LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM
Year:2024 | Volume:8 | Issue:2 (پیاپی 16)|Papers Count:3

A quintessential element in Nizami’s oeuvre is the correspondence between the characters’ articulation and discursive features. In other words, one can explore different layers of their subjectivity in light of their articulation. In this respect, this study investigates Nizami’s Iqbal-Nameh. When Alexander instructs his three advisors, Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, to compile “Kherad-Nameh,” their individual formulation echoes their position and personality. This study aims to investigate the three advisors’ divergence of discourse in light of Fairclough's 3D model. He analyses the discourse in three levels: description, interpretation, and explanation. The description level is a textual analysis, the interpretation level is a contextual and intertextual analysis, and the explanation level is a socio-cultural analysis. This study concludes that in formulating “Kherad-Nameh,” Plato’s discourse is informed by his position beneath the king, Aristotle’s assertive discourse is informed by equating his position with the king, and Socrates’ authoritative/degrading discourse is informed by positioning himself above the king.   Extended Abstract 1.Introduction Influenced by ancient Greek philosophers, Nizami’s IskandarNameh highlights Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle as three advisors. Though historically inaccurate, their importance becomes vivid in light of a change in Alexander’s status in contrast with SharafNameh and other IskandarNamehs. A quintessential element in Nizami’s oeuvre is the correspondence between the characters’ articulation and discursive features. In other words, one can explore different layers of the advisors’ discourse in light of their articulation.   2. Methodology This descriptive-analytical study employs Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis.   3.Theoretical Framework Fairclough analyses the discourse in three levels: description, interpretation, and explanation. The description level is a textual analysis, the interpretation level is a contextual and intertextual analysis, and the explanation level is a socio-cultural analysis.   4.Discussion and Analysis Description: The philosophers’ perspectival divergence is evident in their positive or negative articulation. There is no praise in Aristotle’s discourse. Plato, on the other hand, frequently praises the world and the king. Socrates describes the grotesque side of the world. Aristotle employs contradictions to address obligations, Plato does so to describe generalities, and Socrates encounters two contradicting phenomena to highlight his mindset. Plato is the only advisor who incorporates euphemism. While Plato and Aristotle’s rhetoric is formal, Socrates addresses the king informally. Their value system is influenced by their ideological orientation toward the king. Interpretation: by distancing himself from the court, Socrates becomes more authoritative in formulating “KheradNameh.” Their functional language is in writing, and they do not engage the king in a dialogue. Nizami’s account of Alexander is affected by the ancient Greek culture. Although Alexander is depicted unfavourably, Nizami defamiliarises his image and gives him a positive one. The incorporation of “which,” to extend an explanation, allegory, and explicit denial are points of departure in Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. Explanation: As a subject of authority, Plato’s account of KheradNameh is formed by power relations. Socrates, on the other hand, aims to dismantle these relations. Regarding individual and social orientations, Aristotle tilts toward the social, Plato toward the individual, and Socrates highlights both. In this respect, what Aristotle and Plato failed to realise was the importance of individual change in social issues.   