TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF PERSIAN LITERATURE (RESEARCHES ON PERSIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE)
Year:2018 | Volume:53 (NEW VOL 9) | Issue:4 (36) |Papers Count:8

Understanding the style and language of any work will help to realize the content and its matter; especially when it is a mystical and literary text. In these texts, the language somehow goes out of its standard shape and original structure. Ma’aref, the only work of Bahá' u' llad, expresses the results of the writer's spiritual and mystical conditions. The author depicts his mysticism and worldview with a special language and a specific statement. That’s why it is the text which is undoubtedly among the category of literary texts and it can be examined on the basis of layer stylistic pattern (phonetic, lexical, syntactic, rhetorical, and ideological layers). This article studies the syntax and syntactic features of Ma’aref with a stylistic view and analyzes and explains its syntactic and grammatical features by analyzing the syntax layer of this work. This study reveals how much the linguistic and syntactic structure of Ma’aref has been influenced by the way of oral speech and the language of face-to-face interaction. It is also showed that the mystical content of the text and the preacher's narration has affected the syntactic structure of the word.

Intellectual and theoretical similarities always have been noteworthy subjects among great thinkers. Enthusiasts of this field, via using comparative analysis, have tried to reveal important impacts in history of human thought. In the present study, we have discussed the recognition of Plato’s thoughts and ideas in Chapter Four of Marzban-nameh and have tried to present the overview via using content analysis and an inductive method, and relying on the library and documentary studies. Providing the evidence from Chapter Four of Marzban-nameh, we have revealed similarities in the thoughts of the author of the book with Plato. An important point is that we should become acquainted with intellectual origins of the authors of these works for achieving a more detailed understanding of great works in the literature. A detailed readout of Chapter Four of Marzban-nameh shows that the author, perhaps like Plato, believes that there is only one true benchmark that can test everything and it is knowledge; only wisdom can save us from engaging to invalid, worldly world and from being deceived by the illusion. This kind of research, in addition to providing the possibility of a more accurate understanding of valuable literary works, can be a setting for the exchanging of helpful ideas among Persian literature and philosophy researchers.

Wisdom is the foundation of the universe in Iranian thought and includes all the material and spiritual aspects of human being. Rationalism in advice texts, Which are reflects of the ancient Zoroastrian believes, has a wide reflection; specially in sixth Dinkard, which is the most comprehensive Pahlavi advise text. In Ferdowsi's Shahnameh which is inherited from thoughts and deep thinking of pre-Islam era, wisdom is one of the fundamental concepts, it is represented by various functions. In this article, the authors have used a comparison and content analysis method to review the concept and status of wisdom and rationalism in advices of Sixth Dinkard and Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. The results of this research show that the concept of wisdom has notable similarities in these two books; in the sixth Dinkard, wisdom in addition to its original meaning which is the means of understanding, is part of a comprehensive religious system of Ohrmazd, which God created and maintained the world through ito, all the goodness and badness are compared according to it. This view towards the concept of wisdom is quite obvious in Shahnameh. Some advice of the sixth Dinkard and shahnameh regarding this concept (i.e. wisdom) are similar not only in terms of meaning, but also in terms of the manner of expression and imagery such as simile and allegory. A remarkable point is that, there is no evidence about some similarities of sixth Dinkard and Shahnameh in other Pahlavi texts; For example, in the sixth Dinkard, the beautiful allegory of land and water is used for explaining the relationship between wisdom and knowledge. A similar point could be observed in Shahnameh which is the reason of direct influence of sixth Dinkard on Shahnameh or joint references of these two books.

