Dialogue form in the structure of Nima Yushij’s poem “Maneli” (1947)

Nima Yushij’s oeuvre is a crucial prerequisite to the emergence of modern type poetry in the Persian language. Studying his work is relevant for an Iranian philologist who strives to develop a holistic model of the literary process in modern Iran. Many facts, related to the achievements of the poet-innovator, have not been introduced into the scientific circulation and still remain beyond the research gaze. The elimination of such lacunas turns out to be a challenge of paramount importance for the experts in modern Iranian poetry. This article is devoted to the functional analysis of the dialogue form in one of Nima Yushij’s famous poems named “Maneli” There are two characters (a sea maiden and a fisherman) who reflect on the conflict of material and spiritual principles in human life, and each of the characters acts as a personification of the opposing points of view. The artistic world of the poem is based on the 20th-century Iranian author’s reinterpretation of Urashima Taro’s ancient Japanese tale, which tells of the fateful meeting between a fisherman and a charming sea-dweller. The purpose of this study is aimed at identifying the poetic basis that determines the conceptual structure of the considered text and distinguishes it from previous Persian translations of the Japanese story. The analysis is carried out using the comparative-historical, structuralist and other literary methods. The analysis has revealed the predominance of lyrical features over narrative ones in the poem, which result from the author’s realization of the borrowed material in the patterns of the Persian classical genre of debate ( munazara ) and the exchange of monologues in the medieval Iranian love-romance epic. The form of dialogue in the poem “Maneli” is the main vector of its lyrical plot movement. The semantic organization is conveyed with the creative strategy of “free ‘aruz’ ”, developed by Nima Yushij as his own creative “know-how”. The ideological concept of ‘Maneli’ appears similar to the poet’s early work, the manifesto of “new poetry” in Iran (i.e. ‘Afsane’), and the artistic structure of the former demonstrates the evolution of their author’s creative manner.