JOURNAL OF THE FACULTY OF LETTERS AND HUMANITIES (KERMAN)
Year:2010 | Volume:NEW | Issue:26 (23)|Papers Count:22

The story of epic heroes passing from several dangerous phases is a Indo-European motif that is called seven-phase / multi-phase adventure. The ritual/ mythical basis is hero’s initiation and a proof of his heroic maturity. In Iranian heroic tales there are many warriors other than Rostam and Esfandyar, such as Faramarz, Shahryar, Homay, Rostam (for second time), Bahman, Sam, Jamshid and Jahanbakhsh also pass from several ( five, six, seven & ten) stages. This motif has some examples in non-Iranian tales.The important point in Iranian tales of seven-/multi-stage journeys is use of mythical elements and monstrous beings as obstacles of phases, existence of guides, several roads and existence of a dragon in the third phase.Passing from trials to gain access to perfection and a high rank or goal is a similar theme between these epic journeys and seven phases in mysticism and Mithraism which are separate aspects of one ancient subject.Classic Persian spelling of haft-khan has been haft-khwan but the author believes it should be spelled as 'haft-khan'.

This article reports on the generic characteristics of thesis abstracts by the Persian, English and speakers of other languages in seven disciplines. To this aim, 552 abstracts were selected and analyzed in terms of macro- and micro-structures. Findings revealed obligatory structures by the researchers regardless of their language background. However, findings also showed optional structures. Cultural and disciplinary differences appeared to affect the selection of the latter structures. In the second phase of the study, the authors provided explicit instruction to a group of Persian researchers on the macro- and micro-structures. Results showed that explicit knowledge of rhetorical structures can greatly enhance the quality of English abstracts. Further studies are required in order to account for disciplinary variation and the native language influence on the production of academic texts in English.

'Place' is one of the basic elements which somehow manifests itself in the structure of every fiction. The critique of every story is incomplete without due consideration given to the element of place. Studies of this element in Persian criticism are insufficient and remarkable sources are scarce. But the author tries to present a theoretical introduction for studying the element of place chiefly using non-Persian sources.Although this article is brief and lacks comparative examples, it creates an opportunity for studying ‘place’ from an aesthetic point of view.

This study which is descriptive, contrastive and chronological, aims to review semantic changes of some Persian entries under letters, ،ب،(B), ،ث،(th) and ،خ،(kh) in several Persian dictionaries to see what semantic evolution the said entries have undergone during a 40 year period.All the entries under the above letters were compared in 'Mo-een', 'Sokhan' and ‘Sadri’ dictionaries and were classified under 6 ideal parts, 9 borderline parts and according to 3 criteria of, language tendency and discourse, 'usage domain' and 'etymology'.A total of 13,321 entries were recorded in a database and presented in proper charts and tables. The findings showed that %40.22 of the entries tended to become deleted or outdated, % 8.71 included new terms and %42.07 remained unchanged.

To investigate the effect of quiz frequency on the course performance of Iranian university students of English, the mean scores of five groups of subjects were compared using a balanced one-way ANOVA procedure. Analyses revealed that quizzes significantly improve course performance. With some exceptions, it was also found that the more frequently the subjects were quizzed, the better their course performance became. To study the relationship between quizzes and class attendance, the absences of the same five groups of subjects were regularly checked and compared using the Chi-square procedure. Results showed that there is an inverse relationship between quiz frequency and the number of absences from class.

Mohammad Mehdi Javaheri is one of the most famous contemporary poets in Arab countries. He has created deep relations with his own society and has composed many poems on the criticism of the social problems.His criticism of the problems of Iraq and also the world society is not limited to a special topic, although most of them have the same purposes. These problems can be classified in 3 categories such as social oppression, political despotism and colonialism. It is not possible to study all of the above-mentioned categories in the frame work of one or two articles. The author studies social oppression and its critique within the two classes of workers and farmers.

A disputable concept and a controversial issue in Iranian culture is the notion of wisdom which covers an array of meanings, wide in range, and sometimes contrary to each other. Therefore, different schools of thought have presented different definitions.This essay investigates the style of two intellectual groups (mystics and philosophers) about wisdom. By analyzing the verses of two outstanding representatives (Naser Khosrow and Sana-ee), we found out that Naser Khosrow's poems, in terms of concept, image and structure are without any preliminaries, based on wisdom and logic. In spite of him, Sana-ee has brought some couplets in Hadighat ol Haghighah on expressing and defending wisdom, yet, because his mental structure does not match with his intellectual logic, the result of his work is contrary to wisdom.In this regard, it can be stated that the usage of the appellation of 'Hakim' for Sana-ee, is not accepted just by tolerance, whereas, Naser Khosrow truly deserves the title of 'Hakim'. The reason is that Naser Khosrow’s wisdom includes both material and spiritual aspects, whereas Sana-ee's wisdom is completely spiritual and lacks the material facet.

Towfiq al-Hakim, the father of Arabic playwright always tries to convey the deepest human concepts to his audience in an attractive and pleasant manner. In the same line, using both literary and linguistic styles has made him create beautiful and everlasting plays. Thus, familiarity with his literary styles will help the reader to understand his plays better.

"Vamegh and Azra" is the name of one of Onsori's lyrical verses whose characters are known as true lovers in the Persian Literature. This work had been lost and only a few decades ago some verses were found, and with the help of the scattered entries of lexicons and other sources some aspects of the tale became clear.From Onsori's work which is in the form of couplet, 26 imitations totally different from the original, have been rendered in Persian and Turkish either in poetry or prose. The origin of narration is Greek and except the names of lovers, all places and names are also Greek. In the Sassanian era this narration was translated into Pahlavi and Syriac and in the Islamic era it was translated into Arabic.The author here tries to analyze Onsori's narration and compares it with six other versions. He specifies the quantity of similarities and differences and shows how faithful the parodists are to the origin.This comparative study can be considered as an example for studying traditional narrations especially romantic verses.

