TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF PERSIAN LITERATURE (RESEARCHES ON PERSIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE)
Year:2018 | Volume:54 (NEW VOL 10) | Issue:2 (38) |Papers Count:10

Shabdiz and Golgon, two beautiful horses of Khosrow Parviz’s court, have been the subject of many historians, especially Shabdiz, that according to some historical sources, was one of the wonders of the court of Khosrow Parviz. The fame and glory of this historic horse brought it into the world of myths as far as many Persian literary works came out and many poets used it to create unique works. Since the name of Shabdiz is linked to night and darkness, it is a beautiful theme for the poet's imagination to fly in the night sky; however, the poet's imagination was not limited to the night sky, but the sky of the day, with its companionship, Golgon, was seized by him. Nizami is one of the most talented poets in the field, which illustrates the story of these two beautiful horses in the style of Myth-Lyric. The symbolic birth of Shabdiz's birth is somewhat reminiscent of the birth of the Mithras from the Stone and a marker of the new processing of the ancient myths, which undoubtedly derives from the past ritual beliefs in the drawing of day and night as a horse; it is possible that Nizami depicted Shabdiz and Golgon to associate them with Mithras and Bahram and as the symbols of day and night. Golgon symbolizes the day and the brightness of the god Bahram, and his counterpart, Shabdiz, is the night sky, and is a symbol of Mithras, the god of the night, as if they are a concept of time in a hall of symbols and similes. The magic of the Nizami’s word, with the preservation of the historical and structural framework of narrative, has tied the story of these two horses to the ancient beliefs, rituals and mythologies, so that the names of these two always shine in Persian literature.

Written manuscripts, due to their importance and roles in the history, should be analyzed in terms of different aspects. The first step is to introduce and to edit these works. Muhammad ibn Abdul-razzaq-e-Donboli is among the literary scholars and commentators in the thirteenth century. He has several works and one of them is the interpretation of the Holy Quran in Persian. His written manuscripts are in different libraries across Iran but have not been introduced yet. The work belong to this interpreter show that he possessed a high scientific position. This study, by presenting documents about his life, aims at introducing his interpretation of a written manuscript from content, stylistics, and interpretive aspects. He wrote this interpretation with the aim of obviating the need for the readers to refer to other interpretations. The interpretation is written in a plain and clear scientific language, but at times the author focuses on verbal and spiritual figures of speech. The quantity of this work is an important aspect which consists of almost one-third of the entire of the Holy Quran. Another important aspect of the book is that it is written in Persian and its author is a Twelver Shia. A critical analysis of this work could shed light on different aspects of Persian literature and on a better understanding of the development of Persian interpretations, especially Shiites interpretations, of the Holy Quran.

The notes of Shahnameh are one of the most complete and comprehensive descriptions of Shahnameh which Jalal Khaleghi Motlagh has tried in an admired manner in his masterpiece to represent the necessary information about the interpretation of couplets, the explanation and etymology of some words, referring to reasons of originality of some prescriptions, analysis of the sequence lines, referring to grammar and rhetorical and aesthetic aspects, and explaining the deep structure of the mythical ritual of some couplets. In this essay, after analyzing of some couplets of Shahnameh that edited by Jalal Khaleghi Motlagh, and referring to the notes of Shahnameh and other related sources, it became clear that in some cases, there are ambiguities in the description of the couplets, either due to insufficient attention to the texture of the text or the incorrect or confusing recording of a word or phrase in a couplet. In some cases, though, the view of Khaleghi Motlagh about one couplet is correct, but the other meanings about the couplet is possible.

Discourse analysis is derived from the modern fields of linguistics and tries to reveal the relationships and emotions behind the words and inside the text. This idea which has been directly influenced by Michel Foucault, deals with topics beyond the sentence, such as semantic connection, grammar, speech acts, context, frequency of acts, and kinds of sentences. The present study tries to prove that all of the propositions in discourse analysis originating from the West exist in Persian semantics as well. Therefore, love letters of four lyrical poems have been reviewed based on discourse analysis method, and then adjusted to topics of rhetoric. Grammar's style of sentences and speech acts of love letters in all four poems are directly related to semantic connection and situational context of the sentences. Also, by changing the texture, grammar style of sentences and speech acts alter as well. Then again, by the implementation of the actions and grammar's style with verbal actions are used in love letters based on how the audience is influenced.

Persian biographies are among the main sources in the history of literature. The movement of writing biographies was accelerated during Qajar era and on the verge of the Constitutional Revolution. Like other proses, the critique entered into the writing of this period, and it took the form of ironical or humorous biographies. Similar examples were also written for these critical-pleasantry works. One of the followers of this new approach was Mohammad Kazem Tabrizi (known as Asrar Ali Shah). He wrote his biography book in regard to the superficial and indiscreet thinking of the public with a humorous tone and full of anecdotes, and called it Behjatoshoara or Romouz Nojaba. Among various types of biographies, writing a biography like this full of worthless poems and unconditional praises show that the author had a special motive. But this issue has not been investigated by the researchers. This lack of clarification regarding the writer's motivation has led to some falsifications and judgments about the work and its author. In this study, Asrar Ali Shah's Behjatoshoara and his motivation to write it is investigated. Also, Hadiqatoshoara is introduced and its relationship with Behjatoshoara is clarified.

