Journal of Comparative Literature
Year:2017 | Volume:9 | Issue:16 |Papers Count:13

''Contrastive Literature'' is an efficient way to study similarities of literary works from different cultures of the world. ''Violence against Women'' is one of the main keywords of ''feminism'' which shows ''gender'' is the reason of all cruelties against women in different societies. Violence against women, which is being controlled directly or indirectly by men, occurs in two aspects: general and private. In this study the theme of violence against women is studied and analyzed in two novels, i. e. “ Daughter of Dust” and “ Koli Kenar-e Atash” : ''physical-psychological violence'', ''sexual-psychological violence'', ''psychological violence'', and ''economic violence''. The main reason for the persistence of this violence is keeping silence, assent, and absence of protest against violence.

In this study, the concept of love reviewed in the sonnets of Hafiz Shirazi and Malla Jaziri, firstly, to investigate the pervasiveness of Hafiz’ s thoughts in Kurmanji literature, especially in the sonnets of Malla Jaziri, and then, to introduce the personality of Malla and to analyze the degree of his being influenced by Hafiz in the question of love. A brief explanation is provided regarding Kurmanji dialect, the personality of Hafiz and Malla, and the history of love in the Kurmanji and Persian literature; then, issues related to the theme of love are extracted from the poetry of these two poets, compared and defined with examples from Malla and Hafiz. The main structure of the study relies on three axes: nature of love, difficulties of love, and necessities of a love journey. In the sonnets of these poets, first, the nature and characteristics of love are described, then, the hardships in the way of love are depicted, and in the end, necessities are named for leaving difficulties behind and uniting with the beloved. Generally, following of Hafiz, Malla considers love as the origin of existence and an eternal gift; this love is a journey laden with danger and hardship, few people deserving to know about; also, the journey requires following an elderly guide and sacrificing one’ s life.

Molana Fakhredin Ali Safi, an author of the 10th century AH, has created many works including the valuable book “ Lata’ ef-o-Tava’ ef” , which is a collection of satirical tales about different social groups and classes, decorated with Quranic verses, hadith from the Prophet Mohammad and the Imams, and Arabic proverbs. This study examined the 867 tales, stories, and proverbs of the book, and found the origin of 399 of them in Arabic sources; 222 cases were traced into Persian sources before them. “ Lata’ ef-o-Tava’ ef” takes advantage of Arabic sources like “ Rabi-ol-Abrar” , “ Tazkereh Hamdouniyeh” , and “ Mohazerat-ol-Odaba” . He uses different methods like zero-alteration, semi-alteration, tale sequence, and translation. He has also used Persian sources such as “ Resaleh Delgosha” , “ Javame-ol Hekayaat va Lavame-o Revayaat’ , “ Baharestan” , … .

Abdul Wahab Bayati, Iraqi contemporary poet, and Iraj Mirza, Iranian poet of the Constitutionalism, lived in a society drowned in poverty and desperation, and with people suffering from lack of security, governors' oppression, inefficiency in management, and inattention to people's circumstances. The two poets, having common social concerns, employed their poems to express people's pains and sufferings and focused on the problem of poverty in society and its consequences. Pointing to the causes of poverty and its manifestations, they spoke of the ways of confronting and eradicating it. In this paper, using the content analysis method, we tried to study comparatively the phenomenon of poverty and its most important causes and manifestations in A. Bayati and I. Mirza's poetry. Studying their poetry in this respect shows that the two poets considered governors and lack of social awareness as causes of poverty, and workers, farmers, orphans, and wanderers as its manifestations in the society; also, they invited people to struggle against oppressors, and asked governors to change conditions in order to eradicate poverty.

Shared poetry structure, theosophy, naturalism and themes in the works of Sohrab Sepehri and Saint John Perse, the French poet of early 20th century, is so frequent that renders the comparative analysis of the two poets’ works possible. Distancing themselves from urban environment, both sought refuge to the eastern theosophy and nature to pacify their soles. In poems of Sepehri, this theosophy approaches the Islamic and Iranian theosophy, and in the works of Saint John Perse, it follows the Philosophy of Spinoza. In this study, it is tried to compare the works of the two poets from the view of French and American schools of comparative literature. This kind of comparative analysis can explain the reasons why the two poets distanced themselves from society and socio-political events.

“ Sword and Pen” is among the fanciful debates that have attracted critics’ attentions. Sword and pen are considered as important symbols in the formation of all governments. ‘ Sword’ symbolizes warriors and the military, while ‘ pen’ symbolizes intellectuals and the elite. This study deals with a structural and content analysis of the debates between the sword and the pen, in Persian and Arabic, how writers join and leave the debates, the elements used in such debates, and their similarities and differences. In addition to exaltation and showing their authorial skills, writers of such debates intended to teach religious, moral, historical, and scientific lessons. The pen usually triggers the debate in Persian, whereas in Arabic, it is the sword that often starts a debate and this feature has a historical reason. Debates resolve peacefully, and due to the influence of Islam both on Persian and Arabic writers, verses from Qur’ an are frequently cited.

