limning an original iranian manhood from mazdusht to javid

the early twentieth-century nationalist discourse in iran reviled, on the one hand, a qajar hegemony on account of an exhausted “manifest destiny,” and lauded, on the other, a discourse of masculinity that assumed moral responsibility to protect the imaginary “geobody” of iran. in this paper i examine how this discourse of patriotism resonates through mehdi akhavan-sales’s poem “this autumn in prison” (1966) and esmail fassih’s novel the story of javid (1981). with a comparative—and conducive—focus on akhavan-sales’s poetic figure mazdusht at the outset of analysis, before turning primarily to fassih’s protagonist javid, i argue that the construction of an archetypal form of gender, or what i term an “original iranian manhood,” is integral to both men of letters as they have channeled their nationalist concerns through literary expression. as i proceed with the story of javid, i propose that gender—nationally reimagined—shapes a quest narrative set, quite symbolically, during the historic decade of 1920s when the politically bankrupt qajar rulers were giving way to the iron fists of a pahlavi state apparatus, with fateful repercussions for javid’s performance of masculinity—particularly with regard to the novel’s treatment of female characters. keywords: esmail fassih, mehdi akhavan-sales, iranian nationalist discourse, men and masculinities in iran, gender archetype