| In this book I argue that the process of esthetic change, and the readings and writings designed to bring it about, are ultimately collective and communal. The Iranian poets, critics, and readers who offered their views about poetic modernity by initiating diverse departures from the conventions of classical Persian poetry were constantly inspired and challenged by networks of individual intellects and intellectual currents vaster, more intricate, and more numerous than can be captured adequately in a single work. The writing of this book has been a similar process. In the ten years I have been working on it, many more individuals and institutions have contributed to the process than I can name here. From the theorists and scholars whose works I have appropriated, to the community of colleagues in the humanities who have commented on its various parts, to the friends, acquaintances, and students who responded to the issues I have raised, all have shared the experience with me. |
| Still, I would like to acknowledge the help I received from a few individuals and institutions, thereby registering my heartfelt gratitude. From the beginning, Walter Andrews, Michael Beard, Jerome Clinton, and Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi have accompanied me along the path which has led to this book. David Bevington of the University of Chicago, Afsaneh Najmabadi of Barnard College, and Suzanne Stetkevych of Indiana University read the completed manuscript and offered many insightful ideas. Jeffrey Grathwohl and Rodger Reynolds of the University of Utah Press have been most generous in their support and very discerning in their editorial suggestions. Institutionally, a University of Washington Graduate School Summer Research Grant in 1986 first afforded me the opportunity to begin the explorations that have since evolved into this work. More important, a six-month professorship awarded me in 1992 by the University of Chicago's Middle East Center and the Committee on Comparative Studies in Literature provided the respite |
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