Journal of Poetry Studies (Boostan Adab)
Year:2019 | Volume:11 | Issue:2 (40)|Papers Count:10

One of the famous stories about Ferdowsi is that a Sheikh, who had not prayed on his body, dreamed at night that Ferdowsi was in heaven due to one line of poetry. In most sources, the line, which led to his salvation, is noted as: You are the beginning and the end of the universe/I do not know what you are but you are everything. Two oldest sources that mention the story and bring the line of verse are Selected History and Zafarnameh (Tarikh-e Gozideh & Zafarnameh) by Hamdallah Mostofi; but it is also mentioned in in texts prior to Mostofi’ s works without reference to the story. Mersad al-'Ebad is the first source which mentions the verse without the name of the poet. Qarshi’ s Orazat al-Aruzeyn is the oldest document that has attributed it to Shahnameh. This line appears in only three manuscripts of Shahnameh from the 8th and 9th centuries in the story of the fight between Rustam and the emperor of China while it is not mentioned in accredited manuscripts. Hence, in contrast to what has been mentioned from 7th century to the present time, this line does not belong to Ferdowsi.

An oath is an ethical and internal solemn promise with a causative arproach affected by rites and beliefs as well as by both emotional and religious practices of which a variety of different literary genres have been found in religious sources (books), historical texts and poetical works (Divan) of most poets. The most common types of it, has been reflected among the Persian poets in the form of "written oaths" or "offidatives". So that, a variety of these genres would be seen in most poetical works and books of other poets. However, there are many poets whose poems lack a considerable amount of such oaths, yet they take many oaths (verbally). Sheikh-e-Ajal, Saedi, is one of those poets whose works involve a variety of sereval oaths especially in his Ghazal (lyrics). Amony his works, "Boostan" has got very limited oaths, but "Golestan" as it was expected does not have enough oaths and it does not exceed more than two. On the contrary, his lyries contain a large amount of oaths. In Saedi's artistic style, most of these oaths have both terrestrial and emotional manifestation, and are mainly romantic ones. In other words, the fraquency of both emotional and romantic oaths in Saedi’ s words are more than his religious and ideological oaths. The present stady focusing on Saedi’ s works and in connection with “ lingual enactment” a ttempts to investigate the function of oaths taken in his (Ghazal) lyrics and to compare its quality with Sheikh-e-Ajal’ s other poems and written works.

Beauty of demand is a literary figure in which the need for something is expressed and pleaded in a pleasant and effective way for the audience. This literary figure is expressed in different kinds of poetic formats based on certain characteristics such as need, type of pleading and audience. The elements of the structure of the poem such as words, imagery, tone, emotion and setting combined with other factors such as the character of the poet, poetic style, audience, political, social and economic condition of the time lead to expressing the demand, which have not been mentioned in previous rhetoric books. This paper has analyzed previous critical commentaries and definitions of demand to reach a new definition.

Khayyamiyat (Khayyameality) is a discursive system. The dialogue-based structure of this system shows that three discourses of Agnosticism, Sharia-orientation (Doctorine-based) and Mysticism are disputing and debating with each other in an “ intra-discourse” way. What integrates this multifaceted controversy as a single discourse is its relation to the conceptual and paradoxical character named Omar Khayyam. The purpose of this article is to propound “ Discursive Purgation and Repentance” in “ premodern Khayyamiyat” construction in an attempt, in the first place, to reveal its discontinuity and, in the second place, to explain the discursive relation between Omar Khayyam and a “ discursive Khayyam” through the very discontinuity and to describe and analyze the constructive nature of this discourse by referring to the historical sources and the tradition of Khayyamology. The present research applies constructivism and critical discourse analysis (CDA) as its methodology. The results of the research reveals that a continuity notion of Khayyamiyat discourse and a monolithic understanding of it thwart a true understanding and a thorough analysis of the discourse. In contrast, adherence to historical discontinuity and discursive conflict in this area of study can lead to an understanding of the constructive nature of the coherent and monolithic narrative of Khayyam as appears in rectifications, analyses, biographies, and expositions.

