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The necessity of using modern literary knowledge in evaluating the Quranic texts and the writings based on the Quranic teachings is clear and necessary for Muslim researchers in today's world. In this research, the structure of Joseph’s (pbuh) Tale in the translation of Tafsir-e-Tabari (the Persian translation of Tabari’s Commentary of the Quran) has been evaluated by using Propp’s morphology. To achieve a more appropriate conclusion, this tale has been divided into four stories and its characters and their functions have been critically analyzed in each story. The number of the characters and the manner of their functions clearly demonstrate the structure of this tale on the basis of Propp’s theory. The movements of three stories out of four in the mentioned tale have followed Propp’s sextuple movement pattern; only in the second story of this tale, a two cross-sectional movement is seen that is not adaptable to Propp’s movement patterns and is considered as a new movement. Propp in his ideas has considered the religious roots and his morphology theory has been very efficient in studying Joseph’s (pbuh) tale. Since Propp has paid attention to structures rather than superstructures and quantitative details, his ideas are also helpful in studying the other tales. Finally, the author suggests that all the Quranic tales can be evaluated from a structural perspective on the basis of Propp’s ideas to find out the fundamental structure of these tales.   

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Although literary texts are extensively taught at schools and universities, to date the attitude of Iranian students towards literary texts has remainedunderstudied. Taking this research gap into account, the writers of the present article adopted a descriptive-analytical approach and examined a sample of students' attitudes towards Persian contemporary poems. Taking Vala (2011) theoretical model, three concepts, i.e. evaluation, comprehensibility, and impressiveness are considered. Next, two poems including"Remember the flight, the bird is mortal" by ForouqFarokhzad, and "Abyss" penned by Ahmad Shamlou are selected and used to design a researcher-made questionnaire. 120 students of Humanities read the poems and answered the questions. The findings indicated that the participants evaluate the level of the poems higher than the mean. They stated that the poems are comprehensible and fairly express their emotions. Analyzing the data with respect to the gender variable showed that the male and female participants have quite the same attitude concerning the evaluation and impressiveness of the poems, but a significant difference was noticed in comprehensibility as the female participants believed that the poems are more complex. The subjects maintained that "Abyss" was more complex than"Remember flight, the bird is mortal". The subjects selected "loneliness" and "despotism" as the key concepts of the poems of Farokhzad and Shamlou respectively. We believe that measuring the attitudes of language users towards literary works contributes to the educational syllabus design and opens a novel horizon in the interdisciplinary studies with the emphasis on Persian language and literature.

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Ahli Torshizi is a poet of late ninth century A. H. and contemporary with Soltan Hussein Bayqara. His Divan was published about 50 years ago by Simon Israeli and OmraniChamraghi; yet, the biographical notes about his life are discordant, confused and at times distorted.In the later books, he is named as Muhammad ibn Yusuf, and Nafisi and consequently HadjSeyedDavoodi believe that he went to Tabriz after the decline of the Timuriadsand entered the court of SoltanYaghoub. He is also named as the author of Saghinameh and the translator ofTohfatolSoltan Fi ManagebolNaman.Akhtar Khan Hogoly, ModarresTabrizi, NazmiTabrizi, and OmraniChamraghiall have also claimed that he was originally from Tabriz but because he was born in the city of Tarshizi, he is known to be of this city. On the other hand, some great biographers claim that there is a poet known as AhliNavaei or AhliChagatai who was contemporary with Ahli Tarshizi.Investigation and analysis of allthe differences and the diversions in the biographical notes on Ahlicannot be explained here. However, this paper aims to carefullyanswer the following questions:
1. Was his name Muhammad ibn Yusuf?
2. Did Ahli compose Saghinameh?
3. Has Tarshizi translated the book of TohfatolSoltan Fi ManagebolNaman?
4. Is he originally from Tabriz?
5. Does a poet called AhliNavaei or Ahli Chagatai exist?
6. Has Ahli entered the court of SoltanYaghoub?

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Nizami Ganjavi is a well-known literary figure in Iranian cultural history whose influence has not been diminished in contemporary era. The scene of “Shirin bathing in a fountain” is one of the most prominent scenes of Khosrow and Shirin poem which has been the focus of attention for many modern poets. Following a content analysis approach, this study attempts to explain why such a scene has been so rich and influential in contemporary poetry. The scene has been impressive in two ways: In the first, and the most important type, the whole poem is dedicated to this scene, and in the other type, the poets have only partially referred to the scene. In this paper, it is argued that the scene of Shirin bathing in a fountain is a romantic theme and since some poets were influenced by romanticism – at some points in their professional career – they were fascinated by this scene. Rebellion, violation of moral boundaries, attention to local legends, mythological manifestation of a woman/the beloved one, metaphorism, dynamism and maturity of the scene and its vivid expression, the vague location and time of the event as well as the naturalism of the scene have been parameters of the romantic poems and images most of which are represented in the studied scene. Another attraction of the scene is its eroticism. This classical image has the potential to arouse sensual attraction and to reflect both physical and feminine tensions of our time and to give an indigenous identity to modern poetry.  


 

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There is a difference of opinion about the word “Aspanwar” among the translators of Andarz i Khosraw i Ghabadan as well as other scholars of Middle Persian language and literature, lexicographers and encyclopedists at all levels of phonology, transliteration, explanation of meaning and determination of the signified. Aspanwar has been translated as: one of the seven cities of Madain; Isfahan; the horse stable; a place of rest; and a tomb. Due to the placement of this word at the top of Andarznameh and the limitation of Andarznameh to the place of Aspanwar, each reading of this word affects the totality of the audience’s interpretation of the text of Andarz i Khosraw i Ghabadan. In this article, the term Aspanwar will be studied within three domains: first, historical data; second, analysis of the lexical structure of Aspanwar; and third, the evidence of the text for the description of the text, which falls under semantics and speech functions. Also in this article, mythological narratives are used to describe Aspanwar. The result of the study reinforces the explanation that Aspanwar was made by constructing the word aspān (horse) + suffix “-war” (meaning area, border, and boundary) and means neither Isfahan nor tomb, but a structure or area associated with “horse”. Thus, it means a public square, which was the same structure that in the Islamic period had the common name “Shah Square” and has been a constant part of the Iranian palace architecture. With its development, this square has become one of the seven cities of Madain. Therefore, the meaning of Aspanwar in Andarz i Khosraw i Ghabadan was Madain Square and one of its seven cities where the most important structure of the Sassanid court, namely Arch of Madain, was built. This part of Madain is still called Asbanbar on the east bank of the Tigris and south of Ctesiphon.

 

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In the play Farhad and Shirin, the Azerbaijani poet and writer Samad Vurgun has recounted the poem of Khosrow and Shirin in a way contrary to Nizami Ganjavi's intentions. In his work, he tried to create a self and the other divide. Iranians are portrayed as a threatening enemy of the lands beyond Aras and an intractable enmity between the two sides is imagined. In agreement with the communist politicians, Vurgun sought to prepare an independent identity for the newly established Republic of Azerbaijan; in a way that did not overlap with Iranian and Ottoman cultural commonalities. The current research, which is carried out in a descriptive-analytical way, tries to answer the question, how did Vurgun describe the self and the other and what methods did he employ to determine and embody the cultural identity of the Caucasus? The author of this play described Iranians as people with negative aspects such as raping, kidnapping, killing parents, lying, etc. and instead, attributed all the positive qualities to the people of Barda District. On the other hand, the introduction of Shirin and Farhad as lovers from Azerbaijan and the creation of a character named Azarbaba have been part of the strategies to promote the new identity of the Caucasus.