5. Conclusion Nizami’s unique rhetoric and characterisation create discursive differentiations. The point of departure in the discourse of the three advisors is in their teachings. For Aristotle and Plato, Alexander is the king/prophet, and they formulate their ideologies accordingly. For Socrates, on the other hand, Alexander is only a king. The incorporation of advisors is a powerful/genius tool to re-present Alexander as a benevolent king. While Ferdowsi’s account is historically accurate, Plato’s account of KheradNameh is affected by power relations; Socrates, on the other hand, aims to dismantle these relations. Regarding individual and social orientations, Aristotle tilts toward the social, Plato toward the individual, and Socrates highlights both.   Bibliography Arberry, A. J. 1336 [1957]. Mir’ath-e Iran. Ahmad, B. et al (trans.). Tehran: Ketab. [In Persian].    (The Legacy of Persia) Fairclough, N. 1379 [2000]. Tahlil Gofteman-e Enteqadi. Fatemeh, Sh. et al (trans.). Tehran: Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. [In Persian].       (Critical Discourse Analysis) Ferdowsi, A. 1375 [1996]. Shahnameh. New York: Farda. [In Persian]. Kraus, P. et al. 1391 [2012]. Farhang-e Irani va Andisheh-e Jounani. Seyed Mahdi, H (trans.). Tehran: Elm. [In Persian].            (Iranian Culture and Greek Thought) Mohammadi, M. 1374 [1995]. Farhang-e Irani-e Pish az Islam. Tehran: Toos. [In Persian]. Nizami, E. Y. 1394 [2015]. Iqbal-Nameh. Hassan Vahid, D (ed.). Tehran: Qatreh. [In Persian]. Plutarch. 1380 [2001]. Iranian va Jounanian. Ahmad, K (trans.). Tehran: Jami. [In Persian].   (Plutarch) Radfar, A. 1387 [2008]. “Pazoohesh-I Tatbiqi dar Vojooh-e Moshtarak-e Farhang va Adabiyat-e Farsi va Jounani.” Adabiyat Tatbiqi. No. 5. [In Persian]. Safa, Z. 1370 [1991]. “Molahezat-I darbareh-e Da’stan-e Eskandar-e Maqdooni vs EskandarNameh-ha-e Ferdowsi.” Iran Shenasi Journal. Year 3. No. 11. [In Persian]. Soleyman Heshmat, R. 1390 [2011]. “Barrasi-e Tatbiqi Mian-e Hekmat-e Iran-e Ba’stan va Falsafeh-e Jounan.” Ta’rikh-e Falsafeh Journal. Year 2. No. 4. [In Persian].

The history of thought associates man with goodness, reason, law, order, and religion; on the other hand, it regards woman as the ‘other’ and associates her with evil, contravention, defiance, and mysticism. In accordance with the common grounds between mysticism and femininity such as defiance, linear reasoning, and uniaxial discourse, as well as concepts such as life’s essential femininity, love’s dependence on the soul, creativity and creative ability of women, and the constant presence of women in religion, the present article reflects on Rouzbahan Baghli’s Kashf-al-Asrar to showcase how Rouzbahan’s lived experience and aestheticism creates a carnal and feminine dimension. This study claims that through anthropomorphism and the mystical conceptualisation of beauty, the central/conceptual metaphor of the ‘bride’ creates a metaphorical system which presents a unification of beauty, femininity, and carnality. This metaphor serves as Rouzbahan’s mystical centrality in conceptualising the truth, the prophet, the angels, the creator, and himself.   Extended Abstract 1.Introduction The history of thought associates man with goodness, reason, law, order, and religion; on the other hand, it regards woman as the ‘other’ and associates her with evil, contravention, defiance, and mysticism. In accordance with the common grounds between mysticism and femininity such as defiance, linear reasoning, and uniaxial discourse, as well as concepts such as life’s essential femininity, love’s dependence on the soul, creativity and creative ability of women, and the constant presence of women in religion, the present article reflects on Rouzbahan Baghli’s Kashf-al-Asrar to showcase how Rouzbahan’s lived experience and aestheticism creates a carnal and feminine dimension. 2. Methodology For Abrahamic religions and Islamic mysticism, anthropomorphism is a key characteristic which emphatically conceptualises carnality. The anthropomorphisation of God, concepts, images, and carnal metaphors play a central role in the worldview of mystics such as Ibn-Arabi and Rouzbahan. In accordance with Rouzbahan’s lived experience, this study traces and analyses his imagery of the experiences and the sublime through the feminine and carnal metaphors of a female beloved. It illustrates the process by which his carnal mystic experiences are translated into an aesthetic anthropomorphisation of God.  3.Theoretical Framework The linguistic turmoil in