Journal of Literary Studies
Year:2021 | Volume:54 | Issue:1 (212)|Papers Count:6

There are three main views on studying allegory: a) From rhetorical perspective, allegory is a literary device that rhetorical scholars examine using rhetoric and has an aesthetic function; B) From cognitive perspective, it is a cognitive phenomenon that plays an important role in organizing human concepts and thinking, and what appears in language is only a manifestation of that cognitive phenomenon; C) From discourse view, allegory is a powerful tool that social activists use based on individual and social sources to legitimize their discourse and reject rival discourses. Throughout the history of Sufism, Sufis have tried to use allegory for making understandable the spiritual elements of their mystical experiences. Every allegory represents mystical concepts in a certain way. Relying on such an attitude and using the methodological foundations and tools of Laclau and Mouffe’ s theory of discourse, the study examined the function of Sufi allegorical discourse on the concept of “ obedience and worship” in Sufi expression. From a discursive point of view, in the early periods of Sufism, allegories are interdisciplinary in nature; that is, identities and concepts are often formed around signs that emerge from the common discourses of that period or even discourses outside the discourse of Islamic religious sciences. But in later times, the Sufis sought to reject the meanings of rival discourses by constructing concepts and identities, and to construct new networks of signs.

Farzandnameh (letter to children) is one of the most frequent and universal instances in the didactic literature which has focused on how parents teach children ethical rules and advise them. Although it is a kind of recurring subspecies of the genre, it has not been academically addressed in typological discussions in literary research in Persian and perhaps in world literature. In this search, parent-child interaction in the letter-writings was analyzed quantitatively and descriptively, examining the most frequent cases including the in-text features (the title, author’ s motivation, dedication, chaptering, and text history) and the out-of-text features (emotional introduction, special attention towards boys, being worried about not applying advice, emphasis on applying advice, parents' experiences, being selfish and pride in the ancestors, expressing the writer's childhood memories, simplicity and conciseness). The results of this study show that the authors of letter to children, in general, aim to teach topics such as medicine, music, alien sciences, literary sciences, religion, ideological arguments, and practical wisdom (a program to refine personal morality, family, and politics or the true form of life), so they had written their books or treatises for their children (whether real or imaginary). Moreover, due to the high frequency of counseling topics and the special rhetorical style, letter to children can also be considered as a lived genre in the form of counseling writings that has a specific structure and content and is appropriate to the culture and requirements of the time and audience expectations. What is important in distinguishing a letter to children from other counseling letters is that the creator of the work clearly states that he is writing the letter or book for the children and that there are signs of the child being and preset’ s advisement.

Local rulers, politicians, bureaucrats, and writers in Iran after Islam played an important role in preserving Iranian heritage, traditions, and culture. These people, commonly known as Diwanids (officials), have played as mediators between kings and society, and their ideas have been known as Iranshahri thought. In Safavid period, the Diwanids and writers were known as Tajiks and Iranians and their patriotism was due to their Persian-language, lineage, and support for Iranian culture. The behavior of the Tajik class and writers is freedom, liberty, happiness, esotericism, and the pursuit of moral perfection, collectively known as the “ immensity of manner” (Wos’ at Mashrab) which had been the discourse of intellectuals in the period of the 16th and 18th centuries in Safavid history. This discourse helps us to find the causes of some cultural and social issues of that time such as national reconciliation, collective morality, elite migration, and so on. In this study, we have expressed the important structures of immensity of manner discourse, analyzed its Iranian foundations, and by reviewing the beliefs and behaviors of the Tajik agents of the Safavid government, identified and presented the immensity of manner discourse in their behavior. The method used to distinguish Persian cultures and identity was based on the “ Turk and Tajik” binary opposition in the Safavid period, which was extracted from historical texts. Therefore, in order to identify the so-called Tajik group, which is the supporter of Iranian culture and identity, we have paid attention to the Turkish-Tajik confrontation in historical sources.

To shed light on the real belief of Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali about political rulers, the study tried to explore their presence as the Other in Al-Ghazali’ s letters using van Dijk’ s CDA method. After identifying those parts of the text in which he encounters with political rulers as the Other, the tools Al-Ghazali have used for giving a negative presentation of them were introduced. Considering the way he uses these tools, it was discovered that Al-Ghazali's view of political rulers as the Other is about the feature of “ being misguided” and indicates his pity. Therefore, instead of suppressing and combating the Other, Al-Ghazali uses most of his strategies to encourage the Other to change. Among the two groups of “ kings” and “ ministers” , Al-Ghazali usually turns to ministers. His caution and consideration causes the use of techniques which increase the text's interpretability when talking to or about the king. The influence of Al-Ghazali’ s philosophical studies is apparent in his considering the chance of change for the Other, using adverbs of uncertainty and the text’ s high unambiguity.

This study presents the reflection of a dialectal feature in a hemistich of Shahnameh. The hemistich, which reads “ Be Abe Do Dideh Nabayad Gerist” (گریست نباید دیده دو آب به, (appears in the tragedy of Rostam and Sohrab, the mythological father and son in Shahnameh. Most of Shahnameh researchers have not been able to offer an interpretation for this hemistich. Still some other interpretations are not acceptable. The findings of this study show that the difficulty of this hemistich stems from the use of the Persian word “ be” (به (meaning “ rare” and “ hard-to-find” . The explanation is that this morpheme is not associated with the preposition “ be” (به (in Modern Persian (meaning with or to), which is derived from Mid-Persian “ pad” . In fact, it is the dialectal variant of “ abē ” in Mid-Persian, which is an equivalent of “ bi” or “ bedune” (meaning without). Thus, the figurative meaning of the phrase “ be abe do dideh geristan” (crying without tears) is “ becoming helpless and despaired” . Moreover, this hemistich is taken from a local idiom, which is still used in the same sense as is used in Shahnameh. The idiom has survived in the form of two phonetic variants, namely “ be ow dida girya kadan” and “ be â w dida č ixrâ mukuna” in some Khorasani dialects. The dialectal data used in this study were collected through field research and by means of dialectal descriptions.

One of the important elements of poetic speech, which can be seen in almost all definitions of poetry, is music. Music of poetry can be summarized as external, lateral, and internal music. A new term to the music of poetry, entitled “ Spiritual Music of Poetry” معبای ماسیهو )was first coined and introduced by Mohammad Reza Shafiei Kadkani. This term, which was originally added to three types of Persian poetry music, was presented more than three decades ago in the book Music of Poetry and it can be seen in all editions of this book during these years. Shafiei Kadkani made this term based on two points; one is Ikhwan Al-Safa’ s Rasa'il (Epistles of the Brethren of Purity) who used the term “ music” for all the balanced affairs of the universe. And the second, the introduction of a rare discussion in the literary device, pun, entitled “ Non-Verbal Pun” in few original books and by some rhetorical scholars. The present article reviewed the arguments and concluded that the interpretation of Ikhwan Al-Safa and his use of the word "music" is a taste matter not a scientific issue. Moreover, the basics of the “ Non-Verbal Pun” are quite different from what is presented about the Spiritual Music of Poetry and cannot justify the use of this term.