Persian Language and Literature

Genitive Case (Postmodifiers/Noun Phrases) Construction in Rumi’s Masnavi

Mohammad Pāknahād

Knowledge of grammar plays a significant role in understanding and interpreting texts. This article aims to explore the “genitive case” in Masnavi and analyze it from a historical syntax perspective to elucidate Rumi’s style and the distinctive usage of this construction in Masnavi compared to other works. The research method used is descriptive-analytical based on a case study. The corpus of the study comprised the six volumes of Masnavi, and data were collected through library research. In the analysis of the findings, the usage of the genitive case, its marker, and its specific forms in Masnavi sentences were determined. The various relationships between the head and its modifier with specific lexical items and combinations marked and desired by Rumi were clarified. Ultimately, the detachment and attachment of the genitive case and noun phrases were determined. The findings showed that a large part of Masnavi’s appeal and charm is due to the linguistic patterns used by Rumi, which is not the result of the rhythm and tone of Masnavi. Still, it should be searched for in meticulous and “detail-oriented” studies of grammatical construction and its morphological and syntactic patterns.

A Comparative Analysis of Telesmāt (Spells) and Boof-e Koor (The Blind Owl) Based on Trans-Legendism

Ali Taslimi

For Kristeva, each text is the result of its preceding textual network. Hence, to decode a text, one must consider this textual network. Authors and poets have always benefited from previous texts. This is sometimes done as legendism which is nothing but rewriting and recreating legends, and does not help literature much. However, “trans-legendism” has a different approach that can be a cause of literary transformation. Trans-legendism does not just refer to legends by way of allusion and referencing but transforms the past texts by employing intertextuality to the point that the reader cannot easily recognize what texts and legends have been used in the formation of the new text. In the novel Spells, we are faced with three methods: legend-telling, legendism, and trans-legendism. In The Blind Owl, too, the writer has transformed the text of the past through the use of multiple legends and myths. This article investigated the two novels based on trans-legendism or legendary intertextuality. This study concluded that both novels have benefitted from legends even in opposition to legends.

Haft-Xwân or Haft-Xân? A new look at the spelling of “xwân/xân” using a historical linguistics approach

Mohammad Hasan Jalāliān Chāleshtari

The Haft-Xwân/Xâns of Rostam and Esfandiyâr are prominent episodes in the Shahnameh, which have garnered significant attention throughout the history of Persian literature. These episodes depict a series of battles involving warriors. However, there is debate regarding the correct spelling of the term. Traditionally, most manuscripts of the Shahnameh and other Persian works use the term “Haft-Xwân.” Nevertheless, some contemporary researchers argue that the warrior undergoes seven stages in these battles, leading them to propose an alternative spelling: “Haft-Xân.” Additionally, some scholars suggest that the second part of the word (xwân) refers to a feast, as Esfandiyâr supposedly celebrates after each battle. In this article, we explore the accuracy and validity of both opinions, employing historical linguistics. Our interpretation aligns with the content of these battle narratives, considering the original form as “Haft-Xwân.” Furthermore, we propose a new derivation for “xwân”, associating it with the concept of “battle and struggle.”

Nima Studies on the Scale of Academic and Non-Academic Criticism: A critical review of foundations and perspectives based on the case studies of Taghi Pournāmdāriān and Rezā Barāhani

Ebrāhim Hasanaklou

The debate over literary theory and Nima’s poetry has a long history. Literary critics have interpreted Nima from their own perspectives, offering various interpretations. The issue of this research is a critical re-reading of the views of Pournamdarian and Barahani in the 1990s as representatives of academic and non-academic criticism. This research showed that Pournamdarian and Barahani have occasionally been excessive in their understanding of Nima. As a result, despite Pournamdarian’s efforts to understand Nima’s poetry anew, he remains trapped in the stereotypical traditions of literary criticism, which leads him to define modern poetry under traditional poetry. On the other hand, Barahani has neglected the historical process of theorizing and Nima’s poetry, by going to extremes in some of his views and speaking of a crisis that we witness in the poetry from the 1990s onward. In other words, tradition and modernity are clearly at odds in the views of these two critics. Pournamdarian wants to blend modern poetry with traditional criticism, while Barahani becomes dogmatic in his criticism.

The Effect of Architectural Elements on Creating Atmosphere in the Iranian Surrealist Stories: A Case Study of The Boof-e Koor (the Blind Owl) and Prince Ehtejab

Marjān Heydari Tamrābādi

This research takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine the role of architectural elements in the surrealist stories “The Blind Owl” and “Prince Ehtejab”. Each of the architectural elements has its own specific definition and function that shapes the physical atmosphere i.e., it creates an atmosphere limited to time and place. However, the content of these elements with their implicit meaning creates atmospheres that are not limited to time and place. As the purpose of this research is to examine the effect of architectural elements in creating the surrealist atmosphere of these stories, first of all, the architectural elements that existed in the stories were extracted and, through comparative studies, their meaning beyond the physical aspect was analyzed using a descriptive-analytical method. Ultimately, the crucial role of these elements in creating the surrealist atmosphere of the stories was elucidated. Sadegh Hedayat’s “The Blind Owl” can be considered his most important work. Architectural elements such as the narrator’s house and the buildings in the story play a significant role in shaping the story’s atmosphere. In “Prince Ehtejab”, due to the protagonist’s reminiscence of the last night of his life in his room, a surrealist atmosphere emerges. Upon closer examination, it can be said that the architectural elements in the room, carrying meaning beyond themselves, play a fundamental role in expressing the prince’s personal circumstances and exposing his weaknesses and fears.

