Firidun Tavaluli

Firidun Tawalalli (1919-1985), contemporary poet and satirist born in Shiraz. His father, Jalal, was a landowner and noble man from Fars. Having lost his mother at the age of six, he received his primary and high school education in Shiraz. His poetical and writing talents were influenced at high school by Baha’ al-Din Husamzada Pazargad, Mahdi Hamidi Shirazi, and Muhammad Jawad Turbati. Having obtained his high school diploma in Persian literature, he studied archaeology at the University of Tehran. He found an employment at the Archaeological Department of the Education Administration in Fars in 1941. He contributed his satirical works, under the title of al-Tafasil, to different newspapers from August 1941 to 1943 which concerned social and political issues and were modeled on the works of classical satirists. One of his satirical pieces led to the closure of the Farwardin-i Shiraz newspaper which was replaced by the Surush newspaper. He published his satirical compositions in Surush, Uqyanus (Shiraz) and Shir-u-Khurshid (Tehran). He became a member of the Jam’iyyat-i Azadigan (Freedom Seekers’ Society) on 9 February 1941. In his contributions to the newspapers, he revealed that the elections had been rigged and parliamentarians had been corrupted as a consequence of which governor deputy of the Fars province sent him into exile to Bastak, Lar, along with Rasul Parvizi and Muhammad Bahiri, two other members of the society, but he fled to Tehran. He became a member of the Tudeh party in Shiraz on 17 December 1944 whose nucleus constituted the members, except for Hamid Shirazi, of the Jam’iyyat-i Azadigan-i Fars. He struggled against Sayyid Ziya’ al-Din Tabataba’i and the Hizb-i Irada-yi Milli (National Will Party) and published his criticisms in Surush and also a treatise against Sayyid Ziya’ under the title of Risala-yi ‘An’aniyya, als- known as Mushtumal-i Sayyid. In 1947, Tawallali and some others, like Khalil Maliki, Jalal Al Ahmad, and Rasul Parwizi, who opposed the political stances of the leaders of the Tudeh party, formed an offshoot, prior to which he had composed the qasida A’ina, a critique of the leaders of the Tudeh party, and had sent it to them. He attacked those leaders in the Sharq-i Miyana newspaper. His critical materials were published in 1952 in a book titled Karavan which had been composed on the style of al-Tafasil. He contributed articles in defense of nationalization of oil industry and in opposition to the British colonialism in the Sida-yi Shiraz newspaper in the years 1950-1951. He supported Musaddiq and the National Movement of Iran until the 19 August 1953 Coup when he led a clandestine life in Fars and later departed for Tehran, but his house was plundered and burned in Shiraz. He returned to Shiraz in 1959 and served as the director general of Archaeology Administration in Fars until 1965, collaborating with Roman Girshman in the excavations of Susa. Suffering from physical complications and financial straits in 1965, he was appointed an advisor of the Pahlavi University in Shiraz at the suggestion of Asadullah ‘Alam, whom he eulogized in a poetical composition, hence his being harshly attacked by some writers. Consequent to the coup and the defeat of Musaddiq, he was rendered destitute and his desperation is reflected in his poetical composition made in 1962 entitled Andarz-i Sukhtagan (Admonitions of the Heart Burned). He mainly composed poetical compositions which he published in periodicals, liike Yaghma, Gawhar, and Rahnama-yi Kitab. Some of his moralistic compositions, composed on the model of al-Tafasil appeared in the Bahar-i Iran newspaper in Shiraz and in his last years in the Ayanda journal. Suffering from ailments from 1982 to 1985, he died on 29 May 1985 and was laid to rest in Shiraz. Having read Nima’s Afsana, Tawallali was one of the first supporters of Nima Yushig’s innovations in Persian poetry. Inspired by William Butler Yeats, he composed the poem Pashimani (Regret) in the meter of Nima’s Afsana. He published his first modern political and social poem, Maryam, in the second series of Sukhan. His collection of poetry, Raha (Free), was published with a detailed introduction on the appreciation and in defense of modern poetry and critique of poets and