Literary Research
Year:2007 | Volume:4 | Issue:16|Papers Count:12

This paper deals with the influence of Koranic tales on Molavi as witnessed in his story titled the Villager and the Citizen which comes in Part III of the Masnavi. It addresses Molavi's pattern-based approach in adopting basic intellectual models from the holy Koran as well as his use of these "ideal patterns" and "paradigms" in developing the said story and decoding its constituent elements while presenting moral, social and epistemological propositions. This is viewed as a unique approach in research on Molavi. The conclusion is that Molavi has widely exploited the Koranic tales as paradigms to develop his stories and parables and achieve his main aim that is to teach moral lessons. This influence is so great that it may not be reduced to "association of ideas" or "system of allusions".

Examining the constituents of a literary work and discovering its governing rules helps us understand the text's internal structures and identify its constituent parts. In this paper, I set to analyze the component parts of the Masnavi's satires through a structural approach and show which one of these elements is more effective in building the satires. Furthermore, I will try to identify the main element or elements of the Masnavi satires' grace so that we can determine which of the four dimensions of language, content, structure, and eloquence has been most influenced by Molavi's satiric taste.

Baha-e-Valad's Ma'aref is among the texts known to have had a strong bearing on Molavi's thinking and discourse. Molavi's special interest in Ma 'aref is reflected in his own works. Jalaluddin's Masnavi-e-Ma 'navi seems to be especially influenced by the Ma 'aref as far as structural and thematic organization are concerned. The contents of the Masnavi and its improvisation style as well as the numerous associations it carries are strongly reminiscent of Baha-e- Valad's Ma 'aref This very article addresses the shared features and intertextual relations of the Ma 'aref and the Masnavi from the viewpoint of storytelling. In addition to the stories Molavi has directly adopted from the Ma 'arefto only give them a more artistic treatment according to his superb storytelling taste, there is yet another subject which deserves due attention: narrative exploitation of the characters and discourses built into the Ma 'aref as well as common narrative hints and allusions, structural suspense and discontinuities, and thematic turns or abrupt changes in oratory eloquence style and discourse.

Although Molavi does not care much about the form of a story and accords only secondary importance to it (he considers it as a means of getting to the core of meaning), he actually uses very graceful and elegant formal devices. To see this for yourself, just take a look at the similar stories narrated by other poets and writers. As we know, most of the stories related by Molavi in his Masnavi come from other sources. No doubt, the main aim of Molavi in telling these stories is to arrive at various mystical conclusions, but in most cases he himself has modified them. The result is nearly perfect and aesthetically better versions. These adjustments and modifications come in different forms, e.g. factualized stories, universalized characters, irony, etc. A major adjustment characteristic of Molavi's stories is that he has made already static characters and protagonists, as portrayed in previously narrated versions, dynamic. In short, the protagonist and other characters in Molavi's stories grow more informed and gain further knowledge as the story progresses: at the same time as the problem gets resolved for the reader, it clears up for the protagonist who often gets insight into his own mistake in the end. This leaves a greater effect on the reader's mind, because as the protagonist gets more and more distant from ignorance and closer and closer to knowledge and truth, the reader having identified with him feels greater delight and pleasure, and finally through empathy thinks that he himself has gained knowledge or realized that he was wrong. This article compares similar stories told by Molavi and Attar. Some 42 of the 390 stories in the Masnavi have similar versions in Attar's work. The protagonists in at least 15 of the Masnavi stories undergo a major change as the story goes on (they gain knowledge or realize their mistake). This is not true of the principal characters in Attar's masnavis.

