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1Имагология и компаративистика. 2024. № 21. С. 142—157 Imagology and Comparative Studies. 2024. 21. pp. 142—157
Original article
UDC 82.091+821.111(73) +821.222.1 doi: 10.17223/24099554/21/7
Poetry of epiphany: A comparative analysis of James Wright's and Sohrab Sepehri's Poems
Kiana Vakili Robati
University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, [email protected]
Abstract. The poetry of James Wright, a modern figure in English literature is enriched with epiphanies and moments of deep realization within nature. Similarly, Sohrab Sepehri is an eminent figure of Persian literature that takes inspiration directly from nature and reflects epiphanic and sublime moments in this visitation. This article aims to first search for the mutual element of organic unity that is reflected in distinct ways in the epiphanic moments of the poems "Saint Judas", "A Blessing", and "The Journey" by James Wright and "Dang", "Surah of Watching", and "I am a Muslim" by Sohrab Sepehri. Then, by viewing the modernist elements of James Wright's poetry this article defines Wright's epiphanies as modern and Sohrab Sepehri's as Romantic using the six criteria defined by Morris Beja and Robert Langbaum's theories of modernist epiphanies. This article aims to depict epiphany as a powerful element in both English and Persian poetry that unveils a great deal about nature. The epiphanic modes of both poets are further viewed as to how both poetries transfer the feeling of sublime, epiphany, and organic unity through different eras and zeitgeists by implementing distinct imageries.
Keywords: religion, nature, organic unity, Romanticism, modernism
For citation: Vakili Robati, K. (2024) Poetry of epiphany: A comparative analysis of James Wright's and Sohrab Sepehri's poems. Imagologiya i komparativistika — Imagology and Comparative Studies. 21. pp. 142—157. (In Russian). doi: 10.17223/24099554/21/7
© K. Vakili Robati, 2024
Компаративистика / Comparative Studies
Научная статья
doi: 10.17223/24099554/21/7
Поэтика епифании: сравнительный анализ поэзии Джеймса Райта и Сохраба Сепехри_
Киана Вакши Робати
Университет Окленда, Окленд, Новая Зеландия, [email protected]
Аннотация. Поэзия Джеймса Райта, модернистской фигуры в английской литературе, богата епифаниями и моментами глубокого осознания природы. Точно так же Сохраб Сепехри — выдающийся деятель персидской литературы - черпает вдохновение непосредственно из природы и отражает епифанические и возвышенные моменты этого погружения. Цель данной статьи — поиск общего элемента органического единства, который по-разному отражается в епифанических моментах стихотворений «Святой Иуда», «Благословение» и «Путешествие» Джеймса Райта и «Дэнг», «Сура наблюдения» и «Я мусульманин» Сохраба Сепехри. Затем, рассматривая модернистские элементы поэзии Джеймса Райта, статья определяет епифании Райта как современные, а Сохраба Сепехри - как романтические, используя шесть критериев, определенных Моррисом Бежа и теориями модернистских прозрений Роберта Лангбаума. В данной статье епифания показана как действенный элемент как в английской, так и в персидской поэзии, раскрывающий многое в природе. В епифанических модусах обоих поэтов далее рассматривается то, как обе поэзии передают чувство возвышенного, прозрения и органического единства через разные эпохи и дух времени, реализуя различные образы.
Ключевые слова: религия, природа, органическое единство, романтизм, модернизм
Для цитирования: Vakili Robati K. Poetry of epiphany: A comparative analysis of James Wright's and Sohrab Sepehri's poems // Имагология и компаративистика. 2024. № 21. С. 142-157. doi: 10.17223/24099554/21/7
Introduction
Epiphany is a literary phenomenon, the birth of which is often associated with modernist novels and short stories. This concept is often referred to as visions, insights, and realizations that suddenly come to characters
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of a fictional work after a particular experience. This awareness is a crucial moment of fiction, making those novels and short stories that reveal an epiphany towards the end of the work significant, and frequently included in the canon as fine works of literature. Although often associated with novels, this sudden surge of consciousness is not unique to modernist fictional works and can be seen in earlier eras, in a more religious context, not only within prose but in poetry as well.
