Historicity and the Issue of Relativity in Poetry Theory

One of the areas in literary studies whose definition and principles have been subject of considerable disagreements among philosophers, writers, and linguists is poetry and its nature. Differences of perspectives in defining poetry are a result of differences in methodologies, intellectual fields, and elaboration of poetry function. The present research takes a descriptive–analytic approach to reviewing the existing definitions of poetry, and through studying different types of poetry in Persian literature and, by basing the discussion on indicators such as the speaker’s mentality, listener’s mentality, language, genre studies, various discourses of each era, the prominent literary element, and critiquing the masterpiece-oriented perspective, attempts to question the perspective which considers poetics to be a definite and non-historical phenomenon, and introduces poetics as a fluid, relative, and history-dependent phenomenon which requires a different definition in various eras based on the abovementioned indicators. Through such an approach to poetics, demarcating verse and poetry based on similar indicators and in all eras will not enjoy scientific rigor and credit. Based on the perspectives elaborated in the present research, a new poetics must be proposed in each era to be able to provide a definition of poetry in that era.