Dialog constitutes the core of Molavi's storytelling. In the Masnavi, the channel and circuit of communication, which is the conveying of a notion from a mind to another, is the characters' dialog, it forms the basis and skeleton of the stories. But Molavi has used another type of communication in many of his stories as well, it is called "nonverbal communication" in modern Communication Studies and Sociology. Molavi's turning to this device in expressing delicate and profound ideas demonstrates his full knowledge of the similarities and differences between verbal and nonverbal communication. Molavi had to utilize this scholarly technique, notably in certain circumstances - which is the focus of this very article - given its greater reliability, longer continuity, multiple channels of communication, cultural component, and symbolic nature, as well as its potential in preventing possible misinterpretations, which are a recurrent characteristic of most verbal communication. This article opens with an explanation of the term "nonverbal communication", followed by an overview of the principles of nonverbal communication and its features, as well as its similarities and differences with verbal communication. All this is done with reference to scholarly sources. Next comes an account of Molavi's way of using this communication method in the Masnavi, particularly in storytelling there. I will also refer to the cases where the said technique has been successful in conveying Molavi's ideas to his readership, as well as the points he has emphasized in this regard. Through the use of poetic examples and instances, the article seeks to shed light on this structural pattern of Molavi's storytelling. The paper ends with a conclusion.

Center of narration plays an important role in the analysis of the abilities and tactics being applied by a story teller to shape his account. So much so that making any change in it will result in differences and changes in the principal course of the story and even its theme. Furthermore, we never deal with crude circumstances in stories, rather we do encounter incidents that have been represented in a special manner and have received attention from a specific center of narration. The varieties of center of narration and the story teller's different ways of dealing with point of view in the Masnavi are accomplished so attractively and consciously that its analysis can reveal Molavi's genius in creating a work of art which is beyond time and place. The present article which is based on document analysis seeks to examine different kinds of center of narration by focusing on the story "Daquqi".

The character, as a major element of storytelling, has many varieties. One of them is the historical character. The Masnavi contains many historical characters, but since historical stories are different from "historical accounts", and historical accounts are not the same as "historical events", the historical characters included in the Masnavi are different from their story versions. One of them is the chief of the Khorasan mystics, Ibrahim Adham, whose abandoning of power (emirate) is well known. Although there is not much historical information available on the life of Ibrahim Adham, one may find tales about him in some stories from the Central Asia, however, these are mixed with fiction. There are also various accounts of him abandoning the emirate which come under three major titles, namely "the camel, the caravanserai, and the hunt." They feature different events but share the same beginning, end and storyline. Molavi has chosen the camel story and put it in his Masnavi. There are also others who have related the same story and who are temporally and intellectually close to Molavi, among them Attar, Shams, and Sultan Valad. Although the quartet(3+1)'s narrations are considered similar and put in the same group, they are characterized by different storytelling and dialectic techniques. Upon analysis, it turns out that the narrative technique of Shams excels those of the rest, better conforming to storytelling principles

Allegory represents a type of thinking and world view as well as a style of speech in Molavi's works, Masnavi in particular. In Molalvi's "allegoric philosophy", what makes necessary the use of this approach - as the principal narrative style of the tales - is the necessity to carry ideas over into sense impressions. Molavi presents the theoretical foundations of this thought in Fihe-ma-Fih, and practically portrays the thought in the Masnavi. This allegoric philosophy which is based on the two-dimensional nature of allegory - narrative surface structure and intellectual deep structure - furnishes the tale with a double structure, one functioning as literary allegory and the other as spiritual and philosophical allegory. In the writer's narrative style, this leads to the reduction of some essential elements of a story such as suspense. It could be seen that in the Masnavi's stories the two structural dimensions mix along the narrative line of the story in a form known as "representation building". Another manifestation of allegory in Molavi’s works is "allegoric interpretation", used to describe the coded and implicit themes of stories, whose main function in all its forms is "to teach".

Molavi is one of the greatest mystical storytellers in Persian literature who has adopted storytelling to convey didactic and mystical notions. Molavi's Masnavi remains a well-known work throughout the world thanks to his intelligence in understanding the concerns and dimensions of human soul as well as to his grasp of the social traits of the readership, plus his superb skills in applying the delicate techniques of storytelling. It is quite surprising that he had such a mastery of storytelling techniques some seven centuries ago, while critics have only recently discovered its subtleties and techniques. Among these techniques is the skillful use of the time element in narratives. Over the past decades, a French researcher has elaborated on temporality in narratives, presenting is views under three topicsorder, continuity, and frequency. His theory is well known. In this paper we will try to show, based on the French scholar's theory, how Molavi has utilized the time element in the tale "The Tribal Arab Dervish and His Wife". We will also attempt to understand how and to what extent he has made choices in temporal and actual terms, moving from chronological time to textual time. These choices and the particular type of temporality Molavi has applied in the said story are analyzed to see if they have a direct and meaningful relationship with the theme of the tale.