The term epiphany carries a religious connotation in its etymology itself. The word "epiphany" is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as the "festival commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles" [1. P. 268]. The concept in this light is a celebration of the appearance of some divine or superhuman being in the material world. Additionally, The Encyclopedia of Religion defines epiphany as the Christian feast of the manifestation of Jesus Christ [2. P. 132—133]. For Western Christians, the feast is called "Epiphania" (or manifestation), while for Eastern Christians it is known as "fora" (or manifestation of God). Over time, the epiphany holy day has evolved into a celebration of the Feast of the Three Miracles, comprising the visit of the "Magi", the baptism of Christ, and the miracle of transforming water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana.
It was James Joyce (1882-1941) who re-introduced the term epiphany into the modern vernacular using it to describe the sudden and profound insights of Stephen Dedalus - the central character of his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). Joyce believed that artists used their insight into the events of daily life, by transmuting them into a celebration of humanity [3. P. 71]. What was distinctive about Joyce's contribution to the evolution of the term epiphany was the secular meaning he gave to it, a meaning that was more closely oriented to the Greek and pagan definitions of the term.
What is now referred to as epiphany is a contribution of James Joyce and modernism by extension to English literature. Nevertheless, it remains clear that what later developed into a more secular term was originally a religious notion that was not seen as a literary moment. The spontaneous revelations in the poetry of the Romantic era, the pioneer of which was the great Romantic poet William Wordsworth himself. He, however, used this moment without coining it as "epiphany" as the moment that imagination struck the poet, what they referred to as the feeling of sublime. The early traces of what Joyce would later secularize further and reintroduce as
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epiphanies are first seen in literature as the moments one realizes the "sublime" and the creative, spontaneous role of the poet as is defined in the
Romantic era as the philosophical justification of the importance of the role of the poet and poetry in general. These surges, later on, take on a more secular role in modernist novels and poetry with the master of epiphanies in fiction and poetry after the contribution of James Joyce in the nineteenth century and his reintroduction of the term.
To observe the functioning of epiphanies in modern poetry, this article explores the epiphanies seen in the poetry of the famous American poet of the postmodern era, James Arlington Wright (1927—1980). James Wright was born a century later than James Joyce in Ohio to working-class parents. Having had a father who worked in a glass factory, poverty and suffering became a great concern of Wright, appearing constantly as the themes of his poems. The shift of Wright's earlier poetry from a metrical systematic verse to a later freer style of speech is what is often noted in scholarly scru-tinization of his poetry. In Wright's poetry, an abrupt transformation is seen between the two sequential books Saint Judas (1959) and The Branch Will Not Break (1963). From 1963 onwards, Wright experiments with a less rigid language in his poetry and does not conform to the metrics rules that he was previously great in.
Furthermore, it is worth noting that this alteration is seen by some critics as not purely a change of composition but a collection that is altogether "much less certain," with poems that now doubt "their ability to say exactly what they mean... bringing into themselves a meaning of what they have failed to say" [4. P. 165]. This self-consciousness concerning Wright's poetry is significant in that the modern rejection of one evident truth is denied, casting a shadow on the belief in certainty, truth, and signification.
Another shift that scholars point out as an alteration between these two approaches to poetry is the subject matter that was always about real life and ordinary people who faced suffering, pain, and death. In his most recent work, however, there seems to be an imaginary realm altogether that shatters the boundaries of the human and non-human that existed in his earlier works of poetry. Scholars traced in works after Saint Judas "a symbolic world or a self-contained poetic universe" that heavily contrasted with the subject matter of his poetry that only stuck to a "reality composed of men and women... usually located in the American Midwest, Ohio, and Minnesota where Wright [had] spent a considerable amount of time" [5. P. 128].
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The cautious poet of Saint Judas, who did not talk in his poetry about anything but the already familiar, suddenly began creating an imaginative realm of creation in which the human and the non-human could interact.
Different articles and papers also hint at the shift in tone in James Wright's poetry. They describe a tonal transformation in his poetry from Saint Judas to The Branch Will Not Break that they refer to as "an intensification of vision... [that is] prophetic" compared to the once "conversational and quief'tone of his early poetry [5. P. 130]. It appears that a great deal changed in the poetry of James Wright over a period shorter than a decade. His tone shifts, his subject matter is now imaginary, and he was now experimenting with a freer speech that defied the metrical rigidities of poetry.
