ADAB PAZHUHI
Year:2012 | Volume:6 | Issue:21|Papers Count:8

Cognitive narratology is a systematic approach that, following the achievements of cognitive semantics, has played an important role in determining the nature and function of the narrative texts. G. Fauconnier and M.Turner have thoroughly explained the principles and the framework of the conceptual blending. This article, after introducing the theoretical approach of conceptual blending, examines the processes of meaning formation and characterization in two Persian folk tales based on the hypothesis that creativity and dynamism of meaning formation in folk tales can be analyzed by the paradigms and principles of conceptual blending. The article aims at explaining the processes used in activating imagination and creating meaning in order to provide the possibility of a better reading of the folk tales.

Modernism and postmodernism provided a unique opportunity for coming back to the world of mythology and restoring them for the aesthetic purposes in art and literature. This article is an attempt to find out the reasons for such an interest in modem and postmodern novels. The results indicate that the reasons for this interest might be different for modernists and postmodernists because, while the former looked for the intertextual and interdiscursive capacities of the novels, the latter, due to the narrative and structural possibilities of myths, made use of them for better depicting their change of literary text as well as their need to spirituality, reexamining the reality, and satisfying the commands of the social and critical institutions.

Walter Benjamin, although is known for being related to Frankfurt School, is a single and unique figure, both in his principles of thinking and in confrontation with Marxism. His contemplations on language, translation, history, and the related fields, have greatly influenced the philosophical, artistic and literary trends of the time. In contrast to the ideas of those who see no coherence in his works, the essential involvement of Benjamin has been the determination of "lack", "distance", and "disorientation" in order to achieve redemption and salvation. Two important themes engaging his mind were "philosophy of language" and "philosophy of history". The former gave way to a theory of translation as well as concerning the concept of meaning, allegory, literary criticism, tragedy, story and novel, which acted as a background to criticizing historicism and positivism and taking distance from the conventional linguistics and semiotics. This article is concerned with language and translation as his two focal obsessions, and their effect on literary domain.

The bull-shaped mace is one of the most symbolic battle instruments in Shahname which is used in the cosmic battle between Fereydoon and Zahhak, and its function for annihilating the evil has proved it as a significant instrument. This article studies this instrument in the mythological context of the bulls' function in Mithraism in which the victory of Mithra in the battle with The Initial Cow is a requisite for winter's evolution and the triumph of brightness over darkness. In Zoroastrian culture, this myth is seen as the creation of animals by the sperm of the sacrificed bull, and in Iranian epics, it is a symbol for taking revenge and continence. Sketching the bull's head on this mace can be a symbol of eternal victory that guarantees an everlasting delighted living.

This article, following the theory of Lacan, studies Shazde Ehtejab, a novel by Hooshang Golshiri. First, through explaining some basic terms of this post structural psychologist such as The Real, The Imaginary, the Symbolic, Name-of-the Father, Gaze, a critical reading of the novel will be carried out. The article aims at responding two questions: What Lanian area is the novel narrated at? What is the reason for the incoherence of the novel's narrative structure and disruption of Shazde Ehtejab as a "self'.

According to most researchers, the story of Arash did not exist in Abu Mansoori Shahname and other Books of Kings, but a group of researchers believe that this story existed in the sources used for writing Shahname and was omitted by Ferdowsi. Nevetheless, the evidence is against this last claim. Regarding the fact that even in Pahlavi texts there has not been more than one reference to this story, it can be concluded that the story should have not be mentioned in Books of Kings. Arash might have been either one of the saints in Parti culture, a popular hero, or a name remained from a pre-Zoroastrianism. Arash has been a warrior in Manoochehr army and by no means can be one of the kings or king-heroes; it is thus illogical to look for his heroic stories in Shahname and other Books of Kings.

Persian and Arabic, in the area of Linguistics and literary criticism, are strongly influenced by the translated works. A comparative study of the Persian and Arabic books and articles on literary criticism makes clear that the Arab translators, in spite of coining different equivalents for one term, have been more successful. Being an inflectional language, can be a reason of this success for Arabic. As an example, the term "intertextuality", has three equivalents in Arabic that respectively mean "negotiating of texts", "permeation of texts", and "interrelation of texts", while in Persian, the accepted equivalent "beyndmatniat" does not include all the semantic features of this term. This article, through contrasting the Persian and Arabic equivalents of "intertextuality theory", decides how far each of the two languages has been successful.