Journal of Literary Studies
Year:2011 | Volume:43 | Issue:4 (171)|Papers Count:7

Dragon and the Hero's battle with it is one of the most important and most repeated motifs in epic-mythological narratives about goddess and athlete's initiation, which is found in many of the mythical cultures of the world. The repeat of this motif symbolizes the repeat of a pattern to forge the holy order for the world after the era of turbulence. Victory's hero in this battle ensures the return of light and rain to the nature and enunciates the good tidings and blessings, as well as fundamental frequency and security to the people.In this paper, we analyze the dragon myth in external and internal dimensions: the external dimension of the dragon myth is based on the natural-historical symptoms and is focused on the central role of a "snake"; a natural showing of death and destruction and an animistic interpretation of phenomena like flood, earthquake and geyser. In anthropologic approach–especially from psychological Jung's analysis– the internal dimension of the dragon's myth represents the dark side of the unconscious that has been displayed outwards.While the hero overcomes his "shadow," he achieves the transcendental individuality and perfection of human and he will save the nature and their people.

Manichaean religion became popularised in a religious regime, which in fact was governed by Mubedan –Zoroastrian priests. These priests disagreed with Mani and his teachings and at last killed him and destroyed his religion in Iran. These disagreements and antipathies with Mani and his teachings are reverberated in some Pahlavi texts: Dinkard and sekand GumanikVizar. In this article Dinkard III,Kerdir's Inscriptions and a part of Pāzand sekumd Gumānīkare studied in comparison with Manichaean texts and Manis teachings.

Garshasp has peregrinated an agelong path from Avesta epoch to the time of preparation of old historical context and Iran’s national epic. Garshasp, who is the unique hero of Iran’s old mythology, that his brave acts, such as killing the Dragon and ogre lobbing are important parts of the heroic themes included in the Avesta, through the advent of Pahlavi literary context because of reasons such as fairies deception and outrage against fire, has lost a part of his honour and Avesta's shining. In frequently historical context and national epic in the Islamic epoch of Iran, except for Garshasbnameh–it has disappeared due to the neglect of Garshasp's myth by the formulators of deity books, priest’s shrug which affected Esfandiar's closeness to Sam's family, Garshasp’s athletics in Zahhak's crown, etc. In this paper we try to explain and determine the quality of the event.

Tarikh-e Jahangosha is the most important work about Kharazmshahian and the Mongols. Utilising imagery, rhetoric, abundant Persian and Arabic poems, Quranic verses and traditions, and proverbs have caused the prose to resemble poetry, fading its historical goals. Here, quoting verses from the mythological parts of Shahnameh, Rostam and Sohrab stories (37verses), and Rostam and Esfandiar (26 verses) doubles the literary value of the book on the one hand, and brilliantly indicates Joveini’s inclination to Shahnameh and Ferdowsi on the other. Studying the coherence and the congruency between the verses of Shahnameh and the prose of Tarikh Jahangosha, this essay seeks to scientifically demonstrate that this connection has occurred with a rhetorical approach, mentioning that it should be attended more in connection to the structural aspect than the historical goals of the book. Therefore, the functions of Shahnameh’s Verses in Tarikh-e Jahangosha and the methods of their merging has been studied from three aspects of syntactic, semantic, and literary, and each with appropriate evidence.

Ketab-ol-Ein, which was written by Ahmad Farahidi, is one of the oldest dictionaries that exist today. In the preliminary discussion we mentioned that, although historical sources show that the work of Ibn Abbas looks like a dictionary, it is becoming accepted that Ketab-ol-Ein is the first dictionary. The article starts with explanations about the life and work of Khalilibn Ahmad. We have also mentioned first Arabic dictionaries that appeared before the fourth century. In the part devoted to source-recognition of articles it has been mentioned that apart from the work of Khalil ibn Ahmad, Al-Moarrab written by Javaliqi, Lesan-ol-Arab written by Ibn Manzour classical sources have been chosen. And Al-FazolFarsi–ol-Moarrabah, written by Sayyed Addy Shir, Mojamol Moarrabat- al Farsiah, written by Mohammad Al-Tanoji and Al-Moarrabwa Al-Dakhelfi Al-Majemel Al-Arabiah, written by nasr ali have been chosen as the main sources of the article. The main idea of this research is Ketab-ol-Einand we want to show the appearance of Persian words in the first Arabic dictionaries and the other sources have been used just because of more explanations. The article is included fifty-two words and compounds that have come in Ketab-ol-Ein.Whether the cases that author believes are Persian or Persian words that he has used, but has not mentioned, that they are Persian. This article shows Persian words were such as prevailing in the second century that catchthe eye of the author of Al-Ein.

Today commentary work has a significant role and place among the readers of Persian literary texts and those interested in them. The growing importance of commentary works in helping the readers understand and popularity of commentary works, notably in recent decades, has caused different commentators with different knowledge level and abilities to write comments and foster this disorganized market. This study intends to investigate the published commentary works in the past decades, analyze their week points. To do so, over 250 works, which have been written and published between 1300 AP (circa 1921 AD) and 1387 AP (circa2008 AD) and an attempt has been made to classify, describe, and analyze their most important problems and week points, and at the end, the most important items of best commentary and best commentators have been explained. This article intends to analyz the most important problems and week points of commentary works, which can be summarized in seven broad categories: 1) content shortcomings; 2) inappropriate approach; 3) incongruence between the structure of commentary work and type of the work and the commentator's objective; 4) lack of attention towards the readership; 5) carelessness and incompetency of the commentator; 6) complex statement and insensible language; 7) inaudibility of introductions.

Qasemi Gonabadi, (1523-1575), a fine imitator of Nezami whose surviving book is HashtMasnavi, composed Leyli and Majnoon twice, the second one, dedicated to the Safavid prince Sam Mirza, ended in 1569. The book, in addition to its linguistic and literary beauties, shows the poet’s descriptive talent. In this paper, the writer first introduces the book and critically examines its various copies, and then compares and contrasts this version of the story with three other 16th century versions written by Jami, Hatefi and Maktabi. In his version, Qasemi has presented innovations that are not found in other versions. For example, he says that the two lovers did not bring gifts to their teacher on the festival day, so that their teacher would not dismiss them from class like other children and that they could attend school on holiday. Also, In Qasemi’s version, unlike the other versions, the two lovers meet before they die together. And yet another innovation of this version is the subtle prediction of the final event occurring in the first lines of the poem. It is these features that has made Qasemi’s version superior to the other versions.