Journal of Comparative Literature
Year:2015 | Volume:6 | Issue:11|Papers Count:25

Poetry is a form of speech which cannot be controlled by any shadckle and thought and it cannot be led in any specific direction. Therefore, it may not be compatible with the demands of religious and moral issues. Whether religion and high art can be gleaned has long been debated widely among Greek, Persian and Arab scholars. Yet, in every period some poets have tried to use their poetry in order to promote and expand their ideology. NaserKhosroQobadiani, the Persian poet in 5th century (lunar calendar) and Komayt-ibn ZeydAssadi, the Arab poet from Kufa in late Umayyad period, areamong poets who used poetry to teach and call people into their ownreligion. Komayt was a Shiite poet and NaserKhosro, after being internally revolutionized, followed Ismaili cult and started to preach in Khorasan. Komayt changed poetry and introduced a new way called 'logical reasoning, rational discussion and debate'. In his collection of poems called 'Hashemiat', while defending the Alawites and the family of the Prophet Mohammad, he chastises the Umayyad dynasty and calls their government illegal. In the same manner, NaserKhosro while defending the Shiite, tries to defend issues such as proving Imam Ali as the true succession of holy Prophet, calling to Islam supporting Fatemi cult, etc. The issue to be noted is that both poets historically and religiously conscious, and using their utilization of reasons and poetry, try to prove their ideas and thoughts; in other words, before they both want to arouse the audience's feelings, they try to persuade them rationally This may have caused their poetry to be less-valued• artistically and literary, than politically and ideologically.

One of the main themes in Risalat al-Tayrs (treatises of the birds) is spiritual knowledge. Of these treatises, Attar's Mantiq-o Tayr (The conference of the Birds) is the flower of Iranian mystical poems. It describes the journey of a flock of birds which pass seven stages to reach Mount Qaaf, the journey at the end of which the birds get a different understanding of themselves after meeting Simurgh (Roc). After the spread of oriental studies in the west and the emergence of orientalists, this poem has been the inspiration for many literary works in the western countries. One of such works is the collection of poems Crow, written by the 19th-century British poet, Ted Hughes, who deliberately chooses Attar's style. The collection resembles Mantiq-o Tayr in the overall structure of events and situations, the choice of birds as the main characters, the use of such themes as journey, quest, self-awareness, mysteriousness, death and rebirth, and the goal of reaching the Creator. However, Ted Hughes' ideas are so different from Attar's pantheistic mysticism that his work more than reflecting oriental mysticism and thoughts, represents the identity and views of modem western people. The present article aims to identify these similarities and differences through a comparative study.

Gayomard is an important character in Iranian mythology that has undergone a lot of changes during history. In pre-Islamic and Post- Islamic sources, Gayomard has been introduced as the first Man and the first king, but the evidences show he is not the first man and king only, but his history goes back to a more ancient period. There is no instance of his name in Gathas, but we can trace some signs of him in it. Indeed, Gayomard is the remainder of a more ancient idea in which the creation has been shaped of a primal monster god and the life begins with it. This belief is observed among most nations, but in Iran because of the disagreement of Zarathustra with old mythology, the idea of the primal beginner of existence has almost been lost, and this idea was replaced by Ahura Mazda, as the creator of all that exists and will come to existence. Using the theory of Max Muller, and the comparison of common mythology, especially Indian mythology, this survey attempts at reconstructing the primal and forgotten figure of Gayomard; then based on Georges Dumezil's theory, it was aimed to determine three functional structure of Gayomard myth as the beginner in Iranian mythology.

Arab's system of prosody was altered by prosody scholars of other lands, and the process of basic combination and compiling made some prosodic and metrical adoption available, especially in Persian Dari poetry. Such adopted meters, then, spread over languages and dialects of territory of New Persian by Persian Dari poetry, particularly got in touch with Divan (court) poetry of Turkish Seljuks. One can detect all these creations in Mulamma' at of Rumi's collected Divan. The rhythm in every language is a phonological matter of that language which is concerned with quantity, tension or stress of sounds and syllables. Now, it is obvious that every single language mixed in Mulamma'at is a subfamily of Semitic, Indo-European, and Altaic languages with different morphological and phonological order. The problem is an inter-lingual dispersion of metrical patterns and prosodic system from Arabic poetry to Persian Dari poetry and then to Seljuk Turkish poetry. This article comparatively studies the prosody in Mulamma'at of Rumi's collected Divan, analyzing meters applied in it from a linguistic point of view. Also, it is examined how the altered prosody of the Persians provided a musical-grammatical combination of poetries of different language families, but forced some metrical-phonological maladjustment in destination languages. Because of the inter-lingual move based on the sacred register and the formal dominance of the first language, socio-linguistic factors must also be taken into account.

