The Concern of Influence and the Anticentrism of the Imitators (Case Study: Comparison of the Preface of Saadi’s Golestan with the Preface of Rowzeh-ye Khold by Majd Khafi)

Imitative poets and writers seek to de-deify the father-poet and writer, replace him with himself, and rebel against him with a creative look. This internalized Oedipal complex in the imitators prompts them to react against their predecessors and navigate their way out of this complex. Since imitative texts tend to be considered inferior to original ones, the aim of this research is to preserve these works by focusing on the innovation and struggle of imitators against the tyranny of preceding works and their creators. To do so, we will examine the methods of Majd Khafi's confrontation in the book Rowzeh-ye Khold against Golestan, relying on a descriptive-analytical method with an emphasis on the preface of these two works in order to determine the extent to which Majd Khafi overturns the central author's focal power. Furthermore, it seeks to uncover how the imitative writer, while borrowing from the original text, reveals his own complex by repressing and marginalizing the powerful other and provides an opportunity for creativity in writing in the face of the repression of others. As a subversive writer, Majd reveals his anticentrism by emphasizing self-reliance and a lack of influence from predecessors. He further belittles poetry, poets, and the taste of his audience, maintaining ideological silence in relation to Golestan by mentioning works inferior to it and giving his own work a mystical flavor.
Introduction
Considering the centrality of Saadi’s Golestan among literary texts and the imitative works influenced by it, this study will compare it with one of the first imitative texts written in its wake in order to reveal the reaction of the imitative author to the ancient supertext and its creator. Since traditional parody and parody writing were common in the time of Majd Khafi (Zarghani, 2019, Vol. 2: 267), it is necessary to see how the author has freed himself from a mere process of imitation and challenged the judgment of critics. Since prefaces and introductions are considered the thresholds for entering the world of the text and the ideological system of poets and writers, by comparing the prefaces of the two above works, we can examine the extent to which the preceding work influences the imitative text and understand how the imitator has acted in the face of the anxiety of being influenced by the powerful preceding text. Doing so is important as Jacques Derrida believes that more important points are made in the margins of the text (Ahmadi, 2006:382). Therefore by examining the margins and prefaces of the works, one can better understand the intellectual foundations of the authors.
Materials and methods
In the present study, the prefaces of two educational works have been examined in a comparative and descriptive-analytical manner, citing library sources. First, the study presents the theoretical foundations of Harold Bloom's theory of influence anxiety, which is related to the research questions. After reading the preface of the above works, the methods by which the imitative writer confronts the authoritative father are examined. This clarifies how the marginalized writer, while borrowing from the preceding work, has overcome his fear of being influenced and tries to free himself from being a reduced and sterile writer.
Results and Discussion
Undoubtedly, a large part of human evolution is based on imitation. Even Aristotle believes that this characteristic is innate to humans, who are more interested in imitation than all animals (Zarinkub, 1982:113) Therefore, writers and poets cannot be discredited as devoid of identity by being labeled imitators. The pillars of literature and the texts they have written have led many critics and researchers to reduce subsequent poets and writers to the point of mere, sterile imitators, and to consider repetition a constant theme in these works. The anxiety of imitators about being influenced by previous works and their writers causes them to seek ways out of these ancient and powerful texts. Sometimes, while imitating, they rise to destroy the fathers’ texts. By doing so, they ultimately force centralist researchers and critics to reflect on their true position. The imitative poet and writer is always in suspense between self-affirmation and rejection of the great other, who sometimes appears in a mythic form. He tries to escape from the repetitive, overcome his impressionability (which has caused him considerable anxiety), and play a creative role. This is because, from Bloom's perspective, anxiety drives creativity. (Allen, 194: 1400). This creativity frees children from being imprisoned by their fathers and from rejection because Bloom, like Blake and Frye, does not consider children to be passive and merely receptive to the will of their fathers (Pine and Barbera, 2007:172). Therefore, children are constantly anxious about their fathers' influence and seek to escape from it. Moreover, the father-poet cannot reproduce himself and must wait for his successor to explain and continue him (Bloom, 2024:99). Therefore, he hopes for an imitation of his own work in order to launch himself into the future in the form of text and thereby multiply. Later, the imitator, utilizes the predecessor text of the original poet, and creates intertextual relationships between his own work and that text, at the same time fighting the idea of ​​this very dependence. By doing so, he rebels against the tyranny of the texts of the past, tries to emerge from the long shadow of those works, and navigates his way out of being castrated by them. In fact, "the poet, caught in an Oedipal rivalry with his castrating predecessor, seeks to disarm this heavy force by entering it from within and displacing, recasting, and revising the previous poet's poetry" (Egelton, 2001:252).
On the one hand, the imitator is dependent on past texts; on the other, he flees from them in order to prevent his own total erasure and asserts his own presence. In fact, every work becomes possible through its predecessors. That is, the imitative text follows its previous works, repeats them, challenges them, and transforms them (Kahler, 2003:48). It is true that the author bases his text on what has been written and read before; but he tries with all his might not to be caught in the trap of imitation. “The text not only uses previous textual units, but also transforms them and, in Kristeva’s words, gives them a new institutional position” (Allen, 2021:78).
The concern with influence is closely related to psychological theories. Bloom attempted to present a poetics of influence by drawing on Freud's psychoanalytic theory (Namvarmotlagh, 2016:113). Freud believed that writers use psychological mechanisms to overcome their anxiety because thoughts and experiences that are repressed into the unconscious and preconscious emerge symbolically in their works, particularly in literary works, often through dream-like imagery. (Taslimi, 2019:121). Additionally, anxiety is reminiscent of theories of power. This is because imitators, while being suppressed, seek creativity and a productive role. They always look at themselves and at others, rising up to fight against the powerful other and the tyranny of the superior author. Ultimately, they seek to establish a combative relationship with them because, according to Nietzsche, every talent must reveal itself in struggle (Bloom, 2024:114). Jacques Derrida's deconstruction also calls for an end to the superiority of the original over the subsidiary, the center over what is marginalized, the pure over what is considered impure, the natural over what is considered unnatural, or the first over what is considered secondary (Amankhani, 2021:262).
 
Conclusion
In his book, Rowzeh-ye Khold, Majd Khafi has employed various strategies in confronting Golestan and its author, who is known as the literary father and center of gravity of Persian prose:
1- Following Saadi's style, Majd considers the beginning of the book to coincide with Ordibehesht and, like Saadi, he endeavors to organize his work into chapters. He also attempts to compose a work similar to Golestan at the request of his friend.
2- In order to overcome the anxiety of influence, Majd chooses a different approach. He steals the principle of criticizing critics from the preface to Golestan and, by this means, tries to free himself from the criticism of critics. He begins discussing the immortality of the work from the title's paratext and, by selecting an audience from the elite and the common people, tries to extend the range of audiences to infinity. While the initial design of Golestan was devised by Saadi himself, the initial design of the Rowzeh-ye Khold was suggested to him by his friend Majd Khafi.
3- Majd tries to create an identity for himself while avoiding humiliation before the powerful other and marginalizing him. He does this through discounting and belittling the taste of the audience, ignoring the praiseworthy, and taking refuge in the form of jurisprudential and mystical discourse and the hegemony arising from it. Furthermore, he uses ideological silence by mentioning different works from Golestan, detail-oriented focus in the titles of chapters, assigning various titles to himself due to the prevailing concern for influence, and attributing himself to the elite group. Finally, he achieves this by escaping from his ancestral homeland, creating a sense of self-superiority, discounting poetry and its related paraphernalia, and repeatedly emphasizing innovation in the way of composing stories.