Another poet that is famous for the sudden shift of subject matter in his poetry is the Iranian poet Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980). Sepehri was born in Kashan on October 7, 1928; a very talented artist and a gifted poet, Sepehri shot to stardom with the publication of The Water's Footfall ( ls'-4"» mí lS^) which was subsequently followed by The Traveler (^Lul) and The Green Volume A pioneering poet, he utilized western forms
and deconstructed the normal way of poetry. His use of new forms in poetry makes him complicated to understand. Yet, readers find themselves so attached to him and his poetry that there remains no room for boredom. Readers are so immersed in his poetry that they sometimes forget the world of realities and experience a fresh recognition of man and the whole universe.
These images that we now have of James Wright as a creator of a new imaginary universe and Sohrab Sepehri as a mystic have undergone significant changes compared to the earlier versions of their poetry. Literary researchers point out the fact that Sepehri, like Wright who would stick to the familiar and the tangible in his early poetry, would constantly question any belief in the transcendental or religion. He would tease his teenage years and refer to them as "religious jokes" solely based on blind imitations of the rigid rituals of his seniors [6. P. 216]. Sepehri in his early adulthood was reluctant to accept any religious ideas and this is directly reflected in his first two books published in his early adulthood.
Scholars point to a non-religious theme in the collections The Death of Color (^j ^j") and The Life of the Sleepers (^m^ u^j) a lack of a positive outlook on life. This is reflected in Sepehri's escape to absurdism, skepticism, and overall disappointment in the universe and its signification
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[6. P. 216]. As scholars note, however, his poetry later opened room for a return of the belief in transcendence. His two collections The Downpour of Sunshine jlji) and The East of Sorrow (»j^l ijj") suggest we respect the religious beliefs of others even though he and his reader do not particularly agree with them showing "sophist tendencies substituting his earlier biased and judgmental outlooks on religion, opening up space for the return of religion in his poetry" [6. P. 218]. This acceptance of faith later turns into the mysticism that we now associate with Sohrab Sepehri. In his later work, Water's Footfall, for instance, scholars note that "he reaches his final approach to life which is not based on a verbal or religious imitation, but rather a poetic intuition towards tradition and the understanding of his society... usfing] beautiful religious and mystical images to paint the picture of his new belief' [6. P. 224]. This negation of the transcendental now becomes a source of inspiration for Sepehri, just like Wright's poetry in which the boundaries would be shattered and an imaginary universe would be allowed in which a belief of anything beyond human would be explored.
Needless to say, the later versions of Wright and Sepehri as poets are what we now regard them with. In their later poetry, realism becomes less fixed and nature becomes significant in that it is not only there as an object, but also it points to the poet himself and teaches him about himself and life, even though there is a religious return in Sepehri's poetry that Wright lacks in his later poetry. The specific example of a rose in the case of Sepehri or a spider in the case of Wright would now become a source of signification for much deeper meanings - the source of which could be God for Sepehri and the higher self of the poet for Wright unlike their resistance in their earlier poetry to accept revelations and transcendental meanings.
Although the transformation of Wright and Sepehri resembles an epi-phanic moment in their poetries, the role of epiphany in their poetry has rarely been observed. Focusing more on the shifts and transformation of the viewpoint of these two writers concerning religion, modernism, and Romanticism, there is seldom exploration of moments of epiphany in their poetries and even less as to comparisons among the quite similar poets that both experiment with nature and bring clear, beautiful, and meaningful imageries in novel ways for the reader. This article aims to better comprehend the transformation of these two writers in their poetries in light of the moments of epiphany that are so well captured in their later works. This comparison is significant in that not only would the poets' worldviews and
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poetries be understood in a better light, but also in that the way epiphanies function in different languages and works of literature would be a contribution to world literature as it examines the similarities and the distinction of epiphanies and their reflections in the poetry of the two prominent poets in English and Persian literature - James Wright and Sohrab Sepehri.