As one of the most important concerns of every person committed to his community, social issues have long gained the attention of poets and are considered as the main themes of contemporary poetry. As part of the population, female poets, such as ForoughFarrokhzad's poetry in Persian and Soadal- Sabbah in Arabic poetry, have drawn special attention to the surrounding community, especially women problems. Their primary concerns include issues such as defense of human rights, the fight against patriarchy society, humanity and justice, human and women rights, restoringwomen identity and defending the integrity of women, combating social ravages of discrimination between men and women in patriarchal societies, freedom, etc. Due to the high affinity of the motives and social themes of their poems, this study aims to provide a comparative study of the common issues raised in the two poets, and states that they are of those poets who have felt social pains and have tried to fight the ravages of society.

Death and the world after are one of the most secretive issues that have involved human mind from the past. Man has written down his conception of the world after, and, probably, his religious, moral, political, philosophical, and sociological education about the world after in the form of imaginary travelogues. From ancient India, Greece and Persia to the modern world, fictionaltravelogues have been written in this field. In this article, along with mentioning the history of travel to the world of the dead, it is tried to compare two well-known travelogues, i.e. ErandArdavirafnameh from different aspects that might possibly have affected one another. Perhaps the apparent similarity between the word "er" and the first syllable of the word "Ardavirafnameh" could be evidence to this fact. However, since history of the composing of Ardavirafnameh dates back to the time before and after Plato's life, it cannotsurelybe claimed that each one could have acted as a source for the other. On the other hand, there are fundamental differences between these two works regarding Plato's motivations and political and sociological points of view, and Saint Virafs moral and religious ideas.

Using magical elements is one of the most outstanding characteristics of fantasy fiction. In imaginary fiction and fairy tales magic is used to create an imaginary and supernatural atmosphere. The Arabian Nights includes fantastic stories more than half of which are among fairy tales. Harry Potter stories are a sample of western fictions with magic and magicians as the central part. Generally speaking, the writers of the Arabian Nights share a holistic view. The magic used is traditional including the ordinary elements of cane, mirror and signet. But Harry potter's writer pays attention to details and scrutinizes everything. To keep up with technology she has updated the magical elements in her works. While in Harry potter stories there is, deliberately, no trace of religious thought, in the Arabian Nights, as an Eastern fiction, religion is present in all comers of the stories and itstrengthens the element of magic.

Mutanabi and Nasser Khosroware known as distinguished figures of poetry of wisdom in Persian and Arabic literature. The main result of this study is that issues such as poetic experiences, acquaintance with Iranian and Greek wisdom, and using religious instructions and culture from sources of wisdom are abundant in these two poets, particularly in Mutanabi. As an educated poet acquainted with Arabs literature and culture, Nasser Khosrow hasconsidered Mutanabi's poetry while composing some of his own poems on subjects regarding wisdom. In addition, it is believed in this study that even though there is similarity in some cases between Mutanabi and Nasser Khosrow, this similarity is a coincidence and some part of this wisdom has its root in Islamic and Iranian culture. Based on the principles of French comparative literature, this study compares the similar and different aspects of Nasser Khosrow's poetry with that of Mutanabi. The two main subjects in this study are:1-aprologue on the question of wisdom in Arabic and Persians cultures, and the generalities2-a comparative analysis of wisdom in the poetry of the two poets.

The present paper aims at an analysis and companson of trans- textuality in the plays "Leili and Majnoon" by PariSaberiand "Majnoon and Leili" by Ahmad Shawqi from Arabic literature. To this end, after explaining Gerard Genette's idea of trans-textuality, the authors traced it in each of these works, and showed that of different forms of this theory those of circum-textuality, over-textuality, intertextuality, and ultra-textuality, are found in both plays. Then some differences and similaritiesof the two works are enumerated and it is concluded that, despite their different tastes and individual ideologies, and regarding the conditions of the age, Saberi and Shawqi, based on the same story, have created plays the difference of which in circum-textuality goes back to the genre and their writing styles. In addition, there is obvious difference between the foregrounds of ' Leili and Majnoon" and "Majnoon and Leili" on the one hand, and other fundamental differences in their functions.

Social inequality and Class difference are considered as very important issues of sociology. Persian and Arabic literature writers and critics have paid great attention to these issues in their works of fiction, especially novels, to the extent that these terms have obtained a significant frequency in contemporary literature. Among such novels are "Hamsaye-ha" by Ahmad Mahmud, an Iranian contemporary writer and "Emarat-e Yaqoubian" by Ala al-Aswani, an Egyptian writer. In each of these two works, as representatives of transition periods, the writer has depicted- in the form of the story of some people who live in a building block -the realistic dimensions of social classes caused by social stigmas and cultural conflicts, and has shown the similarities related to class differences among them. Using the framework of comparative analysis, the present study tries to analyze the attitudes of these writers regarding social inequalities in their works.