philosophy opened new areas in divinity, linguistic philosophy, and scripture studies. Just as it is only the language that is capable of transforming events into experiences, one must employ language to think about God. Through manipulating the language and employing its metaphorical capabilities, the mystic conveys his paradoxical, provocative, lamentable, and incarnated experiences. As a result of this expression, this study investigates two points concerning the mystic ecriture: the emergence of mysticism as protest literature and the unification of mystical experiences and the entanglement of mystical language and carnality and carnal metaphors. Mysticism, in its pure form, possesses a meaningful correlation with femininity, which is represented through carnal metaphors and imagery. A feminine dimension and a carnal reading of mysticism becomes possible through life’s essential femininity, the similarities between women’s fertility and the Creation, the connection of mysticism with delight, which is essentially a feminine characteristic, and the women-love entanglement. In mysticism, women are more potent than men; this, in turn, renders them more vulnerable to corruption. Her carnal boundaries are not clear and her physical life is more intertwined with the afterlife than her male counterpart.   Discussion and Analysis The Femininity of mysticism is in no case an account of mystic femininity, mystical women and their experiences, or their language; on the contrary, just as men’s association with religion, law, order, and authority represents the masculinity of religion, the convergence of mysticism and femininity in notions such as love, insanity, beauty, creation, carnality, secrecy, and defiance represents the feminine dimension of mysticism. The extreme case of such femininity is present in Ib-Arabi’s thought which regards women and the feminine dimension as the absolute enjoyment and love of the divine. There has always been a woman associated with the divine, the king, the philosophe, etc. Plato’s Sophia, Zoroastrian’s Daēnā, Judaist’s Shekhinah, Dante’s Beatrice, Christian’s Mary, Jung’s Anima, and the mystic’s Rabia. Terminologies such as marriage and spiritual care, creative femininity, feminine words, God’s brides, and holy marriage illustrate the carnality and anthropomorphality of mystical experiences as well as their different feminine dimensions. As an unconventional, disobedient, and bold mystic, Rouzbahan explores the femininity of mysticism and all its multiplicities such as linguistic rebellion, carnal metaphors, feminine mystical and lived experiences, his own aestheticism, and his inheritance from Mansour Hallaj and Ibn-Arabi’s line of thought. The guise-love-beauty triad is the life force of his experiences. Of note here is that he views nothing but beauty in this dimension. For him, love’s comprehension and enjoyment can only be possible through the anthropomorphisation of experiences and carnal dimensions. In Kashf-al-Asrar, the conceptual metaphor of the bride produces a unified system of metaphors which entails in itself other metaphors such as the angles/Gabriel, prophet, Creator, Creation, and Rouzbahan himself. 5.Conclusion Rouzbahan’s lifeworld, aestheticism, and the canon of the women-love-beauty triad illustrate some noteworthy points: in anthropomorphising the Creator, the woman is the best/only medium; the central metaphor of the bride and its system of implications anthropomotphise and carnalise the experiences which in turn represent beauty and femininity. Select Bibliography Baghli Shirazi, R. 1393 [2014]. Kashf-al-Asrar va Mokashefa’t-al-Anvar. M, Hosseini (trans.). Tehran: Sokhan. [In Persian]. Corbin, H. 1384 [2005]. Takhayol-e Khallagh. A, Rahmati (trans.). Tehran: Jami. [In Persian].           (Creative Imagination). Cupitt, D. 1397 [2018]. Erfun pas az Moderniteh. A, Akramipoor (trans.). Tehran: Daneshg’ah-e Adyan va Mazaheb. [In Persian].    (Mysticism after Modernity). Ernst, K. 1377 [1998]. Rouzbahan Baghli. M, Keyvani (trans.). Tehran: Markaz. [In Persian]. Fotoohi, M. et al. 1395 [2016]. “Karkerd-e Este’areh dar Bayan-e Tajarob-e Erfuni-e Rouzbahan-e Baghli dar Abhar-al-Asheqin.” Pazhoohesh-nameh-e Erfun. No. 3. Vol. 18. 