Persian Language and Literature

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Half-Yearly Persian Language and literature

Abū Hayyān al-Tawhīdī: Beyond the Dual Opposition of Verse and Prose in the Islamic Literary-Rhetorical Tradition

Farzad Baloo

Verse and prose have had proponents and opponents in the literary tradition throughout history, and each group has argued for or against the other. By overcoming this dual opposition without taking the side of poetry or prose and adopting a philosophical and aesthetic approach, Abū Hayyān al-Tawhīdī revealed other aspects of the relationship between verse and prose. Quoting the opinions of the advocates of poetry and prose, the present paper objectively analyzes the monotheistic meta-dualism approach in Al-Imtāʿ wa al-Mu’ānasa using a descriptive-analytical method. The results indicate that by rereading the works of the proponents of verse and prose, Tawhīdī believes that the final word cannot be stated about poetry and prose. Moreover, after explaining the nature of speech and its types, he mentions the advantages of verse and prose in the words of their advocates: e.g., verse is creation and the general public does not attain it, while prose is realized faster and attracts the general writer for its convenience; prose needs poetry for adornment, but poetry does not need prose; the poet has an infinite horizon ahead while the writer has a limited field, and prose is the foundation of speech but poetry is its derivative; prose is free of obligations while poetry is full of poetic requirements; prose borrows from wisdom but poetry borrows from emotion; and despite the formal beauty of verse, prose is more original and noble. Finally, he concludes that both verse and prose have undeniable virtues and the best type of speech is one that its form is something between verse and prose while it is neither verse nor prose.

Investigating the Process of Formation and Transformation of Sufi Discourse (Relying on the Signifier of “Trust” in the Scholastic Sufi Texts)

Akram Barazandeh

The general discourse of Islamic Sufism is a sacred attitude that was formed in the context of religion, in response to other opposing discourses such as jurisprudence, scholastic theology, philosophy and asceticism. At the end of the second century A.H., the followers of the Sufi movement incorporated the alchemy of love in the ascetic copper. Unlike other intellectual and religious movements of Islamic culture and civilization that regarded the text of the Qur'an as a text descended from heaven to earth in a dialectical movement between heaven and earth, they considered the Qur'an to be a text for the movement from earth to heaven, that is, the Sufi ascension. With this in mind, we witness various encounters of Sufism with conceptualizing prominent and frequent signs, especially the floating sign of “trust” in Sufi discourse as well as other works of Sufism including scholastic and intuitive prose texts. In this paper, using the descriptive-analytical method and the approach of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, we have demonstrated the metamorphoses of this floating sign in several scholastic Sufi texts in Persian and Arabic, and through this we have explained the interactions of these texts.

The Image of the Main Character in the Short Stories of Houshang Golshiri after the Islamic Revolution

Amin Banitalebi

Based on the theory of reflection in the sociology of art, literature in its broadest sense is a mirror of society that reflects the orientations, tastes and social currents and helps to dissect the society better than science and technology. In particular, among literary works, short stories and novels are more dependent on social life than other types of literature, and while being affected by changes in society, they themselves are the source of change and show the changes in societies. In this way, by recognizing the fluctuations and changes of the world inside the main characters of the stories, a path can be found to know the transformations and changes in the world outside them. The purpose of this study is to examine the image of the main character in Houshang Golshiri’s short stories. In this regard, an attempt was made to conduct a comparative content analysis of the works using the descriptive-analytical method and by extracting the characteristics of the main characters of Golshiri’s short stories in the 60s and 70s (Persian Calendar) and by identifying the main socio-political events and currents of the years following the victory of the Islamic Revolution. The results show that in his collection of stories Golshiri directly and indirectly presented a part of the mentalities and thoughts of intellectuals, artists and the middle class of his time and there is a close relationship between the spiritual, political, social and cultural characteristics of the main characters of each collection of stories with the prevailing socio-political situation of that period. This corresponds to the author’s political and social perception of the developments of the period because when the status of society changes, some of these characteristics also change.

Dakhou Takes the Role of Psychotherapist: An Analysis of Dehkhoda's “Charand-o-Parand” Using Rogers’ Theory

Hossain Bayat

Ali Akbar Dehkhoda is one of the most influential writers of the constitutional era. Simultaneously with the formation of the first parliament, he published his reports, views and critiques in a series of narrative articles entitled “Charand-o-Parand” in the weekly journal “Sur-e-Esrafil”. These writings were very popular and attracted a wide audience. Apart from the fact that the contents of the narratives were realistic, it seems that the original structure of “Charand-o-Parand” articles, which used the language of humor and the creation of a reliable narrator (Dakhou), who plays a key role in the writings, has strengthened the attractiveness and credibility of the narratives. The methods that Dehkhoda has used in the unique structure of the articles and the characterization of Dakhou share striking similarities with the techniques outlined in Carl Rogers’ humanistic approach. An approach that is fundamentally psychological in nature and the issue of personality is its focal point. The selection and classification of the examples derived from “Charand-o-Parand” and matching them with the components of Rogers’ Person-Centered Theory show that Dehkhoda placed features in the field of the text that prove Rogers’ most important assumption, the experimental world. Based on this, the form and contents of the articles narrated by Dakhou can be similar to the features assumed by Rogers describing an ideal face of the therapist.