There are various facts and events in the universe that go beyond human understanding, and people do not have the abilities and tools to understand them; therefore, they use an innovative tool called the symbol to describe them. Symbols are diverse in all aspects of human life, especially in literature, art, culture and human beliefs. The use of the animal symbolism in past works has become more prevalent than other symbols. ‘Tarabol Majales’ is one of the books in which its author used animal symbolism in the form of the debate. To better interpret and understand the text, first of all, the symbols of this work must be recognized and decoded. For this purpose, animals represented in this work were examined and extracted, and then, using other allegorical and symbolic works and samples used in them, the codified roles of these animals and their symbolic expressions were expressed to readers. This research shows that the author of this work, using the common symbols of Persian literature and a mysterious style, has created an abstract and rational thinking in the mind of the audience. By this method, the author of this work has developed moral, mystical, philosophical, religious, mythological, and folk concepts in the mind of the audience.

Nature with its awesome powers was so overwhelming to humankind that he, by every look round, saw a shape of magic or mystique. First communities, for safer habitation, used to took their fears for sacred, henceforth initiated totemic beliefs in similar circumstances. In Totemists' mind, the plants and animals grown for food supply and a class of which was imagined to bear the soul of ancestors, this way guarding the tribe and saving the people, and to deserve special values. Therefore, the current paper aimed at exploring Totemism and its picture in the epics composed after Shahnama. Following the totemic beliefs in the epics, we found a variety of sacred animals such as cows, horses, and the Simurgh, along with the manifestation of worship of plants and trees, as well as some totemic plants with mythologies on human genesis from the plant and the healing attributes of herbs and trees; all of which pinpoint totemism featuring in ancient Persian beliefs and myths, thus explaining social taboos against killing and eating totemic things.

Applying discourse analysis as the research method, this paper analyzes Shirin’s characterization and its change in two different stories (Shahnameh, and Khosrow and Shirin) in order to show how the lingual and meta-lingual (social, political, cultural and historical status) factors besides the ideology of the authors (Ferdowsi and Nezami) have influenced the representation of her character. Furthermore, this paper focuses on the change of political and cultural discourse from the period of Samanids to the Seljuks and the alternation of the views towards women -Ferdowsi’s misogynist views in contrast to Nezami’s philogynist views- as the other possible factor which have influenced Shirin’s characterization. According to this paper, Shirin’s image in Shahnameh is simultaneously negative and positive which is the result of class ideology plus power relations which have dominated Ferdowsi’s text, while in Khosrow and Shirin, the character of Shirin changes because of the change of genre and Nezami’s ideological involvement with this especial character of his story. Accordingly, in Nezami’s version, Shirin is not a Roman slave but an Armenian princess.

Khaqani, the renowned and great poet of sixth century (AH) is truly one of the most brilliant figures of the Persian literature that is known for having the difficult and onerous poetry. Of course, what that has wrapped Khaqani’s poetry is not only his own poetic language and utilization of various forms of new combinations and creations of neoteric contents and using sciences of own period and obligation to heeding literal and inward of poetic arts and far-fetched similes and metaphors and allusions and etc.; because a large part of the difficulty of his poetry is related to incorrect texts of his Divan. In this short article, it has been tried to review and to evaluate distortions of one of Khaqani’s sensational odes (Qasidah) that called as ‘Nohzat ul Arvah and Nozhat ul Ashbah’ written in his second traveling to Hajj whose the poet has described in it passion and senses of pilgrims and has accounted habitations of traveling from Baghdad to Mecca.Some of these distortions and falsifications is related to neglecting stylistic features and some of them can be corrected by Geographic and medical and legal books, etc.

"Esrailiat" is a term that Islamic scholars attribute to believes and superstitious stories from the side of scholars since the fist Hejira century, that developed among muslems. These ersatz legends influenced some of interpreters and chroniclers like, Tabari, Yaqubi, Ebn Asir and so on. while poets and writers of persian literature accustomed to Historical and interpretive texts and influenced by these legends and forged narratives and unwantedly played basic roles in propagating Israelite as interpreters and historians unfortunately, the main part of this legends to prophets life. One of the most effective famous person in developing "Esrailiat" is vahab ben Monabah that most of his stories and legends are about prophets which enemata from Jewish and Christian sources, have much reflect on Persian prose and verse including Erfanic texts. The writer is looking for to figure out do back such an insults by expressing the root and the main origin of this legends from holy threshold of prophets.