The Rise of Modern Persian Literature through Translation in Iran

Translation is an indispensable tool for communication between the diverse linguistic groups. it opens new horizons for the people living in a country so that it makes changes and improvements in their society, especially in the literature. through the translation process, some literary principles and elements are introduced into the home literature which did not exist before. these features emerge not only as new models of reality to function as a substitute for old and established literary conventions that are no longer effective, but as a whole range of other features as well, such as compositional patterns and techniques or literary genres and forms (even-zohar, 1990). during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, translation from european languages caused that the persian literature began experiencing new trends in poetry and prose, leading to the rise of modern persian literature. this study aims to scrutinize the significant role of the translated western literature in the rise of the modern persian literature, for this purpose, new literary genres introduced into the persian literary polysystem through the translation of the western works have been studied. it employs even-zohar's polysystem theory to investigate the conditions which gave rise to the literary interference in iran and to illuminate the main reasons which resulted in the canonization of the translated works in the persian literary polysystem. it shows that the translations transferred new models and themes with themselves, which were decisive in shaping modern persian literature.