Journal of Literary Studies
Year:2010 | Volume:43 | Issue:3 (170)|Papers Count:7

Hakim Sanai is among the few major poets and mystics and is one of the Persian-language primers, whose works created modern developments of the Persian poetry’s content. He was also, in the true sense of the word, “like a thunder that lightened and like a sun that shined,” brightening the road of such poets as Attar and Rumi. The significance of Sanai’s position in literature and mysticism, as well as the position of his poetry has still not been explored as it should be. While examining Sanai’s verses in the prose works, his verses were found in the prose texts of the 6th to 9th century AH/12th to 15th century AD, which do not exist among the popular edited works of this great poet. This article introduces the sources and investigates 43 confirmed verses attributed to Sanai, based on nineteen ancient Persian prose texts, whose authors attribute them to Sanai, or are attributed to him due to coming in the same text with his other verses. This may prove useful for the future edited works of Sanai.

Mystical language has always been one of the most prominent fields of investigation since the very beginning of its evolution. It has also been taken deep into account not only by the mystics, but also by the researchers concerned. After the flourishing of theorising in the 20th century, and the emergence of the theory of Formalism, due to its analytical and scientific strength, many researchers expressed interest in using the Formalism theory in various fields. Hence, a formalistic analysis of mystical language might be able to show how language functions in specific fields including Islamic mysticism. Though clear-cut and scientific it is, formalistic analysis of mysticism in-deliberately closes its eyes upon a multitude of facts. Ignoring such facts, in turn, might lead to a lack of understanding of what mysticism actually is, and therefore reduces it to a mere linguistic phenomenon. This article tries to have a basic understanding of what formalists might call literariness along with a critical analysis of its application in the field of mysticism. Essentially, the methodology applied here is of a structural nature. This methodology focuses upon the single components of language and tries to find out how such components constitute a meaningful proposition in a mystical context, accordingly.

Stories, legends and myths in among various nations have similar factors which can be the subject of different researches and analysis. The search of perfection and model of ideal man is one of these factors.Truly Mantiq Al-tair by Attar-e-Neishaburi is the most beautiful symbolic works of the east in this field (search of perfection) which has been imitated by many of writers and poets in all around the world.Richard Bach – one of the idealist writers of the west – has presented almost a similar model named “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”.Certainly from the point of view of theme and the complexity of the story, it is not as great as Mantiq Al-tair by Attar.Is the philosophy of thinking of this writer affected by the theosophy of Attar and his thinking? Or the similarities of these two literary-mystic works, even if Richard Bach doesn’t have seen Mantiq Al-tair by Attar, have arisen from the common innate and inherent ideals among humans and are completely natural and believable?This writing is an effort to answer these questions. In addition it is a comparison between Mantiq Al-tair by Attar-e-Neishaburi and Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach.

Mowlavi’s Mathnavi is such a mysterious and boundless sea that it is full of pure conceptions. It has been composed to emanate the desired life for creation of an ideal human. It is boundless, because it is full of pure Gnostic, philosophical and Kalami arguments, as well as social conceptions. It is mysterious, because from every perspective it shows off a unique aspect.Being mysterious is not just in enjoyment of special Gnostic experiments and divine mysterious conceptions that are shown to addresses, but Mowlavi’s method in expressing the conceptions that have caused continuing discussions in Gnosticism, philosophy have reduplicated the secrets of Mathnavi.Jahd o Tavakol are binary oppositions that Mowlavi hasn't presented a constant point of view about them.Molavi’s multiple treatment in stories, which he has allocated to “Jahd o Tavakol,” have given a polyphonic aspect to Mathnavi.This article examines Mowlavi’s viewpoint about Jahd o Tavakol in Shir O Nakhchiran story from side of Bakhtin’s dialogism and polyphony theory viewed by combining structured approach in finding the context opposition and coexistence inception of reciprocities and to show that Mowlavi has looked at Jahd o Tavakol in polyphonic way.

Mythological criticism is one of the main methods of contemporary literary criticism that has been based on findings of contemporary psychology and anthropology and history of civilisation, has been influenced particularly by the theories of Carl Gustav Jung, about the “collective unconscious” and “archetypes” that his psychology has been called analytic psychology, and his analytic method for mythology has been referred to as “Analytic Mythology”. In this paper, we observe the symbolism of fire in myths, with this approach. The opposition and the projection of formation of homeostasis between the elements is a result of psychological projection of collective unconscious contents on environmental subjects, in order to overcome on the nature.Meanwhile, there are the roles for the fire that it are observed in the world of mythology, including in the Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and they are divided into two parts: First, in mythology, element of fire, as a higher element and the intermediate in between heaven and earth, is a symbol of the appearance of divine transfigure and eminence of a spiritual material in the world. Second, it is a symbol of heavenly power and object of the All-Powerful God’s torture (fire of hell), which this stage is a terrible and torrid shibboleth (the shibboleth of fire), that should be passed to a higher stage.

This article reflects the mythical story of “Kaveh and Zahak” from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh in the “Rajol-e Siasi” short story, written by Sayyed Mohammad Jamalzadeh in his “Yeki Bood-yeki nabood” (“Once upon a Time”) collection, and discusses the similarities of the two. The foundation of the “Kaveh and Zahak” tale is the eternal battle between “good and evil” and, as the greatest and the most palpable of stories representing this mythical battle in the epic type, has been told by Hakim Ferdowsi, and has been reflected time and again in the history of our literature in the forms of poetry and prose.With the start of the short story movement by Sayyed Mohammad Jamalzadeh in 1300AP/1921AD, this myth is seen in a satirical language. Nor Trope Fray’s method is used in order to analyse and interpret the conversion trends of epical myth into a modern sociopolitical satire, as well as to demonstrate the similarities and conflicts in the narrative structure of “Rajol-e Siasi”, whch has been imitated to “Kaveh and Zahak”

Sometimes, while investigating familiar and common genres of Persian literature, some unfamiliar genres appear. These genres were used mostly in some earlier periods. One of these genres is Sarapa. By investigating historical and geographical backgrounds of this genre the reasons for its popularity, especially in the period of the Indian style, are revealed. This article tries to introduce Sarapas and analyse their literary structure and rhetorical aspects. However, wherever it is possible, some of their themes and socio-cultural backgrounds like the aesthetics of the Beloved are also discussed.