Abstract
Tabl Magazine released its eleventh issue in March 2023. The issue includes an interview and nine articles that cover various topics. The first article, titled “The Art of Chivalry and the Essence of Heroism” by Mohammad Asadian, delves into the meaning of the word “hero” and examines the essence of different heroes in the Avesta, Shahnameh, and Chivalry (Ayyari) rituals.
In an interview titled “The Idealistic Hero in Shabih-khani”, Ario Tehrani discusses with Davood Fathali Beigi the search for the nature and appearance of the hero in Ta’zieh and Shabih-khani, which are passion plays about the Battle of Karbala. The interview explores various topics such as the definition of myth, the difference between the hero of Shabih-khani and the hero of Western drama, the heroes of Ta’zieh, the socio-political influences in the transformation of the heroes of Ta’zieh, and the modern hero in Ta’zieh.
Sepehr Yahyavi’s article, “The Ethereal Female: the Hero or the Anti-hero of Modernity?”, examines the female hero image in Hedayat’s Boof-e Koor (The Blind Owl) and Baudelaire’s poems. The article contextualizes the emergence of these two prominent figures and analyzes the portrayal of women in modernity, particularly in the works of these two creators. The paper proposes that “the ethereal female” is a literary (anti)hero of modernity.
In Mohammad Hossein Mirbaba’s article, “How Does a Hero Become a Figure?” he defines the term “figure”. His article also discusses Northrop Frye’s ideas on categorizing heroes, which can be found in Frye’s famous book, Anatomy of Criticism.
Esteph Doehler’s article, “A Hero’s Journey: the Monomythical Narrative of Diego Maradona’s World Cup Appearances”, is translated by Mohammad Sarvi Zargar and titled “Golden Football Champion”. She examines the hero’s journey theme and the three acts of Joseph Campbell’s narratological theory: departure, initiation, and return. The article focuses on Maradona’s World Cup performances and his status as a sports champion.
In his article “From Classic Desire to Modern Drive”, Mojtaba Tashkeh studies the concept of heroism in the classical and modern eras from a psychoanalytic perspective. The article aims to explore the hero’s birth and the concept of sin in the classical hero. Tashkeh compares two classical heroes (Achilles and Antigone) and two modern heroes (Sophie and Sygne) using psychoanalytic concepts such as guilt, desire, drive, tyranny, and terror.
Kianoosh Motaghedi’s “Royal Portraits of the King (Khagan)” explores the use of figurative theory in portraying images of power. The author compares the human figure in Western and Eastern paintings of kings, examining, comparing, and analyzing royal portraits as a representation of power and a diplomatic gift and their function from East to West.
In an article titled “Painting Between Visual and Narrative Tension”, Sohrab Ahmadi examines the imaginary world of the hero in Iran Darroudi’s works. Ahmadi delves deep into understanding the painter through her two attributes of being “Iranian” and a “painter”. The article explores Darroudi’s use of the geocritical approach in her works, referring to her as a painter of “fluidity”. Ahmadi also highlights how Darroudi represents Iranian architecture in her paintings.
Mohammad Sarvi Zargar has translated the first part of the third chapter of Pedram Partovi’s book, Popular Iranian Cinema Before the Revolution: Family and Nation in Filmfarsi. The translation, titled “National Heroes in Filmfarsi (Persian-film)”, studies the portrayal of masculinity and heroism in Persian literature and Iranian history, to provide a better understanding of how these themes were rearranged in the popular cinema of the Pahlavi era. Essentially, it aims to address how men were depicted in Filmfarsi – a cinema primarily made for men – in relation to the family, nation, and a form of popular religion. One of the chapter’s primary objectives is to draw attention to the weak and marginal social status of these heroes in the cinema and, as a result, the challenge of distinguishing between the hero and the anti-hero in these films.
“The Entwined Image of Hamoun, Herzog, and Us” is an article by Farhat Farrokhi in which he discusses Dariush Mehrjui’s creation of the film Hamoun. Farrokhi compares the characters in the movie to those in Saul Bellow’s book Herzog and explores Mehrjui’s critique of the patriarchal intellectual.