Parody is an artistic and literary work that imitates the style of another work in such a way as to make it seem ridiculous. Parodists seeks to exploit the style of the original poet or writer to lead the mind of the reader to the first work, then mocks it with a deliberate distortion, decreases and increases in verbal figures and changesin meaning. Parody has a systematically whole structure and with regard to the two-part structure of parody we can distinguish the model for determining its different types. One of the most controversial features of parody is the change of discourse. It means that parody will be created by composing two different contexts and there are some elements from both contexts in the structure of parody. Because of the similarities between Persian and French verse parodies, our proposed structural model can be applied to both. Based on hundred examples of versified Persian and French parodies, this article aims to explore the structure, elements and models of parodies and investigates the features and verbal differences between parody and its original form. Based on this model, this study will identify some types of parody and their frequency.

Comparative literature is a branch of literary history which appeared in France in the early 19th century. In the beginning, it studied the mutual influence of French and other European literatures on one another; however, in the 20th century, it changed into a kind of history of international literary relations. Today, comparative literature generally focuses on how authors from two or more countries are affected by each other. Persian and Urdu languages are among the closest languages of the world. Urdu is a branch of Arian languages and originated from Sanskrit; however, because of flourishing in a Persian environment, it is influenced strongly by it so far as it is called a light ray of Persian poetry. Among the prominent contemporary poets, N. M. Rashed (Nazr Mohammad Rashed) is an excellent poet who is known as "the father of New Urdu Poetry". Since he has added to the theory of New Poetry, and has given new form to his own thoughts and feelings, N. M. Rashed has been entitled "Nima Y oushij of Pakistan". The main concern of this article is the study and comparison of New Poetry and the common subjects of the poetry of N. M. Rashed and NimaYooshij, the theorists of New Poetry in Pakistan and Iran. The influences of Persian language and literature on Rashed will be discussed as well.

ShafieeKadkani (M. Sereshk) and Jibran Khalil Jibran are great romantic poets of Persian and Arab literature whose works abound in novelty and thoughtful ideas, and could be comparatively studied from different angles. A comparative study of nostalgia could, therefore, be an interesting issue. Nostalgia is a feeling of loss for the things one enjoyed before. It includes sorrow of exile or being away from one's homeland, missing the beloved, and regret for losing one's childhood, youth, values, and a mythical past. A comparative study of the theme of nostalgia would reveal a similarity of nostalgic thought in these two poets, and would explain how they suffered from tyranny and desired to found a utopia. This study aims at comparing the theme of nostalgia in the two poets and arriving at a similarity of thought in these two poets.

KhaghaniShervani and BohtoriTaei are among well-known Persian and Arab Poets to whom many researchers have directed their attention from the past. Khaghanischolarsseldom study his Arabic poems because his language is difficult. He namesa number of Arab poets and writers in his poems and letters. Among all Arab poets, Khaghani, poetically, challengesonly Bohtori, and in a long poem borrows poetic form, meter and rhyme from "Ma'lelejaziratva-Sham", an ode by Bohtori. Khaghaniwho demanded novelty in meaning and diction has gone beyond imitation. In his old age, along with composing his own life, Khaghanipraises a guide by the name of Jalal al-Din Khoari, the young Bohtori, and aTaeerulemamedAbou Saeed Saghri. The present study analyzes the above mentioned odes from linguistic and ideological views to show aspects of imitation and innovation in the Arabic poems of this Persian poet.

"The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camos, the western philosopher, is a book with the theme of absurdity; through a metaphysical approach, the author incorporates myth with a philosophical reading, and presents it as a symbol of redundant acts and absurdity. Due to the political and social conditions of contemporary Arab world and Iran, however, most poets take advantage of this myth for their social- political views, by far different from Camos philosophical ideas. The present study aims at exploring themes from the myth of Sisyphus in cases from contemporary Arab and Iranian poets; two questions would be studied therefore:1. In the present time, Sisyphus has lost its philosophical overtones and is mostly read socio-politically2. It has gained positive meaning among poets, connoting resistance, contrary to what was interpreted before, i.e. absurdity.