A Pathological Analysis of the Position of “Women” as “The Others” in Persian Proverbs: An Emphasis on the Cultural Semiotics of Youri Lotman

Mohammad Khosravi Shakib

Proverbs are a cultural tool that, due to their expressive language and special phonetic and literary patterns, can decrease the intellectual resistance of the audience and impose certain concepts and meanings on them. The cultural semiotics of Persian proverbs shows that gender discrimination and reducing the status of women are probably rooted in cultural standards and norms. In many proverbs, women are considered “the other” and marginal while men are regarded as “the self” and central. Using analytical, descriptive, and qualitative methods, this article critically investigates several gender proverbs with an emphasis on cultural semiotics to show how the dual opposition of “man” vs. “woman” has influenced concepts such as “patriarchy”, “marriage”, “reproduction”, “formal beauty”, “masculine economy”, “mental strength”, and “leadership and management”. and placed women in the “margin” and men in the “center” of the cultural context. The cultural semiotic analysis of proverbs attests to the fact that being a “woman” is a product of patriarchal ideology; a thought that consciously or unconsciously seeks to depict women as “the other”. This thinking removes women from the social scene with hidden control and repression and ultimately seeks their “symbolic refutation”.

Exploring the Aesthetics of Everyday Life in the Collection of Short Stories “Love in the Footnote”

Shahlā Khalilollāhi

In various philosophical traditions from Plato to the present, aesthetics, especially in art, is a historical phenomenon that owes its philosophical foundation to Kant. He considered beauty an independent concept, with the pleasure derived from it being inherent to that concept. Yuriko Saito, a theorist of everyday life aesthetics, believes that everyday life aesthetics addresses the shortcomings of philosophical aesthetics based on art. Thus, aesthetic perspectives and judgments can determine the quality of life, social ethics, and culture in the most authentic form. They can serve as necessary means for expressing the assessment of individuals’ everyday life quality and empower humans to enjoy aesthetic experiences through interactions with artifacts, the surrounding environment, and human interactions. Since narrative accounts contain propositions and capacities that are assessable from the perspective of everyday life aesthetics, and most of them hold true in the real world as well, researchers in this study aimed to analyze and explain the aesthetics of everyday life based on Saito’s approach in three short stories from the collection “Your Love in the Footnote” by Mahsa Mohebali, using documentary and qualitative methods with the help of library resources. The findings of this research indicated that the daily lives of individuals and the role of objects, places, etc., were depicted as symbols of deviance from norms and defamiliarization in human interactions. Despite deviance from norms and defamiliarization in human interactions, the texts of stories provide an experiential framework that ultimately leads to the realization and judgment that savor, beauty, the sublime, and its opposite, ugliness, have indeed taken shape in these stories.

Reviewing, Analyzing, and Criticizing the Theory of Metonymy

Ahmad Rezāei

Research on metonymy and related topics in Islamic studies stems from Muslims’ interaction with the Qur’an and their efforts to comprehend the meaning of certain verses. It sparked numerous theological debates among Islamic sects, such as the Ash’arites and the Mu’tazilites, to the extent that some scholars rejected metonymy in the Qur’an. In addition to theological (Islamic kalam) works, metonymy featured in rhetorical volumes and since the time of Sakkaki it has been transferred from theological to rhetorical works. The main issues in these works relate to the definition of metonymy and truth, the quality of their recognition, metonymy types, and so on. The main debate has been attending to one aspect and neglecting other aspects. Despite the efforts made by Muslim scholars in these works, due to the intermingling of different fields in this subject, current research on metonymy has paid less attention to previous studies. Therefore, the present research has explored this issue from various perspectives while examining the evolution of metonymy studies in the works of Muslim theologians and rhetoricians using a descriptive-analytical method. The results showed that logocentrism, the intermingling of different domains, abstract theological topics, unnecessary divisions, disregard for the functional aspect of language, overlapping types of metonymy, and repetition of the content were the main research barriers. Additionally, one should also mention the neglect of the points made by scholars such as Jurjani and Khatib Qazvini. It seems that if we pay attention to the aspects of information, pragmatics, and the context in the field of metonymy, many problems of its semantic recognition will be solved. On the other hand, dividing this category into metalepsis and compound metonymy as well as their trivial subfields will make us independent from other categories.

