The comparative literature is one of the literature branches which enables us to perceive the similarities between intelligentsia and literati despite of the time and place differences among cultures and nations. Thus we were persuaded to compare Khaqani Shirvani – Iranian poet – and John DONNE – English poet – from two different countries with two different cultures. Some similarities could be observed in their looks to women despite of the time and place distances. The present article tries to survey two remarkable panegyrics on the ideal woman by allusions to some of their poems. The commonalities in their views have formed the basis of the present article.

"Love" is the mystery of existence and the away of knowing its creator. In the literature of all the worlds nations, love is an endless story that becomes more interesting and newer when it is repeated. A comparison of "Love" in the poems of John DONNE, the English poet, and Molana Jala-l-din Mohammad Balkhi, the Persian poet, is an opportunity to be familiar with their opinions, thoughts and attitudes about "Love". Comparative literature is a new way for understanding the human's feeling and emotions. Today, human being needs real love and affection more than before. And it is better to convey the phenomenon of "Love" through such thinkers and poets like John DONNE and Molawi to the young.

The highlighted purpose of the present study lies on the traces of Hermeticism in John DONNE’ s celebrated poem, An Anatomy of the World. Since DONNE was one of the seventeenth-century poets and a highly significant poet in the metaphysical school of poetry, his poems explore the realms of philosophy, theology, popular science, and also the idea of Platonic love in his love poetry. Hermeticism is an ancient idea which focuses on spiritual, philosophical, and magical tradition. This school of thought concentrates on the path of spiritual growth. It believes that human beings return to a state of unity by the spiritual journey. With reference to this idea, this study explores the elements of Hermeticism in the lines of An Anatomy of the World in order to grasp the idea of spiritual journey and unification in that DONNE in this poem centers on a profound quest and spiritual journey of the soul that goes to heaven.

1. Introduction: The classic view of metaphor, defines it as a figure of speech used by poets and intellectuals only for aesthetic purposes; Up until the late 18th century and early 19th century when the Romantic view changed that and took metaphor out of literary language boundaries and made it a means of thought and reflection of world. By the end of 20th century, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson suggested the "conceptual metaphor" theory in a book titled Metaphors We Live By. Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Their most important claim is that metaphor is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words; But they argue that on the contrary, human thought processes are largely metaphorical (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p. 6). As such, by examining the metaphors, we can reach authors' world-view and ways of thought. 2. Objectives: Love in the most important and most frequent subject in poetry, especially in the poetry of Rumi (Jalā l ad-Dī n Muhammad Balkhī , also known as Mowlana, 13th cent. Persian Poet). He uses a varieties of metaphors to describe love which can be inspected in various aspects and methods. In this paper, we narrowed those metaphors down to those which only talk about love as a circle or compass and compared them to the same ones in John DONNE's (16th cent. English poet) poetry. Therefore, the 3 main objectives of this paper are: extraction and examining of the metaphors in Rumi's and John DONNE's poetry, analyzing them based on conceptual metaphor theory and finally, comparing the results. 3. Methodology: This study is based on the descriptive analysis method by using library research and extracting poems by two poets and investigating backgrounds and elements. Then we will be able to answer that are there any similarities between metaphors' use in the poetry of these two poets (considering their 300-year time gap)? If so, what cultural and intellectual fields does it show? 4. Discussion: Lakoff and Johnson categorized conceptual metaphors into 3 main groups: "orientational", "ontological" and "structural" metaphors. The circle and compass metaphor are both orientational and ontological metaphors. Love is spoken of as a thing or an abstract that is used in math but its qualities help the speaker to talk about love. Circle is the most complete shape in the universe. It is the symbol of perfection. The circular movement and circle itself are constantly used to show senses and concepts that have associated semantics; for instance, movement of the skies, the degrees of existence, the verse and the divine, etc. In his great Diwan-e Shams, Rumi uses the circle metaphor in 3 ways. First, Love is a circle that Beloved is its center: 7 lines in his book uses the metaphor in that way. The indicators of these lines are "circling around a point", "the beloved being the center of reliance" and " repeating the circular movement by lover". The picture in these lines is the same as pilgrims circling around Ka'ba, the beloved being in center and lovers circling around. To describe love, Rumi used a state which is familiar for the reader. It was familiar for Rumi, too, who saw his Beloved as the center of his world. In A Valediction: forbidding mourning John DONNE compares the two lovers' souls to feet of a compass. At the beginning the lovers are a whole; united like two feet of a stiff compass. The beloved is the fixed foot and the lover moves around; Finishes where he started, united, no beginning and no end. But what is the circle resulted from lovers' union? Is it anything other than love itself? Perfect, beautiful and tying lovers. So the end of love is perfection and harmony. From a comparative view, Rumi and DONNE both see the beloved the center of circle and the lover as the moving foot of compass. Both used this metaphor to show the lovers' dependency to one another. Other point is the contradictory nature of compass; moving while being firmly placed in one point. Both poets define love as a circle which comes to existence only around the beloved; being the whole world of lover. Other than this circle, there is none. In DONNE's poetry we see that beloved hearkens after the lover who roams in far; which shows beloved's fondness of the lover; a point that we do not see in Rumi's metaphor. "The lover coming back to the starting point" is also seen in both poet's work. Second group of poem lines, Lover is a compass and moving around in a circle. In these lines, lover is both stiff and moving at the same time, always wandering around and is shocked by it. The lover himself is the whole compass. The object is a plaything in the beloved's hands. And made him dizzy and wandering. Lover is both consistent and moving at the same time. The same contrast is observed in DONNE's poetry as well; in lines 26 to 28 and 36. The third group of lines love is circular. In sonnet 169 of his great Diwan, Rumi describes love as a circle which is spinning the lovers all over the world round and round. And he says that "this spinning is mandatory for such a circle" the center of this circle could be Saaqi (the cupbearer) or either lover or beloved. The circular movement comes from drunkenness, being out of sound mind or the spree resulted from being in love. Love moves you, from one place to another, not showing the right way; like a compass, it takes you back to where you started. We see something similar to this use of circle in DONNE's poem as well. The circle resulted by the cooperation of the lovers, is love itself. The circle of love is perfect, showing solidarity of a world in which the lovers and compass have such a relationship. (Hawx, 95: 39). So what does these differences show? Rumi talks about a compass as it's moving very fast. Sometimes the beloved is at the center, sometimes the lover is the compass itself. As if Rumi thinks the best way to describe the lovers' behavior is spinning and circling. But DONNE's compass moves slowly. It only draws one circle and returns to the starting point safely. His most emphasis is on the lovers' dependency to one another; like a compass's feet. Love is a circle, as an ontological and orientational metaphor, shows some aspects of a circle and a compass and hide some other qualities at the same time. This metaphor has a visual basis – the shape of a circle – and a physical basis – the compass-at the same time. The cultural background of this metaphor is probably based on the two poets' religion. Rumi is a Muslim. His love is for the one and only Beloved. He has the picture of haj in his mind. He saw the Hajis spinning around the Kaaba with such a love and devotion. DONNE was a Christian scholar, too. He describes love in a way that it could be diverted to God. As a member of Metaphysical poets, DONNE wanted to take the lyrical poetry of that time out of its rot and materialism and insert new and farfetched conceits into it. 5. Conclusion: Although there are no common cultural similarities between the two poets, but we can consider religion, love for God, using mortal love to reach God and centering Beloved in life, the reason for use of "love is a circle" metaphor by them. Also visualization of the circumstances of lovers' in the way of unification with each other and their love towards one another is done by the two poets based on the physical body of compass. But this metaphor is used differently by them. In Rumi's poetry it is more frequent and more mystical and with more immediate impact. John DONNE uses this metaphor only in one poem and the impact takes longer to take shape.

In Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, based on his analysis of the relationship between the body and soul during his sickness, John DONNE reaches the conclusion that man is unable to resist all the temptations of sin. It is proposed in this study that as a result of this belief, DONNE encounters a theological problem, which he attempts to resolve by showing that despite the imperfections of the human nature, God has provided humans with every means necessary for achieving salvation. Therefore, it is argued that in the Devotions DONNE creates a Leibnizian theodicy, according to which in spite of the existence of problems in creation it is possible to prove that God has created the best possible world. The purpose of this study is to provide a very different reading from the most established interpretations of the Devotions, in which it is assumed that DONNE is simply encouraging his readers to avoid sin and to behave well. It is demonstrated that DONNE actually tackles a serious theological problem by creating a Leibnizian theodicy in the work.

In the study of sonnet sequence as a genre, invented by Italian Renaissance sonneteers and practiced up to the seventeenth century, we find out that Petrarch has not only been the most influential figure who established the elements of the convention but he also seems to have become an integral part of the sonnet convention. Petrarchan elements such as the idealized images of the beloved, the theme of sublimation, and the tone of lamentation receive a totally different treatment in DONNE’s Songs and Sonnets that is far from the spirit of Petrarch’s poetry. As a metaphysical poet, DONNE uses these elements either in a mocking tone to question the purity of love or with a serious attitude to reflect the paradoxical nature of love. The objective of this paper is to elaborate briefly on the Petrarchan elements and then discuss DONNE’s violation of such a convention.

It was in the late 16th and 17th centuries, at a time of political turmoil, new ideas and exciting discoveries, that the poetry we now call ‘metaphysical’ came to be written. The term ‘metaphysical poets’, coined by Samuel Johnson (following John Dryden, who first applied the adjective metaphysical to DONNE specifically), came into being long after the poets to whom we apply it were dead.The first part of the paper looks at the ways in which the Renaissance, religious controversy, political conflict and contemporary culture influenced the lives of the poets and their poetry. It then gives brief biography of the major metaphysical poets’ lives.The second part provides an introduction to its cultural and historical context at a time when the Church was bitterly divided into increasingly extreme factions from Roman Catholicism to Puritanism. It also provides some introduction to the rediscovery of classical culture and learning and its influences on metaphysical poetry with its forms and themes.The last part deals with the nature of metaphysical poetry which makes demands upon the reader and challenges him to make it out with its strong lines, concentration and fondness of far-fetching metaphors called conceits. This figure of speech always associates John DONNE and his followers. The strength of the religious poetry of the metaphysical poets is that they bring to their praise and prayer and meditation so much experience that is not in itself religious. They tried to be phenomenal in their thought and were careless of their diction.

Après avoir proposé la périodisation 1980-2010, et les trois axes qui caractérisent les changements de la littérature -l’écriture de Soi, de l’Histoire et du Monde -, l’article étudie cet intérêt renouvelé pour le Sujet, comment l’autobiographie en particulier DONNE naissance à l’autofiction, comment le champ éditorial s’intéresse au Journal et au Carnet, et surtout comment deux forms nouvelles s’imposent: le récit de filiation et la fiction biographique.

Dans cet article, l"enjeu serait d"initier les lecteurs a un mouvement litteraire qui est apparu en occident et qui s"est DONNE le nom de L"OULIPO. Certes, ce mouvement est peu connu chez nous en Iran et le nombre d"articles consacre cl ce sujet n"est pas considerable. Cet article nous esquisse done les objectifs et les caracteristiques de L"OULIPO ainsi que les portraits des precurseurs et les fondateurs de ce mouvement sans oublier de nous DONNEr des exemples precis.