Discussion
To compare the epiphanic moments of the poetry of James Wright and Sohrab Sepehri, this article utilizes the American comparative approach in which a thematic analysis would be considered concerning the resemblances and alterations in the manner that the epiphanies are included. According to one of the most significant books written on comparative literature, Introducing Comparative Literature (2014), thematization is the core framework of the American comparative method that can be carried out through close reading.
Since meaning is created by the author and reader in a work of literature, a literary theorist can use thematization to detect "patterns of association or exclusion that give the themes of a work their active role in generating new meanings" [7. P. 77]. As a framework that allows scholars explore freely and yet keep certain guidelines to justify the similarities and distinctions in meanings among languages, cultures, and society, the American school of comparative literature is suitable for this article in its thematic observations. The comparative analysis is carried out to compare "one literature with another or others... [and] with other spheres of human expression" [7. P. 3] as Henry Remak, a forerunner of the American school of Comparative Literature, writes.
This American method is chosen in this article because of its dedication to topics that observe not the formal structures of the poems, but themes and recurring moments and elements within works that would link and distinguish works of literature. The American method is utilized in this article by closely reading the themes and concurrent elements within the poems of James Wright and Sohrab Sepehri. The article does so by scrutinizing the poets' relationships with nature, the subject matters of their poems, and their precise moments of epiphanies.
The book Patterns of Epiphany in Poetry (1997) describes the function of epiphanies in poetry, their origins, and their meanings. This book defines
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epiphanies as "puzzling but privileged moments, sudden gifts of vision, when one's feeling of aliveness intensifies and the senses quicken" [8. P. 1].
This vision has been often heavily associated with poets due to their power of imagination. The Romantic era revolves around the philosophy that the poet is the one who can capture the moment of sublime (what we now call epiphany) in the voice of a poem. This concept has been named differently but used more or less in the same manner since Romanticism: "Wordsworth called these ultimate moments 'spots of time'; James Joyce dubbed them 'epiphanies,' and Joyce's term has been widely adopted among English speakers" [8. P. 1]. It is hard to imagine a way to label epiphanies that are all unique to each poet and try to group them into different categories. However, certain elements can be taken into consideration that could make the comparison between epiphanies of different poems easier.
Scholars often categorize epiphanies into three distinctive groups: Wordsworthian, Arnoldian, and Coleridgean epiphanies. While Words-worthian epiphanies are often "radiant... [and] dramatic... consciously 'apocalyptic' or world transforming" [8. P. 25], Arnoldian epiphanies try to bridge binary oppositions by combining them and making them interchangeable. These two approaches to depicting epiphanic moments, one very geometric and apocalyptic, and the other two-sided and dual with an emphasis on conflict and opposites, there is a third group that resembles and links the poetry of James Wright and Sohrab Sepehri - an epiphany which is none other than the Coleridgean epiphany.
This category of epiphany consists of the visions that bring a specific element within nature to a universal truth about humanity. The Coleridgean epiphany consists of "an organic unity whose parts and functions reciprocally interact... [in which can be seen] faith in the vital harmoniousness of the imagination..." [8. P. 43]. The sense of connection and harmony is not necessarily transcendental, but it is rather a link between living elements that can share universal experiences as we see in the poetry of James Wright, or mystical as in the poetry of Sohrab Sepehri. Further, as Morris Beja in his book Epiphany in the Modern Novel describes the modern epiphany in opposition to the Romantic epiphany, the criteria of incongruity -that is the irrelevance of the topic to the object that triggers it - and the criteria of insignificance that focuses mainly on the triviality of that object matter greatly in modern epiphanic modes after James Joyce matter. This observation must take place in the comparison of these two epiphanies
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followed by the added four elements of Robert Langbaum (1924-2020) to Beja's theory: psychological association, momentousness, suddenness, and fragmentation (or the epiphanic leap) [3. P. 341] that further point to the modernist's distancing from religion and their fragmentary structures that are a formalist reflection of the modernist uncertainty. The elements of Wright's and Sepehri's poetry are further to be sought concerning how the epiphanies become Coleridgean, or in other words, how both of these works share a kind of epiphany that links nature to transcendence or universality, and of course, their dissimilarities.