The main purpose of this study is to analyze Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther" and Nizami's "Leili and Majnoon" and to find their differences and similarities. In the first part of this article, with emphasis on the narrative structure, it is shown that Nizami'sMasnavi of Shahrband-e Ganjeh (About 4700 lines) and Goethe's masterpiece (86 letters) have the same foregrounds in the three extra-textual elements of creation, perfection, and climax, regarding temporal viewpoint; the two authors set the scenes in the same manner and create a non-episodic elegy. In the second part of the study, with regard to these relations and with emphasis on the American school of comparative literature, it is attempted to identify the intertextual cultural forces, and the characterization of the heroes. It could be claimed that mystical love is a main motif for both authors. In addition, culture and cultural prejudices are the main reasons for both writers to create these works.

While creating literary works and new meanings for the text, reception theory grants a special freedom to the reader and the recipient of the text.A literary work is created through the cooperation of the reader or different readers, and the reader not only uses it but also performs the role of creating a work of art. Therefore, depending on the number of readers who read it with their difference in situation and culture, a text may contain different aspects. Considering the point that the connection between Persian and Arab language and literature is apparent for everyone, Persian poets have always attracted the attention of Arab researchers and authors. One of these poets is Hafez, the grand poet of s" century. In the present research, the perception of meaning and aesthetic perception of Hafez's 7th sonnet from the viewpoint of the Syrian author, Mohammad Foratiand the Egyptian author, Salah Savi, have been studied comparatively. The writers of this article, have compared and studied the ups and downs of these two perceptions, and the result shows that the perception of the two authors (Forati and Savi) from Hafez's sonnet vary in most of the verses and meanings, and that in many positions their perception of many words are in contrast with the perception of the writers of this paper. However, the mentioned authors have been more successful in aesthetic perception of Hafez's sonnet than their meaning perception.

The drought myth has been reflected in various forms in Iranian religious and literary works. "Sheikh Mand and Sheikh Rash" is one of the Kurdish folk poems, named "Beyt". This text shows the struggle between good and evil; this study claims that this beyt has a ritualistic and mythical content, and it is an illustration of drought myth. Therefore, after presenting the Persian translation of this Kurdish beyt, the reasons of its being mythical and its relation with drought myth are explained. Later, its elements and characters are compared with one of the important drought myths in Iran (Tiryasht in Avesta). This study shows that there are more than twenty cases of similitudes in form and content between "Sheikh Mand and Sheikh Rash" and "Tiryasht". Also, it was realized that ancient myth patterns have been effective in the formation of "Sheikh Mand and Sheikh Rash".

The present study is a comparative examination of feminism in "I Will Turn the Lights off' by ZoyaPirzad, and "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck. These authors have approached feminism in their stories regarding the elements of story and drawing on their own gender. Their attempt at portraying women in the society includes these stories among those feminist works which only present a picture of women in their societies and refrain from taking a position against those patriarchal societies. Steinbeck makes his female protagonist disregard the patriarchal norms of the society to her abandonment from that society. However, as a woman writer, Pirzad thinks of preserving the relations, and therefore, keeps the heroin far from such destiny, to the extent of rendering a precarious plot. Based on some feminist theories, the present study tries to indicate the similarities and differences of the two stories.

Satirical components rise from living experiences. As a result, a dynamic literarywork mostly relies on a dynamic presentation of grief and sorrows of a society, and on the relationship between literary men and readers. Hence, a poet can be called a satirist who writes out of his experience of inequalities, abnormalities, and lack of justice in the society. Abul-Shamaghmaghin Arabic classic literature and ObeydZakani in Persian classic literature have illustrated the miseries of people's life in order to correct their societies. Despite their geographical and periodical differences, they have equally cultural and social conditions which make their poetry to have many common aspects. Satire in their poetry works, firstly, for the elimination of social suffering and, secondly, for the criticism of the government. This article, through an analytical-descriptive method, examines the similarities and discrepancies of social satire in the twopoets.

Uncanny Literature has been introduced in the realm of literary criticism and literary genres. TzvetanTodorov studied and defined it in the book "Introduction a la literature fantastique" (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre). Throughout the novel, the reader confronts events that seem unrealistic to him; however, as he moves forward, he comes to an understanding and, with the help of rational and logical justification, considers those incidents as natural. The works of writers such as Ahmad Mahmoud and Ghadat al- Samanfall into the category of uncanny literature. This study analyzes the content and structure of the novels "Derakht-e Anjir-e Maabed", written by Ahmad Mahmoud,and "Kavabis-e Beirut"written by Ghadat al-Saman, from the view of uncanny literature. In order for the analysis, elements and techniques of the two stories are examined. Among these elements and techniques, character description, point of view, and focalization reveal doubt in character. Stream of consciousness, theme, association of meanings, and contrast give the reader thechance to discover the hesitation of character and text. Another point is that, each element and technique either causes hesitation or is a results of it.