137-164. [In Persian]. Hosseini, M. 1388 [2009]. “Zan-e Soufiyaei dar Roya-ha-e A’refun (ZolNoon va Ibn-Arabi).” Motale’at-e Erfuni, Vol. 10. 149-172. [In Persian]. Nwyia, P. 1373 [1994]. Tafsir-e Qorani va Zaban-e Erfuni. A, Sa’adat (trans.). Tehran: Nashr-e Daneshga’hi. [In Persian].  (Exégèse coranique et langage mystique). Proudfoot, W. 1393 [2014]. Tajrobeh-e Dini. A, Yazdani (trans.). Tehran: Ta’ha. [In Persian].            (Religious Experience). Sattari, J. 1374 [1995]. Eshq-e Soufiyaneh. Tehran: Markaz. [In Persian]. Serami, gh. et al. 1389 [2010]. “Rabieh dar Goz’ar az Pol-e Maj’az.” Faslnameh Adabiyat-e Erfuni va Ostooreh Shenakhti. Vol. 18. 81-103. [In Persian]. Schimmel, A. 1381 [2002]. Zan dar Erfun va tasavvof-e Eslami. F, Mahdavi Damghani (trans.). Tehran: Tir. [In Persian].           (Mystical Dimensions of Islam).

At the beginning of the 20th century, women writers tried to alter the patriarchal structures and regain their subjectivity through writing, escaping syntax, and rupturing language. In this regard, there is a close-knit relationship between language and Écriture féminine in contemporary literature. In her Dream of Tibet, Fariba Vafi represents the patriarchal society of her time. Pierre V. Zima’s sociological approach represents phenomena in light of language. The present socio-critical study investigates feminine ideology and sociolect discourse and their impact on meaning and syntax. According to Zima, the dialogue between form and content presents the literary work as a sign which contains many signifiers and signifieds. At the lexical level, the polarity of the lexemes emanating from the taxonomy of key concepts reveals the discourse of the text. These sociolects create a lexical universe in accordance with the sociolinguistic situation which functionalises the language to conjoin the text and its socio-historical context. In The Dream of Tibet, meaning and conceptual polarities and confrontations, which are the result of societal dichotomies, problematise the narrator’s reliability which, in turn, problematises the subject.   Extended Abstract 1.Introduction Society and social phenomena have always influenced the literature of their time and literary works which, in turn, prompted critics to continuously investigate them. At the beginning of the 20th century, women writers opposed anything that prevented their inclusion in the literary canon which, back then, was an androcentric domain for male genius and talent. If many studies investigate women's social demands, then one can regard the textual implications in reaction to social issues at the linguistic level as less explored. The present study employs Zima’s analytical approach, which investigates social issues in literary texts, to observe how Fariba Vafi's The Dream of Tibet reacts to social problems at the linguistic level in light of Écriture féminine. 2. Methodology This descriptive-analytical article employs a sociological approach in accordance with Pierre V. Zima’s model to examine the socio-linguistic implications of the above-mentioned novel. 3. Theoretical Framework Pierre V. Zima, a contemporary French sociologist, describes the text as a structure that reforms itself in reaction to the social discourses, which, in turn, connects the novel to the society. His analytical method includes three fundamental steps: 1- Investigating the socio-lingual orientation of a literary work which, in turn, unveils the author's ideology. 2- Inspecting the lexical and semantic domains of the text. Since social discourse is composed of signs, specific to one or more groups, which refer to liberal, Christian, Marxist, Fascist, or Feminist groups, by “appropriating” or “rejecting” some words, the author popularises a certain point of view (Zima, 2000:110). 3- Examining the narrative structure. The social discourse, as a narrative structure, becomes a discourse. The narrative structure of a literary text imitates and reproduces reality and, often implicitly or explicitly, aligns with this reality. Through revealing the instability of social and traditional values, the narrative structure analysis discredits the patterns and forms a counter-discourse. 