| Summary: |
This essay examines how twentieth century Iranian readers situated Jane Eyre within the classical genre of romance literature (adabiyāt-i ʿāshiqāna), originating from the tradition of love narratives in verse (ʿishq-nāma) pioneered by the twelfth century Persian poet Nizami Ganjevi. While romance is only one among several of the original Jane Eyre’s modes of generic belonging, the translation and reception of Jane Eyre into Persian facilitated the novel’s generic recalibration. We show how the prohibition on romance literature following the 1979 Iranian revolution paved the way for foreign classics such as Jane Eyre to be read as romances in the classical sense of the term.
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