Grammaticalization of Linguistic Forms Derived from “Goftan”

Fahimeh Tasallibakhsh

In Modern Persian, different forms of the verb “goftan” (meaning “to say”) are used as grammatical tools for denoting modality. Some of these forms such as “gu”, “gu’i”, “gofti”, “gu’iyâ” and “guyâ” went through historical changes and were used as modal adverbs in Persian literary texts and among them, “gu’i” and “guyâ” are still common. In Modern Persian, there are other forms of the verb “goftan” such as “begu”, “nagu” and “begu’i”, which function as modals in certain contexts. In this paper, we studied the semantic features of the verb “goftan” in texts belonging to different stages of Persian language from Old Persian to Modern Persian and we also tracked the process of grammaticalization of certain forms of the verb “goftan” to show how they changed into modal adverbs. Based on our findings, “gu’i” has been used for purposes such as simile and allegory to represent imaginary and unreal statements and “guyâ” has had a modal role to represent doubt and uncertainty of the speaker. Both forms are still in use. Moreover, some forms of the verb “goftan” are in the middle stages of grammaticalization. These forms represent the modalities of inference, conjecture, assumption, and imagination, but some of them are gradually losing their verbal characteristics and are changing into adverbs to represent modality.

A New Look at the Motif of “Jām” in Hāfez’s Diwān

Hossain Hassan Rezaie

There are some words and phrases in Hāfez’s Diwān (Book of Poems) which merit careful attention as this brings us closer to the world of his poetry and thought. One of these words is “Jām” (“cup”) and its synonyms. The frequency of this word and its synonyms is indicative of its significance in the mind of the poet. To investigate Jām in Hāfez’s Diwān, the importance of Jām in Persian literature and Hāfez’s Diwān, and the opinions of the old and contemporary exegetes regarding the meaning and function of Jām in Hāfez’s Diwān were explained in this paper. The body of the paper contains two distinct parts: the first part deals with Jām in the tradition of poetry prior to Hafez. There are three kinds of Jām or “Mey” (wine): earthly, mystical, and Khayyamian. The second part is concerned with the display of the artistic skills of Hāfez in dealing with Jām in the following subheadings: 1. The repetition and foregrounding of the word Jām and making it a symbolic motif, 2. Creating opposition by Jām and using it as a tool for political and social struggle, 3. Mixing the various and opposing meanings and functions of Jām, and 4. Making paradoxical expression with Jām to create masterpiece couplets. The conclusion of this descriptive-analytical research is that Hafez intentionally repeated Jām to make it prominent and symbolic and mixed its Islamic and Iranian senses to create a prism of which any reader based on their background knowledge and experience could get various meanings.

Kerāmāt and Realities: The Kerāmāt Anecdotes and the Type of Reality

Mohammad Roodgar

The theme of most of the Sufi anecdotes is the Kerāmāt (miracles) of the Sheikhs (elders). A large volume of mystical memoirs and biographies and some other Sufi texts can be included under the title of “Kerāmāt Anecdotes”. These anecdotes have always been the subject of acceptance or rejection by various groups of their audience. Determining the type of reality in these Kerāmāt anecdotes and classifying them under a particular view of reality is one of the most important issues surrounding these anecdotes. There are several ways to accept the Kerāmāt anecdotes, but the best and most comprehensive way that the author advocates in this paper is the analytical realism of Kerāmāt and the attainment of a type of mystical or Sufi realism. Those who neither submit to devotional acceptance nor are themselves in the path of mysticism to attain the truth of Kerāmāt by means of discovery and intuition, can arrive at a level of acceptance of Kerāmāt with the help of specific analyses. However, in the realistic analysis of Kerāmāt, there is no reduction or limitation in the phenomenon. The present descriptive-analytical library research seeks to identify the type of reality in this particular narrative in order to prove that the reality of Kerāmāt anecdotes is not equal to any existing or familiar reality and as a result these anecdotes need their own specific realism.

The Multiplicity of Significations in Hazin Lahiji’s Ghazal Lyrics

Bagher Sadrinia

The use of ambiguity and amphibology in speech, by arranging the setting for multiplicity of significations and delaying the process of meaning comprehension, leaves a significant impression on the creation of artistic aspects of the literary work and to the extent that the speech is free of such expressive techniques, it turns into a single meaning proposition, and its artistic worth is diminished. In this paper, based on such a presupposition, we have revisited the poems of Hazin Lahiji (1103-1180 A.H.) and examined the multiplicity of significations in his poems at both lexical and textual levels. At the lexical level, some figures of speech such as amphibology and its types, coincidence, and derivative puns pass beyond the limits of significations of the couplet and open new horizons of meaning to the audience. This study confirms that 192 cases of amphibologies were used in his poem. At both the sentence and couplet levels we classified the types of ambiguities and multiplicity of significations and the causes of their emergence into three categories of linguistic, logical and tonal and in each category we investigated and analyzed the techniques used by the poet to create ambiguity and various significations.

