Table Of ContentA Revolution in Rhyme
OXFORD ORIENTAL MONOGRAPHS
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Editorial Board
Professor Julia Bray, Laudian Professorial Fellow in Arabic
Dr Dominic Brookshaw, Associate Professor of Persian Literature
Professor Bjarke Frellesvig, Professor of Japanese Linguistics
Dr Elizabeth Frood, Associate Professor of Egyptology
Professor Henrietta Harrison, Professor of Modern Chinese Studies
Professor Christopher Minkowski, Boden Professor of Sanskrit
Professor Alison G. Salvesen, University Research Lecturer in Hebrew
Dr Robert Thomson, formerly Calouste Gulbenkian Professor
of Armenian Studies
A Revolution in Rhyme
Poetic Co-option under the
Islamic Republic
FATEMEH SHAMS
1
1
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© Fatemeh Shams 2021
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First Edition published in 2021
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To My Parents, and
Zahra
Acknowledgements
This book is an extensively revised version of the doctoral dissertation
that I defended in September 2015 at Wadham College, Oxford. I am most
grateful to my two veritable mentors, Homa Katouzian and Edmund
Herzig at Oxford University, under whose patient and thoughtful
supervision the seeds of this book were first planted. The many doors
they opened into new ideas, texts, and ways of thinking have shaped
who I am today.
At Oxford, I found a warm and intellectual home; so it seems fitting
that this book should also have found a home there, with the Oxford
University Press. I am immensely grateful to my doctoral viva examin-
ers, Laurent Mignon and Asghar Seyed-Gohrab for their insightful
comments on the final draft of my doctoral dissertation. My deepest
gratitude goes to Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami, who has read earlier
drafts of this book over the past two years, generously sharing his
insightful comments, and making time to talk it through with me at
times when completing it felt impossible.
The book is a culmination of the support and guidance of so many
friends and colleagues. In particular, the ground-breaking scholarship
and mentorship of three scholars, Dick Davis, Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak,
and Fatemeh Keshavarz, have shaped, influenced, and inspired me over
all these years. Countless hours of discussions with Ahmad helped me
to rework many parts of this book. I was also extremely fortunate that
two inspiring historians of modern Iran, Stephanie Cronin and Behrooz
Ghamari-Tabrizi, read earlier drafts of the book, providing sensitive
and sophisticated suggestions to improve my arguments. Kamran
Matin’s thoughtful suggestions helped me revise the final chapter of
this book.
Paul Losensky, from whom I have learned a great deal, kindly read parts
of the book during and after the Yarshater Junior Scholars Workshop,
held at the University of Maryland (May 2019) and provided constructive
viii Acknowledgements
feedback. I am particularly indebted to him for his masterful translations
of post-revolutionary elegies, produced on the occasion of Khomeini’s
death. His insightful work proved essential in shaping my core argument
throughout the book, especially in Chapter 6.
I have presented various parts of this book in different academic
workshops, organized by three brilliant scholars: Kathryn Babayan,
Fatemeh Keshavarz, and Nasrin Rahimiyeh. Thanks to these work-
shops, and the insightful feedback I received from the organizers and
participants, I could rethink and sharpen the book’s conceptual frame-
work and structure. My dear colleagues, Samad Alavi, Cameron Cross,
Mathew Thomas Miller, Alexander Jabbari, Black Atwood, and Austin
O’Malley offered insightful criticism and raised important questions
during these workshops. I am indebted to all of them for their intellectual
curiosity and honesty. I am grateful to Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi
for his genuine friendship and intellectual support during the most
difficult years of exile while at Oxford University. I owe serious debt to
Abdollah Yousefzadegan and Siavush Randjbar-Daemi for their generous
support with accessing archives and their vast knowledge of primary
and archival resources.
At SOAS University, Narguess Farzad’s friendship, passion for the
Persian language and literature, and highly competent translation
skills, have influenced me on both academic and human levels—a true
friend during challenging times. The same goes for my dear friends,
my family of choice, Rowena Abdulrazak, Mazlinda Makhzan, Kerem
Tinaz, Mehmet Tinaz, and Pinar Tinaz, who are deserving of abun-
dant gratitude and appreciation. I could not have survived the most
difficult moments in exile without their support on all levels.
Masoumeh Naseri, Sanam Dolatshahi, Kiana Memaran-Dadgar, and
Rana Daroogheh offered me a great deal of emotional nurturing when
this long intellectual journey, far away from my loved ones, felt
unbearable.
At the University of Pennsylvania, my current host institution, I am
indebted to Paul Cobb, the chair of the Department of Near Eastern
Languages and Civilizations (NELC), for his unconditional support since
Acknowledgements ix
my arrival, and to my dear colleagues, Al Filreis, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet,
Nili Gold, Heather Sherkey, Joseph Lowrey, Huda Fakhreddine, Ahmad
Almallah, Jamal Elias, Emily Steiner, Mahyar Entezari, Brian Kim, and
Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano for being a constant source of inspiration
and for their invaluable friendship and support.
I am grateful to the University Research and SAS Research Funds for
offering me financial support in the final stages of completing this book.
Linda Greene at the NELC departmental office at Penn deserves abun-
dant gratitude for being a constant source of support in every way pos-
sible when I was finalizing this manuscript.
At Oxford University, my immense gratitude goes to the staff mem-
bers of Wadham College and St. Antony’s College, where I gained so
much more than just a degree during my doctoral studies. The generous
financial support of the Clarendon Fund at Oxford University was vital
to my intellectual growth and the completion of my doctoral degree.
I could not have completed this book without the constant intellec-
tual, editorial, and emotional support that I received from my brilliant
editor Holly Dawson. Holly’s sharp and masterful edi tor ial skills, and
her extreme generosity and kindness, kept me going at times of darkness
and hardship. I could not wish for a better and more experienced editor.
My deepest gratitude also goes to Dena Afrasiabi for generously lending
her sharp editorial eye and her time at the very final stage of the produc-
tion of this book.
To Zahra Shams, my sister, who has spent these years finding rare
books for my research from the offset publishers in Revolution Square,
Tehran, and sending them to me wherever I was in the world, I owe a
gracious debt of gratitude for all her kindness and support. I am also
grateful to Ali Vahidi-Yeganeh for his help with designing the chart in
the final chapter of this book.
The book is dedicated to my first mentors in life, my parents,
Mohammad Shams and Sedigheh Molazemian, who have fostered my
love of poetry and literature since the early years of my life. I cannot
imagine having completed this book, during a decade in exile, without
their constant material, spiritual, and intellectual support.