The writing of mystical texts in Persian literature started from the second half of the fifth century. Although a good deal of this kind of interpretation of Quranic verses and sayings come sporadically, but, in the meantime, the first mystical interpretation of Quranic verses, and prophetic sayings on Persian mystical literature are not well known. According to the documents which had been handed down to us, it seems from the sixth century that traditional Persian interpretations of some philosophers and mystics have grown substantially due to their mystical worldview and with an emphasis on Quranic verses that prophetic traditions have attempted to interpret them. Among the rare samples in this area which are available to us are two treatises on the interpretation of verses and hadiths that have been written separately and independently and are presented in the writings of Salim Agha and Süleymaniye Library. One of these treatises was corrected by Forouzanfar under the title of "Interpretation of Sura Muhammad and al-Fatah" as a single manuscript, but the other treatise regarding the translation and interpretation of hadiths has still remain unknown. This paper analyzes the formation and historical development of Persian mystical interpretations of the Quran and sayings of the Prophet's mystical interpretation and describes one of the oldest examples that we have discussed.

The subject of the present paper is to investigate the Dah Majles written by Asfazari. This work belongs the ninth century AH, and is part of the Persian and educational prose. The book is spelled out orally in ten sections by the mystical followers and is written by disciples and enthusiasts. In this article, the author has tried to introduce this valuable work of Timurid period by using a descriptive-analytical method of the content to examine the structure and textology of this work from speech viewpoint and to reveal its stylistic features. The most important finding of the research is the outstanding mystical aspect of the work. In addition, the speaker in many cases has brought Quranic verses and many hadiths and tried to explain these issues. Bringing religious and mystical stories, beautiful poetry and austere speech have also attracted the attention of the book's prose. Simplicity and observance of the present requirement have always been of great importance to Asfazari. All these have made this book one of the important works of mystical prose.

One of the important elements in the narrative is "dialogue". Basically, the story of creation happens after the creation of the dialogue and the best possible interpretations could be made through the narrative element. Considering the importance of this element in the analysis of literature, it has been the focus of attention in new theories in linguistics, especially semantics. Pragmatic theory is one of the important branches in the area of semantics which organizes the narrative discourse through text sayings. Speech can be achieved through the work of secondary meanings text. Ferdowsi's Shahnameh is one of the most prominent narrative works of Persian literature that, due to the dramatic aspect of its story, focuses on the element of dialogue. This article, by considering this approach in literary criticism, first, attempts to investigate the theoretical foundations related to dialogue and its relationship with the pragmatic theory. It, then, presents a categorization of working structures and examines the dialogues presented in the story of Bijan and Manijeh.

Hassan Khan Shamloo is the 17th century poet, author, calligrapher, and the commanders of Khorasan and Herat governor. His family was in the Safavid courtier in military and civil positions. He was culturally inherited his father, Hossein Khan, who was granted the legacy of Farhad Khan Gharamanlou, the art lover commander. Hassan Khan always held some meetings for the scholars, poets and artists. His cultural efforts and the traces left by his order demonstrate the glory and greatness of Hassan Khan’s cultural and literary status. He wrote poetry under the pen name of Hassan; according to Nasrabadi, its Diwan consists of over three thousands verses. Of well-known eloquent followers of Hassan Khan include Behnazem Heravi, Fasihi Heravi, Mirza Malek Sharghi, and Ooji Nazari, etc. They frequently extolled Hassan Khan and displayed its skill and literacy through poetry. There are no detailed researches, excluding Golchin Maani’s study (Future Journal, XVI, 1990), on the literary and cultural status of Hassan Khan and old and recently-found references. The current literature is a common, ordinary copies of Hassan Khan’s life from historical view. The author is revising the Diwan of Hassan Khan Shamloo in addition to trying to identify and introduce the status of Hassan Khan through studying and criticizing Tazkirat (biographies) as well as analyzing old and new resources.

Qari is one of the parodist in Timurid period. Qari, by imitating from Atame, had collected a book, which its basic subject is about clothes. There is not so much information about Qari. The most basic source for knowing him is his book, for this reason, the first step in knowing Qari, is providing a corrected text of it. Furthermore, this literary work has linguistic, literary, historical, and sociological values. Its textual-criticism encountered difficulties which the basic difficulty is the absence of an arranged version from it and another difficulty is the peculiarity of the terms and the compositions in the book. Qari’s-book was corrected twice: by Mirza-Habib and Taher. The textual-criticism of Taher has new findings. But it has some mistakes. In this article, on the basis of inside-text analysis and the techniques of textual-criticism and on the basis of outside text of resources, we have correct some mistakes. By using inside-text analysis we have tried to solve some of these difficulties which are seen in the text. And on this basis we have obtained some findings about Nezam Qari, his life, his literary-status during his day, his social and anthropological information, his language-news and language points in that period. And then on the basis of outside text references and by using from common and technical. Persian, Turkish and Arabic dictionaries, and Hadith source and by investigating in biographies, itineraries, historical source, geographical text, some of the Qarie’s praised, we have identified the some Proper Nouns, too. Furthermore a number of unknown terms and idioms in the field of clothes have been described in detail by getting help of these sources. Being aware of these Proper Nouns and terms cause to resolve some parts of difficulties and ambiguities.