Investigating the Effect of Morphological Features of Persian and Arabic Nouns on the Literariness of Poetic Texts: The Case of Hafez’s Molamma’āt

Mohammad Reza Azizi

The present article identified the morphological characteristics of the Arabic noun as a feature preventing various interpretations of literary texts. Arabic nouns enjoy intrinsic features such as masculinity and femininity, solidness or derivativeness, morphological weight, duality, plurality, precise pronouns, relativity, demonstratives, etc., which determine and give rise to special associations in the mind of the audience. Although the precision of Arabic morphology in scientific and philosophical prose is a privilege with the help of which scholars can clearly express their intentions, it seems to be a defect in literary texts that reduces the multifariousness and artistic delicacy of the works. The absence of some of these features in the morphology of Persian nouns contributes to the ambiguity and literariness of the poem. In Hafez’s Diwān, there are seven bilingual lyrics (Molamma’āt) that allow such a comparison. The presence of some Persian and Arabic stanzas in a ghazal lyric of Hafez clearly shows the difference between the morphological possibilities in Persian and Arabic. In general, the absence or existence of such features in Persian words brings with it a wider audience and expands the range of different interpretations of a poetic work.

A Study of Violence Against Women in the Fiction Literature of the 1940s Based on Four Novels (Showhar-e Ahou Khanom, Sang-e Sabour, Shazde Ehtejab, Suvashon)

Kolsoom Ghorbani

New Iranian fiction is the birthplace of modern and progressive ideas. For example, it is an arena where women play a role both as writers and as influential heroes in the creation of events. In this new literature, women are the subject of problems in many stories. One of these problems is violence against women. In this paper, we made an attempt to investigate violence, its types and tools and various causes of its occurrence in selected novels of the 1940s entitled Sang-e Sabour, Showhar-e Ahou Khanom, Shazde Ehtejab, and Suvashon by means of which to portray their authors’ attitudes toward women’s rights and issues in the society. Analyzing the contents of the aforementioned works, the most violence in its hidden and overt forms can be seen in Showhar-e Ahou Khanom, followed by Sang-e Sabour, Shazde Ehtejab and Suvashon, respectively. Numerous factors play a role in the occurrence of this violence: culture, customs and traditions, religious beliefs, family and the patriarchal attitude and women’s ignorance of their rights, are among the causes. The issue of violence against women in the novels shows that the writers of this period, as intellectuals and reformers in the society, have a feminist attitude and try to defend women’s rights by protesting against the ruling sexist traditions and criticizing the patriarchal domination and showing the unfavorable social conditions and inferior status of women.

Representation of Iranian Myths in Persian Historical Books

Yahya Kardgar

Knowledge of myths and epics is important and necessary to get acquainted with the past culture and civilization of nations. Therefore, it is worth considering the developments that occur in a society’s myths and epics due to political and social reasons and the passage of time. So far, no research has been done aimed at identifying the causes and the changes occurred in the mythological and epical images of Iran in the most important Persian history books from the third century up to the end of the Safavid rule. The results of this study, which was done using the descriptive-analytical method, are: the removal of many ideas of Zoroastrianism from the face of Iranian mythology as a result of Arab domination and the influence of Islam, changes in some of the actions and deeds of Iranian mythological characters and the influence of Islamic teachings on them and their mixing with the Israelites (foreign narratives from Jewish sources), the transformations that took place in the form of characters, stories, and mythological geography, and the mixtures that influenced the Iranian mythology due to the spread of Israelites in the form of contemporaneity, fake lineage, uniformity, and geographical affiliation. Other findings of this study show the influence of the thoughts of the Semitic people on Iranian mythology and the logic of the credibility of the historian’s era on the Iranian narratives, which led to various myths about them.

Study of the role of Persuasive rhetorical practices in creating a suspension in the Niẓāmī Gandjawī’s “Ḵosrow o Širin”

fatemeh qarleqi

 Niẓāmī Gandjawī’s “Ḵosrow o Širin” the poem is one of the most prominent works of genius and fiction in Persian literature. Although the articles on the structure of the narrations of this poem have already been written, But in using rhetorical instruments to persuade the audience and, as a result, to suspend, No particular research has been done on this fiction. In this article, First, we have defined the persuasion in various sciences and its role in the history of philosophy and rhetoric And then a brief glance at the definition has been suspended to clarify how rhetorical practices can serve to suspend the story. Suspicions in the story of Khosrow and Shirin are largely the result of the poet's use of the rhetorical techniques used to persuade the audience. This suspension, which in fact causes the coward and the distance between lover and beloved at different intervals of the story And on the other hand, it creates expectations in the reader, there are many stories in different sections. In this article, two sciences of meaning and expression have been used to examine the role of persuasion in creating suspense. It was enough from the meanings of science of meanings only to the secondary meaning of the word, namely encouragement, perseverance, warning, blame and blame, and reverence and bow and from expressions to similarities, metaphors, and parables, because their role and effect seem to be more tangible to achieve the desired result.