ABSTRACT
Forugh Farrokhzad is the most celebrated woman poet in the course of Persian poetic tradition and a seminal modern Persian poet, regardless of gender. Close attention to Forugh and the specifics of her attendance in Iranian culture and society should reveal not merely the dynamic forces that animated one of the most important poets of recent Iranian history but also the very formative forces that collectively constitute this culture. There are many paradigmatic patterns of normative behavior that collectively make, and are potentially capable of effectively breaking, the Iranian culture. Three such paradigmatic motifs particularly central and conclusive in the grand scheme of the Iranian culture are: the charismatic source of authority in Iranian culture, the institutionalization of this authority in patriarchal organizations, and the overpowering sense of guilt that these two essential forces of the Iranian culture invoke in its members in order to advance and sustain their validity. This chapter discusses the archetypal expressions of these three motifs.
