Journal of Iranian Cultural Research

Journal of Iranian Cultural Research

From praise to critique: Transforming the social function of Persian literature from traditional to modern poetics through the accelerating role of Marxism

Document Type : Scientific Research Manuscript

Author
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Cultural Studies, Institute of Cultural-Social Studies. Tehran, Iran
10.22035/jicr.2027.3664.3869
Abstract
This article undertakes a philosophical examination of the conceptualization of money and property within Persian proverbial discourse, employing the theoretical framework advanced by Georg Simmel in his seminal work, The Philosophy of Money. Adopting a descriptive-qualitative methodology, the study probes the manifold ways in which popular culture—and proverbs in particular—articulate the dialectical character of money as both an emancipatory instrument and a source of social constraint within modernity. The analysis demonstrates that the majority of Persian proverbs resonate with core Simmelian themes, including the reduction of qualitative values to quantitative metrics, the inherent paradox of monetary freedom coupled with systemic limitation, the processes of reification and alienation, the ascendancy of instrumental rationality, and the gradual transformation of money from a mere medium of exchange into an ultimate end in itself. While certain proverbs exhibit a critical or resistive stance toward the hegemony of monetary logic, others appear to endorse and naturalize it, thereby exposing a persistent cultural tension between inherited ethical frameworks and the imperatives of an emergent economic order. The study further attends to the formal and rhetorical features of proverbs—their concision, rhythmic structure, and logical persuasion—which render them potent vehicles for the sedimentation of collective beliefs and the modulation of individual and social agency. In so doing, this research addresses a notable lacuna in the interdisciplinary scholarship that intersects Simmel's cultural philosophy with Persian folk literature, and it argues that proverbs function as crucial cultural thresholds through which deeper ontological conflicts and ethical ambivalences within Iran's transitional society are both reflected and negotiated.
Keywords
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Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 21 March 2027

  • Receive Date 29 May 2026
  • Revise Date 25 September 2026
  • Accept Date 06 October 2026