James Wright was always observant about the nature around him. From his early poetry that was set in Ohio to his later more imaginative subjects, the elements of nature always ruled his poetry. Let us, for instance, take a look at an excerpt of the famous early poem of Wright, "Saint Judas" after which his meter, subjects, and beliefs transformed:
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten, Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope Aside, I ran, ignoring the uniforms: Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten, The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope, I held the man for nothing in my arms [9. P. 38].
The epiphanic moment here might not be positive or particularly set in nature and an encounter with nature. Aiming to kill himself, the poet here encounters a man that is beaten and forgets about himself to kill the victim with his rope to rid him of his pain. However, realizing the loneliness of that man and his own and understanding in a moment that they both have reasons to die and live for, the poet holds the victim in his arms after his epiphany, in an act that connects the bodies and metaphorically portrays the universality of human suffering. The moment that Wright reaches an epiphany, he brings it to a resolution by uniting to the pain of another and allowing that dark moment to link these two ordinary outcasts that are strikingly eccentric as the subjects of poetry to reveal a universal organic unity in humanity.
Although the organic unity has a darker theme compared to the subject and lessons of the Coleridgean epiphany, loneliness and humanity are still able to link people and connect them all to the world around them, causing the poet not to want to kill himself or the victim any longer. Another
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example can be seen in his later poetry in which nature returns to his poetry and he observes a spider which leads to his moment of epiphany. This excerpt is taken from his later poem "The Journey" (1963) after his famous transformation in style and content:
Many men
Have searched all over Tuscany and never found
What I found there, the heart of the light
Itself shelled and left, balancing
On filaments themselves falling. The secret
Of this journey is to let the wind
Blow its dust all over your body,
To let it go on blowing, to step lightly, lightly
Through your ruins, and not lose
Any sleep over the dead, who surely
Will bury their own, don't worry [9. P. 46-47].
Looking at the spider's web, which is arguably one of the smallest yet
most systematic systems of nature, James Wright understands more about the human condition as a poet unlike "many men" and reaches the epiphany that men should imitate nature and behave as the spider does. The epiphany is reached here when the light manner of the spider is observed that goes along with the flow. This becomes a modernist epiphany that "serves as a means of expressing the anxieties and fears of the age, or, otherwise, as a way of eluding or escaping in an often failed attempt to find meaning" [10. P. 75]. The metrics of Wright's poetry might point to a freer style and hint at a lack of signification or the ability to convey it. However, the belief in the harmoniousness of nature remains in the poetry as the poet finds a solution to the anxiety of the modernist era which is to stay flexible and in flow with the natural ebbs and flows of our lives that function like nature.
The final poem analyzed in this article would be "A Blessing" (1963) from his later collection The Branch Will Not Break. In this poem, the poet is riding to a forest only to find two beautiful ponies awaiting his company. In this instance, he thinks to himself how lonely they ought to be. Nevertheless, not long after he realizes that he is just as lonely as them and they are all connected in this experience when he says:
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom [9. P. 3].
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Vakili Robati K. Poetry of epiphany
Not only is he in awe of nature and the beauty of the ponies, but he is also now a part of that nature itself and linked organically to all of its elements in that moment of epiphany. His symbolism is also no longer dark in that a "blossom" is a symbol of possibilities and potentials that he has yet to uncover.
Even though the themes of Wright's earlier poetry often included pain,
sorrow, and poverty, or loneliness and separation of late, the moments are often connected via different elements within nature that are small and insignificant to a common person, but for the poet create a universe of meaning that strikes the poet in his epiphany of realizing this organic unity. The nature reflected in his poetry might be indifferent to humankind unlike the Romantic caring and kind nature of Sohrab Sepehri's poetry, but it is prominent and organically connected.
Sohrab Sepehri was also deeply moved by nature in his poetry, being the Child of Nature. Like James Wright, Sepehri regards great respect for nature and whatever is relevant to it. He looks at Nature and the creatures within it in the manner of a lover who sees no faults in his beloved. Believing that one has to plant the flower of love in his heart for the entire universe, he claims that love is everything. Sohrab Sepehri is famous for being wellversed in Buddhism, mysticism, and western traditions. He is known for his mingling of western concepts with eastern ones, thereby creating a kind of poetry unsurpassed in the history of Persian literature. Like James Wright, Sohrab Sepehri experimented with new forms to express his thoughts and feelings.