Some literary glossaries define dream allegory as a narrative allegory, bring the first part of “ Roman de la Rose” (13th A. D) as its most famous examples in the Middle ages, and disregard the older ones. The relationship between “ Divine Comedy” , another allegory in the Middle Ages, with its older and oriental counterparts, casts doubts upon the theory that introduces “ Roman de la Rose” as the prototype allegory, and brought about arguments as to the ancient origin of this literary genre. With a broader look into the structure of the known dream works older than “ Roman de la Rose” , this study tries to proof that the theory of literary glossaries about the oldest example of dream allegory needs modifications, and in the second step, it is tried to show that proposing a single origin for this genre of narration does not lead to a bright conclusion; More than being pure imitation of other civilizations, dream allegory reflects man’ s concept of mind regarding the after world. The old, outstanding dream allegories are among classic texts recreated in later texts; by analyzing the structure of this type of narration it will be possible to reach the structure of dream allegory as a genre.

Charles Baudelaire and Nima Yushij were two of the most renowned modern poets who played a significant role in the development of modern poetry of their era. The main assumption of the present study is that there is a rule-governed relationship between the thoughts and the works of these two modern poets. The main point is to investigate the common ground of thought in Charles Baudelaire and Nima Yushij who have played a significant role in deepening our understanding of modernity and modern age with their innovations. In spite of some differences between these two poets and their contemporaries, with the advent of modernity as a novel phenomenon in a certain stage of human thought development, and in an era when human was in need of understating social development, they were able to be synchronous with the development of the modern literature and depict their social modernity in their poetry by putting aside some of the rules of traditional poetry and observing the true nature of the world around them. In this study, the researchers aimed at investigating the important role of modernity in the development of traditional poetry.

Relying on Yung’ s theories of collective unconscious, and in the framework of American school of comparative literature, this study is an attempt to compare sun and flight as symbols in different versions of the myth of Icarus in English poetry, with Persian mystical poetry. The authors argue that the Sun and the act of flying in both lyrics are symbolic referrals used by these poets. The findings demonstrate that Icarus is very similar to the lovers described in mystical poetry. He relies on love to reach the sun and thus forgets his body and soul. Although Icarus dies at the end, his death is a new life. In fact, Icarus’ s flying toward the sun, like the flying in mystical poetry is an ascent toward the land of immortality, and his achieving the truth reminds us of the union with the beloved that great theosophists like Attar described in their poetry.

Comparative study helps investigate the grounds for creation, impression, similarities, and differences of works such as Homer’ s Odyssey and Asadi Tousi’ s Garshasb Nameh. It tries to find and evaluate human approaches in literary works such as epic, and to identify their intellectual themes, collective unconsciousness. Based on the American school of comparative literature, and regardless of the issue of impression, this study tries to compare the above mentioned works with regard to their similarities and differences in the light of their common Indo-European background. The study compares Homer’ s Odyssey and Asadi Tousi’ s Garshasb Nameh on the three narrative, contextual, and literary bases. Despite their similar narrative elements in plot, character consistency, trust in destiny, etc., there are also many thematic similarities regarding supernatural elements like crossing the seas, defeat by the Fate, death, the after-world, dream, struggles between opposing forces, and magic. From literary aspect, description is very outstanding in both works. The similarities arise from common mythical-heroic spirit of the two nations who have fought for their establishment. Messages and religious discourse are different in these works, but emphasis on marriage as a commitment makes Odyssey valuable; Zahak’ s obsession with expanding his kingdom impairs thematic significance of Garshasb Nameh. The plot of Odyssey is based on the return of the king to his country after victory, hence the sender and hero are the same, while the plot of Garshasb Nameh is the expedition for overcoming other lands, the sender is Zahak, and Garshasb is the hero.

“ Bound and limitation” is one of the subjects of the rhetoric also called "allocation" and "dedication". As a term it is a proof for a statement, and disapproving whatever except that. This technique has two sides, i. e. the restricted, and the restriction. There are four types of restriction in Arabic and Persian: 1. Use of negation and exception words in which the restriction comes after the negation or exception words 2. The use of انّما in the beginning of the sentence 3. Adverting by means of such words as بل, لکن, and لا 4. Prioritizing final position. In Farsi, the most important limitation techniques include words like جز، مگر، الا، بس و فقط, prioritization, bringing pronoun with the linking verb “ be” ( استن ), intonation, allocation suffixes and prefixes. Since the Omission in Arabic and Persian texts and compliance with requirements of the rhetoric and eloquence had been used, In this study, limitation was compared statistically analyzed in 16 books of rhetoric in Arabic and Persian.

Resistance literature is usually created in the conditions of oppression, inner despotism, lack of social and individual freedom, defiance of law, and foreign aggression. Since the old times to the period of Constitutionalism in Iran, and the contemporary Arab Movement, Iran and Egypt have produced valuable works in resistance literature due to their outstanding resistance to indoor injustice, foreign aggression and cultural attacks. In Iran, resistance literature has a flourishing in Constitutionalism era, and poets like Mirzadeh Eshghi, Seyed Ashrafodin Gilani, Aref Ghazvini, Farokhi Yazdi, and Bahar are the most active in this field; as for the contemporary Egyptian-Arabic Movement, poets like Hafez Ebrahim, Marouf Al-Rassafi, Mohammad Mahdi Al-Javaheri, Mahmoud Darvish, Ebrahim Toqan, and Amal Donqol are among the celebrated ones. Malek-o-Shoara Bahar and Amal Donqol are political and liberal elite poets of Iran and Egypt who fought culturally against autarchy and colonizers. Based on the American school of comparative criticism, this study tries to illustrate resistance literature during Constitutionalism era in Iran, and the era of the Arab Movement.