Representation of the Tragedy of Culture and Forms of Social Interaction in the Poetry of Fereydoun Moshiri Based on Georg Simmel’s Formal Sociology

Abstract

The present study aims to analyze how the “tragedy of culture” and the transformation of forms of social interaction are represented in the poetry of Fereydoun Moshiri, drawing on Georg Simmel’s theory of formal sociology. The rapid modernization of contemporary Iranian society has resulted in a widening gap between the expansion of civilizational achievements (objective culture) and the decline of human values and emotions (subjective culture). This fundamental consequence is artistically reflected in Moshiri’s poetry through representations of human alienation, loneliness, and the deterioration of empathetic social bonds. Adopting a qualitative approach and a descriptive-analytical method, the study employs documentary analysis and purposive sampling of Moshiri’s collected poems. The selected poetic samples are coded and critically examined according to Simmel’s four-dimensional analytical matrix comprising “number,” “environment,” “time,” and “dualism.” The findings indicate that, in the dimension of “number,” the opposition between authentic dyadic relationships (dyads) and the tumult of collective life leads to the increasing isolation of the human subject. In the dimension of “environment,” the contemporary metropolis, through the creation of physical barriers, the intensification of psychological distance, and the emergence of the social type of the “stranger,” has deprived lived human experience of its traditional connection with nature. In the dimension of “time,” the dominance of acceleration and mechanical, calendrical time has prevailed over qualitative and inner time, while in the dimension of “dualism,” fundamental oppositions such as “peace/violence,” “emotion/technology,” and “life/death” are articulated. Furthermore, a comparative examination in light of Rabindranath Tagore’s concept of the unity of life reveals that Moshiri’s poetry constitutes an aesthetic and Romantic endeavor to resist the domination of the mechanical structures of modernity and to reconstruct subjective culture.