This study aims to explore the “eco-conscious manifesto” of Nima Yushij in his poem Afsāneh by employing an integrated framework of ecolinguistics and critical metaphor analysis. The primary objective is to uncover the overarching narrative embedded in the network of nature-based metaphors in the poem and to explain the ideologically naturalized positions and power relations within it. The central research question is: How does Nima, through the tool of metaphor, frame the crisis of modern humanity and its relationship with nature, and what are the implications of this framing?
The research method is qualitative and structured in three steps: 1. Systematic identification and classification of all linguistic metaphors with nature as the source domain in the text. 2. Cognitive interpretation of these metaphors and extraction of the overarching conceptual metaphors and the dominant “story.” 3. Critical explanation of this story from the perspectives of ideology, power, and practical-ethical functions. This process is inspired by research methods in ecolinguistic studies.
The findings indicate that by creating a comprehensive metaphorical system, Nima cultivates the narrative of a “fall from natural paradise and the search for salvation through a return to nature via the channel of romantic suffering.” At the ideological level, this narrative reproduces several positions: reactionary ecologism that sanctifies nature as the reference for truth and negates progress; a polarized opposition between a passive, victimized self (through plant/animal metaphors) and a demonic, invasive other (“the white demon”); and elitist romanticism that seeks collective healing in individual suffering and introspection. While emotionally persuasive, this framework, by naturalizing these positions, weakens social agency and the possibility of dialogue with the “other.” Consequently, as Nima’s manifesto, Afsāneh is a powerful poetic statement that redefines the crisis of modernity in the form of a comprehensive ecological mythology—a mythology in which nature is elevated to the sole source of meaning and ethical reference. However, this profound and influential redefinition, due to its romantic retrospective outlook, political passivity, and reduction of historical complexities to a simplified opposition, itself becomes the subject of serious critique from the standpoint of social responsibility, historical agency, and future-oriented ecological ethics.