Journal of Literary Criticism and Rhetoric

Abstract In folk tales, there are many time propositions that indicate the vagueness and hypothetical quality of time. These propositions have a high frequency in One Thousand and One Nights and are sometimes repeated in one story. This repetition is purposeful and can be studied from the perspective of stylistics. In addition clarifying the time in the mind of the reader, these propositions show the changes in the location of events and the duration of intervals. This paper aims to study the purpose of the use of time propositions as a stylistic feature in the translation of One Thousand and One Nights. Moreover, the concept of “chronotope” in formal logic and other concepts related to the contents of these stories, such as empty time (interval between events) and accidental time (time propositions that change events in favor of the hero of the story), are studied and explained.

Abstract Nizami’s narration of Khosrow and Shirin is noteworthy for several points including the way these two characters meet each other, their tragic destinies despite the joyfulness of Persian romances, and the active role of Shirin. Therefore, to study the formation of the story and the tragic destinies of its characters, the article analyzes the structure of its narrative. The narration of Khosrow and Shirin begins with a complete sequence. This sequence forms two other major sequences, which are Khosrow’s efforts to gain the four desirables (Shirin, Royal throne, Shabdiz, and Barbad) and Shirin’s efforts to gain Khosrow. The sequences of the narrative are cycles of the change of situation from the stable to the unstable; actions and reactions of the auxiliary and opposing forces have a vital role in changing the situation. Each sequence begins with a change from a balanced state to an unbalanced one and ends with the possibility of transformation and, ultimately, the materialization of transformation. At the end of the narrative, because of the narrator’s belief that worldly blessings are unstable, these desirable transformations are lost and there is no sign of permanent achievement whatsoever.

Abstract The present study employs an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the transference of meaning from literature to illustration, and the links between the narrative in the tale of “The Old Woman and Sultan Sanjar” in Nizami’s Makhzan al-Asrar and the narrative in the illustration of The Old Woman and Sultan Sanjar painted by Sultan Mohammad Tabrizi. The article tries to discover the surface and deep discontinuities and continuities between the two works and studies the semantic transition and, hence, the production of secondary meanings in the illustration. Thus, it argues that the transference of meaning from literature to illustration is reflected in the two surface and deep structures, which are interconnected. The central position of “The Old Woman and Sultan Sanjar” in Nizami’s narrative, its transference to the realm of illustration, and the use of metonymy in the creation of the illustration represent the surface continuities of the two written and visual narratives. Yet, there is a discontinuity between the story and the illustration in this very structure. The difference in tones of the narratives, the expansion of descriptive characterization and reduction of metaphorical aspects of the illustration reflect the divergence of the two works. In the deep structure, too, Tabrizi’s work diverges from the purpose of Nizami’s narrative and, instead of ethics, advocates politics.

Abstract There is no doubt that Rumi wrote Masnavi under the influence of his predecessors’ mystical and theological texts. Yet, why Masnavi is one of the unique masterpieces of Persian Literature is a question that has absorbed researchers’ minds for many years. Rumi’s genius for storytelling is one of the reasons that this work is a masterpiece. Perhaps no poet has modified the nuances of story like Rumi. He sometimes narrates a story with utmost brevity and sometimes extends his narration to hundreds of lines. This paper analyzes five stories of Masnavi in order to study how Rumi alters the usual structure of story. Thus, the article demonstrates that the expansion of stories in Masnavi is a fully conscious act that serves specific goals.

Abstract The article aims to answer the claim that Iranian vocal music i.e., Iranian music connected to Persian poetry, is limited and sad. It employs aesthetic and pragmatic criticism to study several songs and compositions and proves that Iranian vocal music is the same as vocal music in other countries of the world, in that it can be sad or joyful and that it can be limited or expanded. Moreover, analyzing the samples, the article demonstrates that the sadness or happiness of the lyrics and the singing and, likewise, the type of rhythm and meter affect the gloominess or joyfulness of sheet music. Furthermore, it indicates that this effect is not specific to Iranian vocal music. Finally, even the most woeful pieces of Iranian music, for instance, “Dashti” and “Bayat-e Esfahan,” despite their similarity to minor scale western music, are of exceptional capacity so that they can accompany epic songs and the most joyful ballads.

Abstract In Persian and Arabic poetry, both classical and modern, the use of rhetoric to communicate the concepts and meanings applied by the poet is very tangible, because what makes a text literary and poetic is its rhetorical aspects. Nima Yooshij and Nazik al-Malaika, as the founders of free-verse poetry in Persian and Arabic literature, used the elements of rhetoric to highlight the themes of their poems and make them more influential. These two poets occasionally gave sermons and advice in their poetry. This article investigates the use of semantics in creating the theme of sermon and advice in the poetry of these two poets. Among the most important elements of rhetoric employed to give sermons, one may point to semantic elements. Drawing comparisons between these two poets, the article demonstrates that both poets highlight the predicate to express their purpose through sermon and advice. Regarding the audience, what is most desirable for them is the expression of the predicative statement that the reader must recognize, not the choice of the type of audience or address. There are, of course, differences in the application of rhetorical elements between these two poets. For instance, Yooshij expands his poems through repeating the concepts of sentences and by using allegories and metaphors, but Malaika does so by the repetition of the imperative sentences.

