TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF PERSIAN LITERATURE (RESEARCHES ON PERSIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE)
Year:2012 | Volume:48 | Issue:1 (13)|Papers Count:9

Mystical mood is counted as one of the important and elaborative topics of Islamic Gnosticism and Sufism. In his demeanor, the seeker has to purify the self from whims to achieve excellence. Accordingly achieving mystical levels causes refinement of the inside and as a result he would gain enough preparation and competence to receive mystical mood. "Adjacency" is one of the most important mystical moods that in addition to its high position in glorious Quran, has a high importance and value in Gnostics’ works, to such an extent that a few number of poets and writers can be found that haven't used mystical mood, especially the adjacency. Although some writers have not considered this directly, in most of the texts written till the end of sixth Hijri century, its fundamental axes that are “pre-annihilation adjacency and post-annihilation adjacency” have been mentioned.In this article, through the study of existing Persian and Arabic mystical books till the end of sixth Hijri century, different dimensions and definitions of adjacency and a comprehensive analysis of mystical journey are provided which have a significant role in the analysis and explanation of mystical literature.

One Thousand and One Nights is one of the multinational literary works in which women have an obvious active presence. The protagonist is an astute and shrewd woman whose wise stories lead despotic king to a state of self-consciousness. Shahrzad’s storytelling in thousand and one nights and comparison of the themes of the stories via their morphological and constituting components show that she has tactfully stepped in rescuing her female compatriots and performing this humanitarian task. Studying the stories according to the correlation between their components has remarkably assisted the perception of Shahrzad’s storytelling dexterity. This study shows that the procedure in “1001 nights” stories is the repetition of two episodes in the entry which is the story of Shahriar and his brother Shahzaman. This projection takes a gradual development in a way that in some stories women’s betrayal is reflected (including Shahriar and Shahzaman’s traitor wives) and in other stories storytelling is done by one of the  characters to save the lives of others (such as Sahrzad’s storytelling). Women’s being in action is depicted by Shahrzad and other narrators as powerful, cunning and magical characters which makes a skilful proportion in storytelling and brings a gradual rise in the status of women after 1001 nights. Even at the end of the stories and in her short speech with Shahriar, Shahrzad intelligently adopts a treatment behavior which exactly conforms to the principles of psychology.

Transactional analysis is a theory for recognizing people's behavior, feeling, and subjectivity in the context of characters' relations in which an image of humans' psychological structure is offered and the triple pattern of carnal states, that is, parent, adult, and child is used for human behaviors analysis.In this article, components such as triple dimensions of the structure of character, chain of relations among characters, defensive mechanism which an individual uses for being away from behavioral and psychological tensions are analyzed through generalization to fictional community in Shir-va-Gav (lion and cow) story, one of Kelile-va-Demne stories. This article elucidates how characters of this story behave in different situations, how they reveal their personality in the form of their behaviors and which mental and psychic tensions can be considered as the source of their behaviors.The purpose of this study is to propose a behavioral typology of characters of Shir-va-Gav story and analyze them based on Eric Bern's pattern in order to figure out characters' mental and psychological characteristics.The results of the analysis of the components of transactional analysis in Shir-va-Gav story show that the characters' relations have continuity, and among triple aspects of the character's structure, Kelile’s, Demne’s, and Shir's behaviors are assessable in the form of adult, parent, and child, respectively. Transactions among characters are of complementary kind in the beginning but throughout the story they turn into interaction of crossed kind and cause disorder in behavior.

Homay is a well-known osprey which belongs to predator group. Popularity of this bird in Persian literature is because of its mythological position, as the shadow of this bird over the head of everyone brings him happiness and even makes him king. In ornithology, this bird is placed in Vulture family.Homa (Homia, Hooma or Homaie or Homiay) in Avesta means happy. In Shahnameh, there is a reference to “Homay peykar” (Homay body) awl. Also in Avesta, there is a reference to a bird called Warghan, which splendor was separated from Jamshid's body in the form of this bird. Some called Warghan as Symorgh or royal falcon and some, following Professor F. Wolf, called it falcon. Dr. Moien stated that Warghan is one of Homay’s meanings. Warghan bird is mistaken by Symorgh, but in fact Warghan is modern Homay. Although Homay is a famous bird there are scarce writings about it so that in 7 volumes of articles indexd by Iraj Afshar, which include 1908-1998, there is no article about it. This holds true in Iranica Encyclopedia, too. Thus we can say that this is the first article about Homay in Persian language.

