THE POETICS OF MYTHIC CONSCIOUSNESS: WORD, MOTHER, AND CREATION IN THE CREATIVE WORK OF MAHIRA NAGHIGHIZI

Abstract

In recent years, mythopoetic research in world literary scholarship has undergone a renewed surge of interest, as the enduring presence of archaic mythological worldviews in modern literary masterpieces has generated considerable scholarly attention and given rise to new literary-philosophical perspectives. The intersection of myth and poetry continues to be actively studied as a significant arena of research from both national and comparative literary-theoretical standpoints. This article aims to investigate the poetics of mythic consciousness in the creative work of Mahira Naghighizi – a prominent representative of twenty- first-century Azerbaijani poetic thought, an Honored Teacher, laureate of the “Golden Pen” award, public figure, and poet-professor – with particular focus on the artistic system of the Word, Mother, and Creation archetypes from a mythopoetic perspective. Selected poetic examples from the poet's various collections have been analyzed using the mythocritical method, as well as C.G. Jung's archetypal theory, M. Eliade's concept of mythic creation, and the views of several Turkish scholars on water cult. The research demonstrates that in Mahira Naghighizi's (Huseynova's) poetry, the cosmogonic function of the Word operates as a fundamental principle of mythocosmoqony; the image of the Mother undergoes transformation into the archetype of “White Mother/Earth Mother/Humay Mother”, thereby acquiring a sacred-mythic significance. Furthermore, the poetic sublimation of the Water mythic cult, the artistic reflection of the Fate archetype, and the embodiment of the genetic-archaic traces of shamanism in poetic examples clearly emphasize the continuity of the Oghuz- Turkic mythic memory within the contemporary artistic system. The analysis reveals that twenty-first-century Azerbaijani poetry continues to make new contributions to its study within the context of world mythopoetic tradition, confirming that it offers rich poetic material for monographic research in this field.