Spektrum Iran

Persian-speaking poets of the past as contemporary celebrities?

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Author

Sara Rahmani

Faculty of Foreign Languagrs and Literatures German Studis University of Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22034/spektrum.2025.504769.1023
Abstract
The existence of celebrities throughout different periods is primarily interesting in itself, but also somewhat misleading—especially when this perspective is applied to celebrities or the notion of celebrity in the past. This often means we deal with famous figures of our own time while forgetting or even deliberately ignoring those of earlier times. When we attempt to engage with these past celebrities—whether poets or other notable figures from previous eras—our perspective is inevitably non-simultaneous and diachronic. This lack of synchronism introduces various problems, such as how to view these personalities, especially given the limited historical information available, and whether they can be considered celebrities by today’s standards. The problem becomes more complex when one considers that these so-called poet-celebrities, especially Persian-speaking ones, remain alive in the cultural memory of the people. Yet they can no longer attain the status of modern celebrities—partly because their fame does not involve contemporary factors such as media interaction or industry visibility, and is instead reflected in symbolic acts (e.g., people taking photographs at their graves). This article aims to clarify the relationship between Persian-speaking poets of the past and the present-day Iranian sense of nostalgia and their possible celebrity status. Using a bottom-up or inductive approach, it explores the nature of this relationship in light of today’s celebrity culture, questioning whether this is a general phenomenon or more specific to a so-called poetic population, and identifying other possible characteristics that define this process. The results point to a broader idolatry of Iranian poets.

Keywords

Persian poets
Poet people
Poetic thinking
Nostalgia
(Poet) Celebrities

Subjects

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Spektrum Iran
Volume 38, Issue 1
July 2025
Pages 171-187

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