literary circles inclined towards classical poetry in December 1950 in which he made suggestions about the development of Persian poetry and composing poetry in the modern style based on which he composed his collection of poetry, Raha. His most popular poems, like Maryam, Mahtab, and Karavan, appeared in his collection of poetry, Farda-yi Inqilab, which included few of his social and revolutionary poems. Except for Nima, many poets were attracted to Tavallali’s ideas and emphasized that they had to search for a well measured and pleasing diction and many of the admirers of Nima and his contributions to Persian poetry had been acquainted with his poetry through that of Tavallali, like Maryam, Mahtab, and Karavan. Tavallali appreciated Nima’s poetry by the meter of his Afsana, maintaining that he later forsook the form used in his Afsana and composed short and long and ambiguous hemistiches. In the introduction to his second collection of poetry, Nafa, he criticized Nima and many modernist poets of his times and suggested that true modernist poets were those who respected distinguished classical poets of olden times, evade composing blank verse and obstinate critique of rhyme, and also follow radif and rhyme to the extent that meaning remains intact. He strictly followed rhyme schemes, though he ignored them in his poetry composed in modern forms and in some of his chaharparas. He immensely popularized chaharparas in Persian poetry. Above all he accorded significance to diction and imagery and his poetry reflects novel themes, musicality, and poetical expressions. The themes of his poetry mainly express sorrow, hopelessness, ennui, death, and fear, hence his appellation ‘the leader of the poetry of death.’ According to Ghulam Husayn Yusufi, death, as reflected in Tavallali’s poetry, indirectly betokens archaeology as a profession and maintains that his poetry is comparable to that of Sa’di. His themes were followed by a number of modernist ghazal poets, particularly from 1953 onwards. In terms of lyricism, he may be considered as the founder of modern lyrical poetry. The poetry collection entitled Bazgasht (Return) reflects the poet’s retirement from political activities and further indicates his anti-government, political stance. He was well acquainted with music which he studied under Saba for years. He also played the piano and the violin. His collections of poetry include Raha, Nafa, Puya, Shagarf, and Bazgasht. His poetry was mainly composed in the genres of qasida, ghazal, and chaharpara. He used the nom de plume Firiydun. Some of his poetry has been rendered into other languages. Arthur John Arberry translated Maryam which he published in London in 1949. Karun, constituting one of the poems of that collection, has been rendered into Russian. His al-Tafasil, a satirical work in prose interspersed with poetry, is a masterpiece and a parody of Gulistan, Marzban-nama, Kalila wa Dimna, Maqamat-i Hamidi, and some popular fiction, like Iskandar-nama and Amir Arsalan. The first edition of the work appeared in Shiraz in 1945 and its second edition, including 76 pieces, was published in Tehran in 1952. The 1969 edition excluded a piece, entitled Muris (Maurice), in which Reza Shah was the subject of derision. The work was dedicated to Rasul Parwizi. Karavan, whose copies are hard to find, includes three collections of poetry: Bidari (Awakening), Duri az Bardigan-i Surkh (Separation from Red Slaves), and Hingama-yi Naft (Uproar over Oil), and resembles al-Tafasil in terms of prose style, though the writer opens each piece in the former with an introduction in serious prose about some historical event on whose occasion the piece had been composed. A copy of this book was dedicated by the writer to Muhammad Musaddiq on 10 August 1952 which he dedicated in turn in the same year to the library of Higher Education College and it is now available with the Faculty of Letters and Humanities, University of Tehran. One of his satirical books, ‘Aja’ib al-Qaza’ib, is unpublished. His contributions to periodicals include some translations from French fiction, articles on archaeology, poetry, folklore, and critiques of poetical collections.

Danishnama-yi Jahan-i Islam (8/ 599-602); Farhang-i Sukhanwaran-i Nami-yi Mu’asir (2/ 942-947).