4. Discussion and Analysis For centuries, literature was androcentric, and male ideology dominated language and discourse. The emergence and expansion of Écriture féminine significantly impacted women’s status. Pierre V. Zima's analytical method investigates content and ideology in light of the semantic, lexical, and narrative domains. For him, social values and literary text are intrinsically related to language, and though its semantic, lexical, and narrative domains, they express social trends and participate in social, political, and economic struggles. In fact, sociological criticism (Sociocritique) incorporates a literary work’s articulation and content to unveil its meaning. Fariba Vafi (1341 [1962]) is among those authors who, while presenting a critical discourse, overturned the linguistic order created by men to construct a new social thought. In her works, Vafi describes women, their identity, and their position in the society; these qualities contribute to the significance of her The Dream of Tibet. In this study, we identify the author’s female ideology by positioning The Dream of Tibet in its socio-linguistic context. The lexical domain reveals the discourse through the semantic dichotomies of words and key concepts. This discourse creates a lexical domain in accordance with socio-lingual conditions to the extent that language acts as a medium between the text and semantic dichotomies, all of which oppose the semantic classifications of the patriarchal society. The Dream of Tibet’s semantic examination reveals a change in the concepts appropriated by masculine ideology. New concepts enrich the meaning of love, loyalty, rationalism, and motherhood. However, the point of view and behaviour of the characters cannot be limited to an individual psychological code, for they are the result of long-term social, cultural, and linguistic developments, all of which, according to Zima, result in the “loss of meaning” (Zima, 1998:113). Consequently, words no longer reflect the meaning and values predetermined by masculine ideology. Therefore, “by criticising the imposed values,” Fariba Vafi “rejects the male language, its validity, accuracy, distinctions, and definitions” (Zima, 2000:122). In The Dream of Tibet, the narrator shifts among three different positions/viewpoints which question the subject’s positioning and integrity. By examining the narrative structure, we investigate how the subversion of social values and the creation of semantic ambiguities impact the characters’ roles and, as a result, lead to the uncertainty of the position of the subject (narrator). The author balances narration and articulation and shows that as long as there is Tibet in people’s minds, the dream of living and thinking freely comes boldly out with a slight push. 5. Conclusion In the 20th century, to change the social structures, women writers proposed a new attitude which followed the rules of linguistic games. In a world of meaning where predetermined definitions are not valid, the basis of subjectivity or mentality is shaken; the subversion also questions the subject's actions and speech. Bibliography  Bakhtine, M. et al. 1977. Le Marxisme et la Philosophie du Langage, Essais d’Application de la Method Sociologique en Linguistique. Paris: Minuit.       (Marxism and the Philosophy of Language) Genette, G. 1972. Figures III. Paris: Seuil. Haqdar, A. 2011. Beyond Postmodernity. Tehran: Shafyi Publications. [In Persian]. Maguin, L. 2022.  “Le tu Inattendu, la Métalepse de Deuxième Personne dans ‘El Paraiso en la otra Esquina’ de Mario Valgas Liosa et La Bibliotca de Babel de Jeoge Luis Borges,”Cahier de Narratologie. Issue, 42. 1-13. Ricœur, P. 1983. Temps et récit. Paris: Edition du Seuil.       (Time and Narrative) Selden, R. 1375 [1996]. A Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. A, Mokhber (trans.). Tehran: Tarh-e No. [In Persian]. Tourangeau, R. 1994. “La Sociologie des Textes Comme Méthode d’Analyse du Discours au Théâtre,” L'Annuaire Théâtral Revue Québécoise d’études Théâtrales. Issue, 15. 141-157. Vafi, F. 1384 [2005]. Tehran: Ghazal. [In Persian]. Zima, P. V. 1989. "Le Sociolecte dans la Fiction et dans la Théorie," Sociocriticism. Issue, 2(10).  Zima, P. V. 2000. Manuel de Sociocritique. Paris: L'Harmattan.