Many people of Indian subcontinent embraced Islam when it influenced throughout the land.After Islam, the people felt a strong need to know about Islam and Quran. Many Islamic scholars either Sunni or Shiite published different works in translation, interpretation, jurisprudence etc., by their own initiative and also by studying books of other Islamic lands especially Iran.At the time of being, there are still many centers and organizations working on this important task.Since an article as brief as this cannot contain all instances, the authors enumerates some important works and also introduces some of the great scholars who have tried their best during several decades.

'Anjoman Araye Nasseri' is a dictionary compiled in 13th century A.H.L. Centuries ago, Iranian lexicography began with such works as 'Abu Hafz Soqdi' and 'Asadi Tusi' wodbooks and this trend has improved a lot by copying the western lexicographical methods.In this article the author critically reviews 'Anjoman Araye Nasseri' by listing some important lexicographical criteria. In this general review, advantages are enumerated in the context of its structure consisting of introduction, entries, pronunciation, stem, grammar, meaning, example and reference, while a separate section covers disadvantages of the work.In a statistical analysis, 300 hundred entries were selected from letters.'ب' (B),س  (s) and,ش  (sh). The findings revealed that the complier has limited his work just to 24 out the total 32 Farsi letters.Deficient meanings, incorrect etymology, inclusion of grammar terms etc makes it mandatory for scholars to prepare a correct edition.

Analyzing the characters of a story and their attributes, has found a certain place in literary studies. Identifying their characteristics familiarizes the reader with the story, its writer or composer. Some of the characters are known as the main characters and the story revolves round their pivot. There are also some other characters with no apparently important role in the story, but paying a little attention, one realizes their deep and key, but hidden influence throughout the story so that if a certain character is omitted, the total trend of the story changes.In the story of Khosrow and Shirin, as their names imply Khosrow and Shirin play the major roles in the story and Shapoor is the key character. But up to now, this character has not been analyzed properly. The author investigates different aspects of Shapoor’s character and analyzes his role and influence in formation and integration of the story as well as analyzing Nezami’s talent in creating and using such sophisticated and effective characters in the story.

Gilgamesh epic is one of oldest epics in the world that is known as ‘eternity epic’. In this epic, Gilgamesh is regarded a good hero who looks for eternity with a great effort and finally, finds out that there is only one way that a man can earn eternity and that is good name and eternal not long life.In this essay, based on a deconstruction approach that opens other readings and interpretations; we proved that in this epic, Gilgamesh is not a positive character rather a symbol and a devil of famine who wants drought and infertility dominate the nature. Furthermore, according to existing proofs and evidences, it is a fertility myth not an eternity epic.

The archaic Persian word "Kamal" or its other form "Gamal" have not been recorded into authoritative and current dictionaries. This has caused them to be identified with the word "Hamal" which possesses a close orthographic and phonetic form to Kamal and Gamal and therefore, turned into Hamal. And since the latter did not fit into some contexts semantically, new artificial meanings were attributed to it. This paper, based on analyzing some misreadings in ancient texts, especially different versions of Shahnameh, suggests that Kamal or Gamal substitute Hamal. This clarifies the meaning of some verses in Shahnameh and revives these two archaic words.

The paper investigates the views of Malek-o Shor'ara Bahar and Maruf-o Rassafi on women.Both poets have peculiar views on women. Bahar on one hand feels indebted to the society's traditional thoughts on feminism and on the other hand, is one of the first Iranian poets who is a defender of women’s emancipation and resists veil. Rassafi takes the same position in this regards and in his poems, always defends women’s freedom and participation in the society.

'Extra-regularity' is one of the devices of de-familiarization in Russian formalism. In this technique a rule is added to the regulations of the language leading to foregrounding in literary texts. The process of Extra Regularity is equivalence in its widest meaning created through verbal repetition which leads to musical tones and enhances the ability of the poet to benefit form language capabilities.In this study, the authors try to examine Hamid Mosadeq's poetry in regards to Extra Regularity as a literary device through phonological and lexical analysis, in order to see how this technique has assisted Mosadeq to utilize de-familiarization and ultimately to get to foregrounding and a more musical tone in his poems.

The Persian poets have made use of ‘tulip’ in their poems because its colour nd shape which has made it possible to depict many images. This paper studies the numerous and various images of ‘tulip’. We study the evolution of this image in different periods of Persian literary history as well as poets’ creativity. The author tries to study and classify all images for tulip in the poems of 63 poets. This paper shows the initiator and imitator poets in this regard. This is a library study in which for the purpose of analysis, tables and charts are used to investigate the frequency and images of tulip.203 images were obtained by analyzing these poems and eliminating redundancies.The images refer to tulip and face, tulip and goblet, tulip and blood, tulip and fire, tulip and bereavement and so forth. 'Farrokhi' and 'Sa-ib' originated the most creative images of tulip. The images of tulip were more diversified in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries.

In his works, Jalaladdin Rumi has talked a lot about being silent. The frequency of mention and his pen name ‘silent’ made the author to carry out this study to discuss Rumi’s silence and its justification. To this end, the author first lists mystical and educational views and their differences on silence. Next, referring to the six parts of Mathnawi, he cites 15 reasons for Rumi's silence and its place, along with examples.The reasons for being silent could be, concealment of secrets, presence of strangers, inability to perceive, attentiveness, outward silence, attraction of compassion, just to name a few.