A Philosophical and Ontological Re-reading of Manouchehr Atashi’s Poetry

Abstract

Manouchehr Atashi is one of the distinctive and influential contemporary poets whose poetry, in addition to representing the southern region and drawing upon mythological and symbolic narratives, possesses prominent philosophical and ontological capacities. Using a descriptive–analytical method, the present study examines and analyzes certain dimensions of the philosophical and ontological approach in Atashi’s poetry. The findings indicate that Atashi shows a strong inclination toward raising intellectual and philosophical issues and concepts in his poetry, the origins of which can be assessed as ambiguity, doubt, fear, and questions of an ontological nature that emerge from Atashi’s mental disposition and philosophical outlook. In this study, these aspects are classified, analyzed, and explored under the categories and components of “redefinition of the self,” “crisis and incapacity in the reconstruction of meaning,” “the collapse of time,” “futile idealism,” “negation of the self,” and “existential anxiety.” Based on this classification and in the same order, the study explicates and analyzes the manner of the emergence and manifestation of the poet’s self or individuality, the quality of the poet’s confrontation with death and the sense of futility, the experience of temporal suspension and the poet’s simultaneous presence across different times, the invalidation of ideals and the poet’s philosophical failure, the replacement of the poet’s intrinsic self with an imposed self, and finally the poet’s confrontation with existential anxiety and the awareness and responsibility arising from it.