Recognizing symbols of Shahnameh requires an understanding of the context and condition of creation and emergence of symbol, myth and epic. Symbol has a relationship with consciousness and unconsciousness of man and constitutes the language of mythologies, legends, and epics.  Thus the language of mythological and epic works is symbolic. The main theme in Iranian mythologies is the dual nature of creation, and during the passage from myth to epic the conflict between the two forces of good and evil appear in various aspects of existence. Some characters that represent symbolic and coded concepts more than other elements can be considered as symbols of the evolution of gods to kings and against them there are devilish kings as symbols of drought (Apush). The other symbolic elements analyzed in this study are: epic-romance stories, imaginary creatures, symbolic dreams of kings and heroes, symbolic numbers, symbolic patterns of flags, the symbolism of water, fire and charisma The findings of the study illustrate that people, more than other elements, are the constitutive elements of mythological symbols, and the tension between these human elements depicts the mutual conflict between good and evil in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Like other elements, symbolic characters (especially kings) are of symbolic value and constitute a part of constructing elements of mythological symbols in Shahname. Moreover their reputation is dependent on the extent of their benefit from “God charisma“ as the most pivotal element of their personality. Kings like Afrasiab and Zahak, due to lack of it, are the most disreputable kings. On the other hand, Fereidoon and Kaikhosro are on the top of the most reputable kings because of continuous benefit from that. This study has been conducted on the basis of library resources and has applied a descriptive-analytic method.

Color is considered as a key element in fields such as painting and architecture. In Iranian poetry color is also of high importance. Having wide range of artistic words and also high poetic talent the poet depicts wonderful and imaginative pictures and decorates them with colorful elements of nature.Old age and Youth are examples of concepts which have been the focus of many poets’ attention and Nezami in particular. These concepts have been beautifully depicted in Nezami’s poems through the color element. The poet has beautifully depicted the young and old generation’s appearance characteristics using his poetic talent and colorful elements of nature. On one hand, white, black and red are examples of the colors used to describe young generation directly or indirectly. On the other hand, old age is described with respect to yellow and white colors. Nezami’s description of youth and old age is well elaborated in this research with aims at analyzing these concepts with regard to the element of color.

Sakai ancient tribe has a fundamental role in the development of ancient history and myths of different nations, including Greeks, Iranians, Indians and Chinese. These invading and nomadic tribes in the beginning of the Aryan history, like other Aryan tribes, scattered in the east and west and south of residential world and though they were in an endless conflict with their neighbors they were finally overturned among them and   only a name of Sakai remained in history. Due to the nature of wilderness, the research resources about their cultural affair are limited to their tombs of Kings and scattered references in chronicles of their neighbors. Study and research about the Sakais folk manner and their distribution indicates a common origin for Sakai tribes and the family of Zal and Rostam in Shahnameh, although the word of "Sagzi" is the only verbal evidence of link between family of Rostam and Sakai tribe. Furthermore some of their customs and life styles may be found in some stories of   Shahnameh. Moreover, there are evidences of Soghdian documents discovered in China which imply that the Soghdians had a mediating role in the transmission of Sakais myths to the Iranian national epic.

Complex puzzle of existence, life and death, being and non-being always makes the human being to think and astound thoughtful people. Khayyam, the philosopher and poet of 5th Hijri century, is one of these thoughtful people that this puzzle of life and death made him to think about the world. Sometimes this mystery led him to pessimism and as a result he invited people to carpe diem and being happy for gaining more pleasure from this transient world. Tarafe Ibn Abd, the famous poet of Arabic literature, also shows that everyone should use the world opportunity and benefits from the world and this matter is the main point of his poetry; poems similar to Khayyam’s thoughts. There is a difference between their poems. The difference is that Tarafeh can’t tell us about the real meaning of life and he believes that death is the end of human life and invites people to use the opportunity of life. This research wants to compare the two poets and analyze Khayyam’s point of view about carpe diem.