Abstrakt
The western modernity has profound effect on other territories especially in Muslim countries resulting in intellectual and social activities in early 20th century. Afterward modernization movements namely the Ottoman Reform Measures (Tanzimat) and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (Mashrootiat) have followed by their aspirations for reform in arts and literature.
The subsequent impact on modernist poetry can be traced above all in their rebellion against the poetic traditions of Ottoman, Azerbaijani and Persian literature -the last one as the main origin of poetic traditions. I embark a cultural study a popular caricature and poem of "Hophop-Nameh" (1912), called "Delbar" (heart-ravisher) which declares modernists' ironically disapproving attitudes towards poetical love images of the classical masters.
In referring to such a humorous signification by a structural approach, the problem will stretch in verbal and visual iconicity with some reference to the sign system of Persian lyricism. The question is how (far) could cliché descriptions of the beloved work or survive? The statements of semiotician and cultural theorist, Roland Barthes are here submitted in order to interpret both critical and poetical realities in iconic and textual signs decoding the binary juxtaposition of modern-traditional signs as a semiotic interplay of signifier and signified.