Visual (Concrete) Poetry at a Analytical, Critical and Comparative Glance

Visual or concrete poetry is one of the modern poetic trends in both European and Iranian poetries. This form of poetry which is includes written deviations and linguistic foregrounding is manifested in a combination of poetry, graphics and sometimes calligraphic lines. In this poetic tradition, written structures are chosen in a way that the type of layout and combination of letters, words and sentences of poem create visual images. This paper aims to rely on a combination of approaches including comparative literature in the comparison of American and French and formalistic approach, and the concept of comparing the American and French and formalistic approach, to review and evaluate the impact of conjunction between visual poetry and similar species in Iran's poetry. To do so, examples of visual poetry are compared in a formalistic way with the examples of the type in Iranian literature including Toushij poetry (Moshajjar, Motayyar, Modavvar and Moaqqad), visual poetry, Movassal, Tadbij, letter-oriented poetry, illustration, incarnation. The results showed sundry similarities and differences between the principles of visual poetry and examples of the type in the Iranian tradition. Some of these similarities and differences are deviation, foregrounding, homogeneity of graphics, defamiliarization, and alienation. These similarities do not mean “Plagiarism” because there is a close relationship between Iranian and French literature in various aspects. There is no doubt that Guillaume Apollinaire, in the creation of his “Calligrams”, was strongly influenced by the concrete and visual Persian poetry including "Toushih poetry”.