A Shift from the Oral Culture to the Written Culture in Women’s Writings (From Naseri period to the Constitutional period)
Subject Areas : Research in Iranian classical literature
1 -
Keywords:
Abstract :
In the literary history of Iran, there can be found samples of women’s writings, most of which are in prose. Until the Naseri period, the very few writings were limited to jurisprudence, litanies and prayers. Two travelogues and one critical-social writing are available relating to the Naseri period. The writing mode of these texts reveals that the women at that time were not familiar with the common frames of formal writing. They wrote in a female intimate environment and employed a spoken language. At the Constitutional period, as women made their presence felt in society, they did so in the field of prose writing. Publishing their letters, particularly in women’s journals of the time, gave them an opportunity to experience formal written language. Women’s language entered a public zone. Their highly frank and open language which had been formed during centuries at an intimate female atmosphere, and under the influence of oral literature, was refined and distanced itself from the words that were supposed to be offensive for the public usage. In this way a civilized language of women was formed that followed the norms of the dominant culture of the time. So, one could claim that women’s presence at the society coincided with their transition from the field of oral literature to the field of written literature.