Abstract Realism has a privileged position in the Persian poetry of early tenth century SH. This style, which is an intermediate between Iraqi and Indian styles, has brought about the greatest change in the poetic themes after Iraqi style. Amir Khusrau Dehlavi was a famous Persian-speaking mystic and poet in the second half of the seventh century and early eighth century. Although he is one of the most prominent Iraqi-style poets, he must be considered as one of the leaders of realism in Iran. His sonnets are noticeable for simplicity of language and the expression of the issues between the lover and the beloved, which are the hallmarks of this branch of realism. In his sonnets, when the lover encounters his beloved’s disregard, he does not flatter her but blames and reproaches her. The specific characteristics of his sonnets include punishment and taking revenge on the cruel beloved, expression of the relationship between the lover and the beloved, abandoning the lover, punishing the beloved, describing togetherness, expressing the baseness of the beloved and the helplessness of the lover etc. The article demonstrates that the poet has understood the heartbreak caused by love, which is one of the most important elements of this style, and has mingled it with imagination to use it as a thematic element in his poetry.

Abstract Ghalib Dehlavi and Iqbal Lahori are famous poets of the Indian subcontinent who lived in the 19th and 20th centuries. They reflected the social and political concerns of their society in their poetry. They introduced a new style of poetry in both Farsi and Urdu languages and objected to worn-out superstitions and customs. The intellectual and literary sources of the two poets are almost the same. The mutual themes of the poetry of these two mystic poets include love, sincerity in worship, unity of existence, and human dignity. The philosophy of self, love, and wisdom and the philosophy of poetry and mysticism are among the most important concepts about which they have disagreement. In the intellectual system of Iqbal, concepts such as people, God, and love are highlighted but the intellectual system of Ghalib is more based on wisdom and makes use of symbols more tangible. In this article, we try to study the works of Ghalib and Iqbal in order to determine the similarities and difference between their poetry and to analyze their philosophical and mystical approaches.

Abstract Grammar is one of the fundamental subjects of study in the vast field of Persian language and literature and the study of its elements provides a good basis for research. “Adjective” is one of the parts of speech in Persian grammar and its function is to modify the noun to which it refers. Metonymy is a means of expression that is understood through argumentation and meaning comprehension. One of Saadi’s linguistic techniques is the use of beautiful adjectives and metonymies to make his poetry more attractive. This research employs a statistical approach to investigate the frequency of adjectives containing metonymy in terms of verbal structure in Saadi’s sonnets. Metonymical adjectives, as one of the elements of conversational language, play a prominent role in Saadi’s sonnets. However, Saadi’s contribution to the use of metonymical adjectives is considerably less than that of his contemporaries.

Abstract The present study investigates the Persian poetic forms adopted by Russian poets. Great Iranian poets, such as Ferdowsi, Hafez, Saadi, Khayyam, and Nizami, have always been respected by Russian poets who have paid tribute to them by imitating their poetic forms and principles. This imitation, which began in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, peaked in the twentieth century. This article sorts out Persian poetic forms based on the frequency of use by Russian poets as ruba’i, ghazal, and qasida respectively. The purpose of the article is the representation of one of the aspects of orientalism among Russian poets, i.e. the interest in the use of the genres of poetry in Persian language. This aspect of orientalism has not been considered by Iranian researchers and former studies have mainly focused on the role of Iranian motifs in Russian works.

Abstract Sadegh Hedayat wrote The Pilgrim (1945) based on and shortly after the historical and political events of the final years of Reza Shah’s government and early years of Mohammad Reza Shah’s rule. The article adopts the method of critical discourse analysis, as formulated by Ruth Wodak, James Paul Gee, and Norman Fairclough, to study the novel and analyze its author’s views on the political discourses of the aforementioned period in order to determine which political discourse or discourses influenced the novel. It is possible to consider the novel politically as a meta-discursive, non-discursive or non-ideological work in which political discourses, such as kingdom, nationalism, fascism, modernism, Westernization, secularism, traditionalism and religiosity, leftism (Marxism and communism), liberalism, democracy, and constitutionalism are criticized by the author. Political ideologies are utilized to secure the interests of their advocates and propagandists. Hedayat experienced many historical and political changes from the Constitutional Revolution to the period of Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Shah and saw the instability politicians, rulers, and profiteers. He mixed up these events with a furious satire and created a political novel. We cannot fully comprehend the novel without having knowledge of the political events and currents of the writer’s period and his political tendencies.

Abstract This research studies the use of color in Rumi’s Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. Since many colors with different symbolic representations are used in this work, we have used “sama,” which is a Sufi ceremony involving dancing, to refer to the ubiquity of color in it. The article considers three aspects to this ubiquity: composition of color (purity of color, motion in color, harmony of color, and contrast of color), the influence of color on conscious and unconscious perception, and expression of color (psychology of color). Adopting the notions of physics and art, the article analyzes the symbolic representations of the colors white, black, and red, which Rumi sometimes uses to express concrete concepts and sometimes, as they make abstraction more tangible to the reader, to express abstract ones.

Abstract Different literary genres employ different languages made of different elements. Children’s literature is not an exception. This type of literary language, in terms of conceptual and syntactic function, has its own characteristics. These characteristics create children and adolescents’ literature. Exclamation, which is not used in most literary genres, plays a prominent role in children’s literature. This is because it makes issues more tangible and makes them see their environment better and absorbs them. This article tries to study the used of exclamation in several children’s fictional works to demonstrate that it is one of the most common elements in this genre.

Abstract Different methods can be adopted to do an aesthetic study on a literary work. The theory of virtual pole and metaphor formulated by Jacobson is one of them. Jacobson believes that when language separates from the zero point and moves towards becoming an art, it may move towards the virtual pole or flow towards the metaphorical pole in order to get a text to the borders of literariness and beauty. Writers of prose write and combine words with a tendency towards the virtual pole of language. History of Sistan is one of the important works of prose for its excellent display of the virtual pole of language. This study employs Jacobson’s theory to examine History of Sistan and extract its aesthetic factors. It concludes that the value of this book is due to its language and the literary and structural linguistic features the author uses has caused his work to be one of the finest works of prose.