The Journal of Epic Literature
Year:2016 | Volume:11 | Issue:20|Papers Count:9

The following hemistich "dark night and heavy maces" was repeated twice on behalf of Rostam in Shahnameh. The next part of this hemistich in other Shahnameh editions is written as "Karzhay-e geran", yet almost all publishers and editors of this text read this as "gorzhay-e geran" which is a more familiar compound and highly employed in Ferdowsi's speech. In one edition of Shahnameh one of its editors had corrected this compound as "korzehay-e geran" and assumed the meaning of "sown field" for "korz" on the basis of that in Haft Khane Rostam. The writer of this article with all due respect to the above interpretation suggest the form "karzhay-e geran" and hence leave the judgement to the authorities. "karz" is a dialectical word popular in Qayen in Khorasan Province which means great crevice in the mountain, and hence "karzhay-e geran" could refer to Rostam's passing these highly dangerous crevices in the mountains of Mazandaran in the story of Haft Khan.

Divane Hafez is so intertwined with national beliefs that it can be said after Shahnameh no work in the domain of Persian literature could reflect the Persian spirit more than Hafez's Divan. In terms of diction, literary and artistic sense it is unparalleled. Hafez perceives with thorough inspection and immaculate vision the problems of his time and integrate them delightfully to breathe new life to the noble Persian spirit. His all encompassing command over the history and culture of his predecessors and his accurate inquiry into the ancient texts of the Persian literature puts him in a position to draw inspiration from all their literary and artistic gifts and Shahnameh Ferdowsi doubtless is one such sublime work. Hafez depicts the scenes in battle fields and festivities by employing epic diction, intermingling lyricism with epic to its utmost beauty throughout his Divan. Hafez could revive his past culture by choosing a figurative language and a variety of literary devices, incredible parts of speech to invent novel compounds and this reveals his challenging spirit in a unique manner. Choice of diction and literary devices such as hyperbol, ambivalence, similes, personification, allusion and variety of ironies all provides him with the ingredients to create a genre of lyric epic.

Linguistic oppositions are considered as one of the most significant features of meaning production in any discourse system. This study acknowledges the linguistic features to be the most important cause of meaning production in the “Narrative of Fereydoon and Zahak” in Shahnameh. To fulfill such a goal, the above mentioned study, through a semiotic analysis, sets out to consider the formation of meaning based upon the oppositions within the narratives. In this study, the researchers have demonstrated the fact that the oppostions have been influential to the extents of levels and qualities in the formulation of semantic system of the story entitled as Zahak and Fereydoon. Considering the different dimensions of such oppositions in narrative, it will turn out that the linguistic oppositions employed by discourse are in fact codes that are contigent upon culture and history. Reader’s link with narratological structure of a text entails their awareness of the cultural and historical context of a narrative. Another finding of this very research is the portrayal of how the function of main characters’ opposition operates within the narrative in its formation. Oppositional function of the influential characters within the process of story has been appeared in two ways: in relation to the themselves and to the others.

One comes across the story of "Removing the crown in between two lions" as a symbolic narrative in two eternal works of Hakim Ferdowsi and Nezami with striking similarities and slight differences. This research studies the function of Lion's imagery in Shahnameh Ferdowsi and Haft Paykar Nezami based on Gilbert Durand's theory. Durand's view towards myth is a particular one and has a different function. According to him myths are the most significant manifestation of imagination, and imagination is also composed of symbolic imagery. Applying the structures delineated by this great contemporary theoretician to this story in both Shahnameh and Haft Paykar, the symbolic imagery of the story is described and also how the imagination led to the creation of these imageries in the mind of their composers is accounted on.

The purpose of this research is to cast a new look upon a couplet in Shahnameh in the story of Kay Khosrow. A couplet being so controversial that various commentaries been produced and virtually all paid due attention to the horizontal axis of the story and neglected other aspects. This paper attempts to study and criticize such commentaries to clarify the misunderstandings of the meaning of the couplet by referring to other couplets as evidence. Then the story in the vertical axis is assessed to derive at a novel meaning of the couplet in discussion according to the Moscow edition of Shahnameh:"The king granted all wishes of GivSaid to him O commander of the armyWithout your sword would not be bright crownLet be such sword and May no Brahman be without an idol"Unlike the views of certain commentators and Shahnameh scholars, Giv the warrior has praised Kay Khosrow like other warriors, and based on some presented evidence the commander of the army in the first couplet is Kay Khosrow.

Homay Nameh is a barely known heroic epic belonging to about sixth or seventh century in Persian Literature whose anonymous composer makes it worthy of analysis. This research is based on the methods put forward by the prominent structuralists such as Vladimir Prop, Arthur Asa Berger and Paul Ricoeur in the domain of morphology of stories, folk, mythic and epic tales. The outcome of the analysis shows that the story is composed of a general framework encompassing the starting point, events arising from shortcomings and evil doings and a happy ending for the hero. The morphological analysis of Homay Nameh can be embarked upon on the basis of significant elements such as character, motivation, function, movement, and repetition in order to follow the sequence of actions in this epic. The seven multifaceted characters in the story is reminiscent of characters in Prop's theory with one difference that in place of "false hero" the character of "hero's successor" is present.The number of main functional titles considering the repetition is eighty three. It must be emphasized that some functions in comparison with Prop's theory are new and some similar titles present novel concepts. The functions of "war" and "victory" are among the most repetitive elements of the story and from the movement point of view the story makes use of the combination of three manners of story movements and that of movement pattern proposed by Berger. Once the structure of a heroic epic, in particular epic romance found, one can seek the format in other similar works.

Ali Nameh is an epic religious poetry composed by an unknown poet whose pseudonym is Rabi in the fifth century AH, in imitation of Shahnameh Ferdowsi and its subject matter revolves around the virtues and battles of Ali ibn Abi Talib. One feature of epic poetry is emphasis upon some images and scienes which tends to incline the atmosphere of the poem more towards epic. This emphasis manifests itself at times by "repetition" of the basic structure of poetry which leads to highlight the imagery. This element of repetition contributes significantly in influencing the reader by the linguistic effect of the work. This research first puts forward the aesthetic aspects of "repetition", then inspects the structural elements of poetry and finally provides examples for each element. The most recurrent element of repetition include word, phoneme, hemistich, sentence, compound words, theme, line, and syllable.