One of the 260 stories of the Masnavi is a short and untitled tale whose exact source is not known. It comes under the story of the Saba people in Part III. No-one among the exponents has commented on it, some have given only a few hints. They have simply interpreted the symbols or explained the lexical elements. Of course Molavi himself has addressed it later in the story. I believe that none of the researchers and commentators has examined the said tale without attention to Molavi's own explication or structurally as an independent story. In this paper I try to come up with a new reading of the story. I am of the opinion that all parts of the story must be interpreted as a whole and in a unified context or discourse chain in relation to the preceding stories. Based on this approach, as the story's structure is analyzed and its elements examined, another interpretation is provided with attention to the problems of contemporary man. This is not seen in any of the previous sources. The said allegoric story owes its special treatment and imagery to the imagination of Molavi. It has its roots in the poet's stream of consciousness and religious mythology - such as the story of Joseph and the dreams of Egypt's ruler, and the tale of Abraham and the four birds - as well as in dreamlike surreal images. This relatively short story contains great universal points and messages for lonely human beings who are stranded in the contemporary world. Describing the major potential woes and problems of humans, Molavi explains and analyzes these ills and finally proposes ways of getting rid of them.

This article is concerned with Molavi's aim in telling fables and shows his special interpretations there. Over 50 tales in the Masnavi draw on animals, and Molavi has used some 38 types of animals in the interpretation of his thoughts and ideas including birds, beasts, domestic animals, sea creatures, insects, etc. Donkey has the highest frequency of occurrence in 7 stories, while lion, cow and dog have the most frequent recursion in 5 stories each. Of the 38 animal characters, 31.5 percent are birds, 39.5 percent are beasts, 16 percent are domestic animals, 8 percent are sea creatures, and 5 percent are insects. Through the decoding of symbols in these tales, some 76 interpretations are retrieved, most of which are concerned with God, perfect man, and worldly man, as well as his bad personality traits. Most of these interpretations end with valuable notions, such as the story of man's soul, death, the hereafter, and the resurrection, the story of God and the prophets and their opponents, the supremacy of inner senses over outer senses, the divine support for God's good worshippers; the rituals of praying, a comparison of mystics and those fond of appearances, and dozens more great notions. In his interpretation of these stories, Molavi explains profound mystical ideas and complex notions of human knowledge. In many cases, these notions and interpretations somehow replace the story, and then Molavi goes back to the story saying over and over again that the tales and allegories fall short of reflecting those profound notions, he shows a sense of pity at these devices' failure to capture those ideas. This study classifies the animals named in the Masnavi as well as Molavi's own interpretation of them, plus their frequency of occurrence. The results are shown through the use of graphs and tables.

Molavi Masnavi somehow follows the tradition of verbal narration ('Mo'aref telling'), which was customary in his family. The spontaneity of speech, the interference of present requirements of the meeting in the natural development of discussions, and consequently, the fragmentation of language are some of the obvious elements of a work like the Masnavi. The very presence of the audience at the time of composition of the Masnavi creates a classroom atmosphere. Naturally, one can frequently observe the tacit and yet clear role of the audience in this didactic composition, which is the result of an interaction between the speaker and the listener. On the other hand, because of Molavi's interest in certain topics and subjects and his preferences, it is the speech that finally shapes the stories, not the writer. Molavi repeatedly asks the reader to seek the internal rather than the external meaning, also, the stories and their content-based nature warn the reader not to suffice to the surface meaning of the stories and not to read the Masnavi as a story book. Digressions in the Masnavi appear in various forms and for various reasons. Some of the reasons for these digressions are: the present audience's reactions such as expressions and feelings, inspirations which automatically come to Molavi' s mind, the speaker's trance at the time of presenting topics to which his sensitive soul is deeply connected - topics such as love, monotheism, absorption in God, and his memories with Shams Tabrizi.