Journal of Poetry Studies (Boostan Adab)
Year:2011 | Volume:3 | Issue:1 (7)|Papers Count:18

Scroll is a collection of written prose reckoned as the original source for naqqâls (narrators). Narrative boundaries of scrolls range from the era of Kayumarth to the end of the reign of Bahman, Homây or Dârâb. To prepare the scrolls, the old naqqâls, besides using Shaahnaameh, made use of heroic poems composed after Shaahnaameh, historical sources, older scrolls as well as their own imagination. These scrolls and their lengthy tales are characterized by some structural and thematic features, the most important of which are as follows: 1. Creation of new stories and distorting the tales of the old sources; 2. Employing the tales of Shaahnaameh, heroic-epic stories, and historical sources for creating new stories; 3. Remedying the defects of the Iranian heroic literature and clarifying its fictional ambiguities; 4. Containing Semitic and Islamic elements; 5. Being influenced by the time and the place they were written and narrated; 6. Lack of order in the arrangement of the stories; 7. Rearrangement of the characters and the stories; 8. Lacke of precision, incorrectness, and contradiction in stories; 9. Changthe names in the stories 10; Creation of new characters; 11. Reducing the number of characters; 12. Repetition of the same theme in different tales; 13. Repetition of the same story; 14. Repetition of the same subject in a single story; 15. Creation of etymologies for some names 16. Attribution of the words of Shânâme’s characters to other persons in other stories.

‏‏Survival of an artwork is basically due to how the artist thinks about and views the world, depending on to what extent it can represent the perspective which, while creating a new world, embraces basic issues of human life‏. The present research, comparing the usage of some basic words repeatedly used by Hafez and Khaqani in their poems as well as their artistic approach to nature, as one of the most important elements of beauty, intends to investigate their views about art and existence and, thereby, respond to the question of what has made Hafez’s poems so popular and those of Khaqani obsolete.

Some of the Persian mystical and didactic versified stories contain short stories, which share the same framework. In these stories a king is somehow separated from his companions in the hunting ground and a man from a city or some faraway village weary of the injustice of the government functionary or the governor appears in front of him to plead his case. This plea for justice, usually uttered in a sharp tongue, angers the king at the beginning but finally his conscience pricks him and contemplating upon the injustice uttered by the man, he understands the depth of disturbances and confusions of the government. Such stories, usually idealistic, are accompanied with an auspicious message because the king not only administers justice to the plaintiff and punishes the culprits but also he tries to remedy problems of the country. The spread of such stories in the poetry of the sixth and seventh centuries shows the common concern of the poets of these ages and a cultural attempt in removing the negligence of those in power. This research analyzes the structure, content, and the reasons for writing these stories.

The myths talk to human through a mysterious and complex language expressing very deep and mysterious concepts through their unique language, i.e., symbol. Symbol, in addition to expressing very deep concepts the discovery of which helps us acquire a better understanding of the nature of human, always indicates the contradictions and links in the world of myths, fictions, stories, and epics. The myths symbolically represents the conflict between the light and the darkness, the earth and the sky, the rain and the drought, the sun and the moon as the war between the gods and the devils, the owl and the raven, the snake and the bird, the hero and the dragon, etc. The conflict between the light and the darkness is an example of such clashes considered as the fundamental principles of ancient Iranian culture.In the tale of “the owl and the raven” in Kalilah-va Dimnah, the owl may be the symbol of night and darkness and the moon, while the raven symbolizes the day, the light, and the sun. Hence, the victory of the ravens over the owls symbolizes the victory of Mithraism over Lunar deity.

The present study is a critical analysis of Bijan Najdi’s “The Unfinished Story (A+B)”. It presents the postmodern features of this story in the light of the theories given by critics such as Patricia Waugh, Barry Lewis, Jesse Matz, Ihab Hassan, and David Lodge to shed light on Bijan Najdi’s unique, individual, and progressive style.What encourages this analysis is an observation of a collection of certain postmodern devices which puts this story in the category of the western postmodern fiction of the 1960s and 70s. These devices are metafiction, short circuit, excess, paranoia, discontinuity, and uncertainty.Besides introducing a postmodern story in Persian Literature, in order to pave the way for other critical analyses of the contemporary fiction, this postmodern analysis pays homage to Bijan Najdi. This is because despite all the merits of his works, the lack of a comprehensive analysis of them is still felt.

There are many similarities among various poems composed by Nima Youshij. This characteristic is seen in the works of some other other poets. By composing “Ghoghnoos” in 1316, Nima opened a new era in his poetry. Two of his successful poems (one short and the other long), called “Vay Bar Man” (1318) and “Serivili’s House” were composed in this era. Coordination of the words and the artistic link between the components have strengthened the structure of these two poems. Due to the fundamental similarity between the two poems, “Serivili’s House” is considered to be a re-creation and re-composition of “Vay Bar Man”. In other words, “Vay Bar Man” acts as a bridge to “Serivili’s House”. In the article, instances of these similarities, like similar timing, location, main character and similar behaviours of the characters are explained in detail.

Iranians in ancient times believed in certain aphorisms that they kept handy and used as instructions to enjoy a better life and to overcome their social problems. That is why everyone in old times was required to know and heed such witty statements of wisdom. Each aphorism was rehearsed in a particular day, and they were written on tools and furniture so as to keep them in mind. The variety and the abundance of such aphorisms indicate their popularity and their relevance to the tool or furniture they were written on is indicative of the intelligence of Iranians. The main objective of this paper is investigating the effect of such aphorisms on Persian and Arabic literature. The study, in addition, sets out is to illustrate the great impact of Persian culture and literature on Arabic literature. Regardless of the depth and the scope of such aphorisms and their impact on Persian and Arabic literatures, the majority of Persian literary works just deal with Arabic aphorisms; it will be argued that the balance should be shifted towards Persian aphorisms.

Deviation from collocation rules and disordered syntactic structure in normal and standard language is the common method used by all poets in their poetic language. Syntactic deviation in classical Persian poetry is generally applied to maintain the musical system of poem -that is, observing the metre and the rhyme of the peoms-and, thus, this process is considered as a integral part of “poetics”. Naser Khosrow is one of the poets who has used this technique in order to distinguish his poetic diction; his poetical works are replete with instances of this kind of deviation. Hence, it seems that he has tried to achieve his unique stylistic distinction in his poems through syntactic deviation. In an attempt to explore syntactic deviation in the poems of Naser Khosrow, the present study compared his poems with those of three contemporary poets, namely, Onsori, Farrokhi and Manoochehri. The results indicated that, among 14 instances of syntactic deviation in Naser Khosrow’s poems, as compared to those of the other three poets, 7 cases were considered salient deviations.

Dhekr is of great significance in Islam and Islamic mysticism. One reason for its significance in Islam is the large number of Koranic verses about dhekr and its impacts. The importance of dhekr is strongly emphasized in Islamic mysticism because it is believed that the mystic can go through his covert stages through dhekr. That is why saying dhekr is the first instruction a mystic receives. Dhekr has various stages starting from lingual or overt dhekr, and finally reaches covert or internal dkekr. A kind of covert dkekr considered as the most influential is the theosophic or transcendental dhekr, realized in daily prayers. The present study analyzes in detail covert and overt dhekrs, drawing upon the instructions of great mystics and mystic poets.