary schools that have been written so far, but also in the extensive chapters that I have presented to you, he was very careful in quoting sources and translating them, and he seems to have stolen the lead from others. It should also be acknowledged that the content of the chapters is not in balance with each other. But none of these reduce the value and importance of Reza Seyyed Hosseini's literary schools book. All researchers of French literature and literary schools must study it. We appreciate the professor's efforts to familiarize the Iranian literary community with world literature and honor his memory.

The book "From the Beginning to the End of Babylon Civilization" is a narrative of a historical journey; From the birth of Babylon by the Euphrates to the reign of kings such as Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar II, from the bloody battles with Elam and Assyria to its sudden conquest by Cyrus the Great.

In the second episode of the "Inja Plus" podcast, we talked about one of the best-selling books these days. A novel by Zoya Pirzad called "People of Magnolia" that this author finally published a new book after 22 years. Mohammadreza Shafiei Kodkani's birthday and Rooz Hafez and other events and books were the subject of discussion in this episode of the podcast.

Amirhassan Mousavi, a researcher of the history of science, analyzed the various aspects of this conflict and criticized the reductionist formulations by examining the historical and philosophical roots of the challenge between modern medicine and traditional medicine at the scientific meeting of the Research Center for the History of Science of Tehran University.

Hadi Khaniki, professor of communication in this meeting, considered media ethics as a part of the network of relations between journalist and citizen, sender and receiver of message and power and society and listed individual responsibility as one of the requirements of social ethics.

Maryam Hosseini, a researcher of literary criticism and textual studies, called the book "Literary Schools" by Reza Seyed Hosseini "the cornerstone of literary schools in Iran" and said: "Any researcher in this field cannot present a valuable work without studying it." Praising Seyyed Hosseini's mastery as a translator and his translations of Malraux, Sartre, Camus and Balzac, he considered the two gaps in the book to be the lack of modernism and postmodernism and the imbalance of the chapters.