Allegory has been discussed in both the old and new rhetorical books. In ancient books, it has been considered as compound simile and allegorical metaphor, while in modern times it is a subset of imagination and imagery. Structurally, the Persian allegories can be divided into two groups of descriptive (short or compact) and narrative (extensive) allegories. The narrative allegory includes stories about humans and animals, symbolic stories, fables, parables, and so on, the best examples of which are found in the Persian mystical and didactic literature. In contrast, descriptive allegory typically consists of only one or few more sentences and its most important types of which are: allegorical simile, allegorical metaphor, proverb and oslub-e-moadeleh (techniques of sameness). In this article, types of compact and descriptive allegories and their footprints in the early Persian poetry as well as the role of poets in development of allegory in the 3rd and 4th centuries are studied. To this end, about 2000 lines of verse composed during the two centuries were studied. It is argued that the history of different types of compact allegories is as long as the Persian literature.

The present research is an analysis of the nature of the narrator of Sa'di's Bustan and, of the audience that the narrator expects. The aim is to understand the narrator's style based on the linguistic analysis of his utterances and to ask whether he speaks with a voice of authority or if he stands on an equal position telling of his concerns and his doubts. The analysis of the style of the narrations of Bustan (narrator discourse) is based on Simpson's well-known "modality". The article deals with the linguistic approach to the analysis of the narrator's style and the precision of his sentences, and concludes: the narrator has a positive narrative. He knows exactly what he wants to say and recommends the audience to hear. Using allegory is very effective, and an allegorical teaching narrative aimed at guidance and reform is created. Using a higher position in language makes the audience accept the narrator's commands in order to build an ideal world.

During 1990s, certain trends appeared in Persian poetry, which were generally different in terms of both language and method of expression and content from those from the previous periods. The common aspect of all the poetical trends from the 1990s was transcending beyond the common and normal language and expression of Persian poetry. One of the most important and most influential poetic trends from 1990s was “ the Language poetry” trend, pioneered by Reza Baraheni. In this study, the Language Poetry trend is analyzed. The theory of “ linguality” proposed by Baraheni is briefly introduced, in the first place, followed by figuring out the main indicators of Language poetry from among his viewpoints. The most important indicators of the language poetry are syntactical discordance, de-semanticization, multiphonicity, projective dislocation, polylogia or lingual lunacy and so forth. It is argued that there is a gap between poetical theory and poetical implementation in the poetry of Baraheni as in Nima and Shamlu.

The theater of the absurd, with its roots in French theater, is one of the literary traditions influenced by the political events of the 20th century Europe. Fast spreading all over Europe, its effects were evident on other literary forms. At the same time, Iranian intellectuals developed an interest in it and introduced its masterpieces in translations to the Iranians. Having been influenced by the political events of the 1330s and the 1340s, absurdist works began to emerge in Iran too. Mahdi Akhavan-Sales was one of the early practitioners who tried his hand at this new form. This article deals with the intellectual and the historical backgrounds of absurdism in western literature, the meaning of the word ‘ absurd’ and its place in the European literature, and its features and implications. In the following part, the socio-political situations of the 1330s and the 1340s, which are the historical background to Akhavan’ s "Katibeh", are presented. The third part is dedicated to identification and an in-depth analysis of the absurdist features of this poem. Finally, it is concluded that Akhavan was quite familiar with this tradition and has almost used all its features in "Katibeh".

Different types of commentary can be classified based on the commentator and the literary text, and the audience. One type of commentary is comparative commentary. The aim of comparative commentary is to explain and interpret a literary text based on the literature of one nation in the language of another nation. The applied method of comparative commentary has three stages. The first stage is an introduction in order to study the historical relation and linguistic differences between two literary works. The second stage is comparative commentary in order to analyze linguistic-structural and semantic-thematic indexes. The last stage is conclusion in order to study how much the source text has influenced the target text. Mathnavi Sharif Commentary written by Foroozanfar can be considered as a comparative commentary as the commentator has a comparative approach in many of verses and stories of his book.

In the realm of poetry, lyric is the oldest form in which the poet depicts himself, while expressing personal emotions and spiritual reflections on life and the world. The poet presents his mental structure in the form of a literary work to the community. The social and cultural realities of the society are found in the form of objective, though minor and diffuse, reflections in literary works. Analyzing social affairs in poetry of a certain period or a specific poet shows the social concerns of that period. Since the sixth century is one of the turbulent periods in Iranian history, and many political and social events in this era affected the society, poetry is a good platform to observe these happenings. This research seeks to present a comparative and descriptive-analytical approach to the study of the social problems of this century in the poetry of Sanai, Anvari, Khaghani, and Nezami. Studying the different classes, values, and events of this period gives a clear picture of the realities, aspirations and insights into the minds of the poets and of society and. The result of the research shows that the political and social problems of the time have often affected poets, people's behavior and intellectual currents but these problems have prevented them from the creation of a strong worldview.