Similar to the later James Wright, the more recent Sohrab Sepehri combines the imaginary with the real and shatters the boundaries in a way that each time one reads his poetry, a bottomless ocean of meaning could be found in his poetry that shifts based on the new understanding of the reader. Both writers avoid making judgments like Shakespeare, and in their poetry, there is nothing good or bad, rather the perception itself that makes it so. In James Wright's poetry, the subjects become inhuman or so-called frowned-upon agents like prostitutes, lesbians, murderers, and drunks. Alternately, in the worldview of Sohrab Sepehri, beauty is no longer an abstract concept; it becomes a human one, creating and strengthening the people. Therefore, he invites us to wash our eyes and view the world differently. Sepehri left us with a miracle of words and meanings, and sudden transformation or understanding is always there to feel.
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From the earlier, darker poetries of Sohrab Sepehri that was more skeptical and gravitated towards absurdism, there is seen in this particular poem in Eight Books (м^ Слил.) called "Dang" the excerpt of which is as follows:
Dang..., dang...
Moments pass. What passes, never returns. There is a story that will never Be started again.
It is like an unanswerable question Is stuck to the cold lip of time.
I get up quickly.
To hang, on the wall of this moment In which everything has the color of joy, Something that will remain [11. P. 37—39].
Jji^J-a U
jb .111 fjjel tdbjib&j 4A. j&J^ J^J* t" 1 nifr ^UjuaS jlc.1 ¿ui ¿¿Ij2j.
gculij^ (JJJJJJ dlult jLa
CLlMll ft^jjiLa J^JJI t-ji JJ.
fj^is-J
jia. ¿¡1 jb jxai jljp 4j Ij
f jijl ^ ^J' i^U. ¿¡¡I iiLa ^
In this poem, Sepehri reaches an epiphany with the sound of the clock. It might not be necessarily positive or about nature, especially because this is written at a time that he was not yet a mystic. He is nonetheless realizing the fleeting of each moment and realizes that those particular moments are connected and if he smiles or touches his lover, those instants would be immortal in time while the rest, like his sorrows and disappointments, would be meaningless and unconnected.
As his theory develops and he becomes a mystic, this epiphany is often associated with nature and seen when no one else but him can see, just like the spider that only Wright could associate with a deeper meaning about nature. This excerpt is from his famous poem "Surah of Watching" ( »jj^ liLu ) which is a good example of this theme:
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Vakili Robati K. Poetry of epiphany
We were under a willow.
I picked a leaf from the branch above my head and said:
Open your eyes, do you want a better sign? [12. P. 17—18].
IiS^H Jij
^jjui ¿^yL Aa.L!U JI^^JJ;
FjyAlji ^ ¿¡jl Jl <Ajj£ Jb lj ^Ja.
Here in this poem, the fallen leaves of a tree function as a triggering incident. However, it seems that only the speaker is open to such revelation or epiphany. The rest fail to realize the prophecy of this moment.
It is in this moment that the epiphany distinguishes the poet from the rest that sees the leaf and the rose as "natural facts [that] are useless" since they are now related to the poet's thoughts. A rose is just a rose until intellectually man has perceived that rose is also rose and devotion [13. P. 18]. In other words, we need poets and their moments of epiphany to remind the blind world of the beautiful and meaningful nature that surrounds them. Sepehri's worldview becomes in his later years "mystical and 'quantum-based' ... in which all beings animate or inanimate" are linked "beyond boundaries... with only an organic whole" [14. P. 205]. This Coleridgean belief in the connectedness of all living copula is seen in Sepehri's later poetry and is now deeply associating nature with signs pointing to transcendence.