Political Subjectivity and Hermeneutics of the “Self” in Shamlou’s Poetry

Ghodsieh Rezvāniān

The issue of the “subject” is the most important factor in the distinction between classical and modern literature. The word “I” is often general and abstract in classical literature, while in contemporary literature, following modern philosophy, it is an individualized and concrete “I” or, in other words, an active subject. Perhaps the most obvious manifestation of this paradigm shift - especially in poetry - can be seen in the type of encounter with the “subject”. Contemporary poetry, from its most superficial romantic facet to its most complex philosophical aspect, expresses a self-sufficient subject whose origin is human centrality. Ahmad Shamlou is one of the poets whose poetry subject is “I”. This research deals with the hermeneutics of “self/subject” in his poetry using qualitative content analysis and critical reading of the collection of Shamlou's poems along with selecting indicative examples. Since this “I/self/subject” has been subjected to turmoil and transformations during his six decades of writing poetry, the theoretical framework of the discussion is also based on these developments and deals with both the philosophical subject which emphasizes individual thought and consciousness and to a subject that is a social construct. Hence, the theoretical framework of the study is based on a triangulation of Michel Foucault’s discussions about the hermeneutics of the self and governing oneself and others; the theory of symbolic interactionism, which deals with the individual and social “self”; existentialism that focuses on freedom, choice, and responsibility; and ultimately Althusser’s perspective on the subject i.e., subject with s (small letter) and subject with S (capital letter). "I" in Shamlou's political poetry is an ideological pseudo-subject (subject) due to his attachment to the Toudeh party, whereas in his philosophical poetry, it is the result of knowledge and awareness based on his own lived experience, and reflection on existence, human, life, and death, as the supreme subject (Subject).

Sufi Currents in Fars Before the Appearance of Ibn-e Khafif

Fatemeh Toobayi

Investigating the origins of Sufism in various regions of Iran is a significant topic that has not been adequately explored. The researchers’ focus on Iraqi and Khorasan schools of Sufism has led to neglecting Sufi practices in other areas including Fars and Shiraz. Notably, the presence of over eighty Sufi sheikhs in Fars and Shiraz before the appearance of Ibn Khafif, along with the substantial growth of Sufism in this region underscores the need to study the origins and development of Sufism there. This research identified forty-three sheiks from Fars and Shiraz who lived either before or contemporaneously with Ibn Khafif and analyzed their mystical views based on the limited available information. As a result of this analysis, it is evident that four main Sufi currents existed during this period: first, the ascetic and secluded form of Sufism; second, the Iraqi school of Sufism; third, the Khorasan school of Sufism; and fourth, the pioneers of Fars school of mysticism. The findings indicated that the Shiraz school sheiks were predominant in Fars, with other currents playing a lesser role.

The Tree Image in the Poems of Contemporary Modernist Poets

Hamid Rezā Ghorbāni

Trees have special importance in Persian poems. Cultural, religious, mythical, ethical, mystical, and political elements have propositions influenced by trees. Following water and the sun, the tree is an important phenomenon from which special literary elements and situations are created. The creative ways of connecting natural phenomena with human elements have been highlighted by the emergence of various political events in the last century on the one hand, and the creation of many artistic ideas and styles on the other hand. The tree image has found a new and multifaceted effect in modern poetry. Modernist poets give special roles to non-human elements and among these, the tree is a human-like mirror image that shows the evolution of human society in its stature. Using the library method and based on an analysis and explanation of poetic evidence in the thoughts of selected poets the current research revealed that the tree could be an image of personal failures, love, a medium of perception, an indicator of freedom, a representative of an ecosystem, a symbol, a sign of death and nonexistence, and a reflection of tyranny and a denial of human existence under the rule of tyranny.

The Analysis of Jalal Al-e-Ahmad’s Zan-e Ziadi Story Based on Jacques Derrida’s Deconstruction Theory

Ali Rezā Nabiloo

The story “Zan-e Ziadi” is one of the nine short stories in a collection of the same name, which was first published in 1952 during the lifetime of the contemporary writer, Jalal Al-e Ahmad. The central theme of all the stories in this collection is women, and the author has depicted their sorrows and problems from a critical perspective. This article examines “Zan-e Ziadi” from the perspective of deconstructive criticism. Deconstructive criticism, also known as deconstruction or constructionism, was developed based on the theory of the French philosopher and theorist Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). This term was first used in philosophy and then in literary criticism. The basis of deconstructive criticism is to find hidden binary and contradictions within the text, as by uncovering these binaries, one can discover the hidden layers within the text. According to Derrida, the internal binaries are hierarchical and stair-like, and one part is given superiority over the other, but upon close examination of the text, it becomes clear that none of the binaries have superiority over the other and are in fact complementary to each other. Deconstructive criticism is based on examining accepted assumptions, deconstructing, and revealing textual contradictions and the readers must search within the text for everything they need to know. The conflict in “Zan-e Ziadi” is superficially based on the contradiction between human and human, man/woman, and internally between human and false cultural and social beliefs and traditions. After examining the binaries within the text and identifying the conflicting forces within it, it becomes clear that contrary to what appears from the surface of the text and in the initial reading, the dominant pole in the text and the transcendental signified on which the internal challenge of the text is based is not an oppressive man against an oppressed woman, but rather both the man and the woman are captives and subjugated by false and imposed beliefs of their time, and the two binaries advance the story alongside harmoniously with each other.