In his poem, "I Am a Muslim" (piULu i>), Sepheri takes his philosophy one step further intermixing religion, mysticism, and nature unique to the point that the name of religious rituals and acts are intermingled with the name of the elements within nature. After saying "I am a Muslim <>)," he immediately says, "My qibla is a red rose. My prayer mattress a fountain, my seal of prayer, light (jjj ¡»j*"1 ¡»jUiU. .¿jaji JS <_5Li ¡»1^)" [15. P. 2]. It is not accidental that the moment he testifies to his religion in his poetry, he immediately undergoes an epiphany that combines all elements of his Islamic traditions with nature. He sees religion in a new light, meaningful and no longer a joke, religion becomes nature itself and the organic unity that he believes in brings humans, transcendence, and every single part of nature together, under one harmonious roof - the roof of the endless sky. Although Sepehri takes a step back towards religion and mysticism, his belief in the organic unity and the harmoniousness of nature is similar to Wright's belief in nature and the universality of every living being inside it. Coleridgean in nature, Sepehri's and Wright's epiphanies are closely
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associated with the natural world, and the poet's imagination according
to them can have visions of the organic unity that many lack.
The incongruity and the insignificance of the subject matter are re-fleeted in Wright's poetry when we see animal subjects or small spiders compared to Sepehri's feeling of sublime after his encounter with mountains, skies, and enormous forces within nature that produce an epiphany in his poetry. Although both poets point to an organic unity at hand in nature, Sepehri claims a harmonious imagery and structure in his poetry that Wright intentionally avoids in his later poetry to reflect the modernist anxieties. Further, nature is seen in the eyes of Sohrab Sepehri, the elements become mystical and religious. He prays in front of the mountain, intermingling religion with nature and transcendence, while Wright's epiphanies bring him back to himself and become psychological when he gets stuck in his spiderweb of thoughts and modernist fears.
The similarities in Wright's poetry are drawn between small elements of nature and the psychological problems of the modern man that he instantly learns the solution to from his objects. Wright's epiphanies become momentary and sudden while Sepehri's epiphanies are more observatory and based on a pause on the objects (elements of nature in his poetry) that trigger those realizations, making Sohrab Sepehri's epiphanies Romantic, and James Wright's modern. Moreover, the organic unity that both of them witness in their poetry and their subject matters of nature are the same despite their different Romantic and modernist approaches to it. The epiphanies in this sense are both Coleridgean, with Wright's modernist epiphanies, and Sohrab Sepehri's Romantic ones.
Conclusion
James Wright and Sohrab Sepehri demonstrate their skills in their powers of observation, imagery, and expression of feeling. In Sepehri's and Wright's poetry, epiphany or a sudden revelation of truth is inspired by
a seemingly trivial incident. Although these two poets might not see eye to eye in religious matters, both Sepehri as a mystic and Wright as an atheist believe in nature and in its power to shed light on the organic unity that the world revolves around according to them.
These moments are depicted in their poetries as moments of epiphany when a small insignificant subject matter would strike the eye as it differs
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compared to the habitual sight of the background. A particular element of nature that stands out becomes a source of signification, that allows the reader to learn things about different aspects of life and the nature of himself and every humankind in nature as well. In the case of the Modernist epiphanies of Wright, these epiphanies are triggered by incongruous and insignificant objects that cause sudden, momentous reactions that are reflected fragmentarily and in a more chaotic writing style. In the case of Sohrab Sepehri's poems, however, the objects in nature are sacred, they are sublime and often large elements within nature that trigger this feeling. They are often connected to religious and transcendental notions or give a sense of religiosity to the moment of the epiphany. The style is also harmonious and all elements are retrospectively observed over the course of the poem, unlike the fast psychological reactions of the modernist epiphanies.
Although Wright's epiphanies tend to be more modernist and Sepehri's more Romantic, organic unity is the one element that connects these two poets' epiphanies in their encounters with the shared subject matter of nature. These epiphanies remind the poets of the organic unity that brings nature, humankind, and the divine together even though for Wright the world is like a spider web that leads to the nature of humanity while for Sohrab Sepehri the simplified choice of a rose is seen as something so organically united that connects life, the poet, and the transcendental.
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Information about the author:
K. Vakili Robati, master, PhD candidate (Philology), University of Auckland (Auckland, New Zealand). E-mail: [email protected]
The author declares no conflicts of interests.
Информация об авторе:
Вакили Робати К. - магистр, кандидат PhD (Philology) Университета Окленда (Окленд, Новая Зеландия). E-mail: [email protected]
Автор заявляет об отсутствии конфликта интересов.
The article was accepted for publication 28.01.2024. Статья принята к публикации 28.01.2024.
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