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Otherness is one of the methods of accessing hidden interests beyond the literary texts which through literary discourse analysis can be in direct relation to political science and sociology. Critical discourse analysis believes that each text is shaped by political and ideological approaches and the relationship between political issues and texts is not an accidental one. Laclauand Mouffe believe that in every discourse one can use two concepts of logic of equality and logic of difference to explain the relations of otherness present in literary texts. That is, in every discourse, a positive pole is foregrounded as“we”or ours, and on the opposite pole the negative side is introduced as“they”or “others”. Foregrounding and backgrounding are used in texts and discourse through language functions. Investigatingthis method in some of Khayyam's Quatrains we will find out why Khayyam has pursued a kind of polarization in his quatrains and also will realize how Khayyam, along with his philosophical views expressed in his Quatrains, has tried to suggest political and critical motives through his discourse.

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The Tragic story of Siavash is one the significant and remarkable stories in Firdausi’s Shahnameh. In this article, the authors will study this story through the lens of Critical Discourse Analysis and based on Van Leeuwen’s network of Social Actors. This is to show how social interactors have been portrayed and see how the poem has reproduced and represented the discourses by linguistic parameters. To this end, dialogic couplets have been singled out, categorized and analyzed. The findings show that Firdausi has equally used latent and manifest parameters. Therefore, concealment of the narrators is as important :as char:acterization and the development of the setting. Moreover, although the story of Siavash is an ancient narrative, it carries with itself Firdausi’s worldview and his emotional, ideological overtone and thus represents Iranian’s idealism, their zeal for identity and conflict between Good and Evil and the final triumph of the Good. The death of Siavash entails the vengeance of the Iranians, and the birth of his son, Keykhosrow, brings about the victory over Afrasiab.

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One of the popular stories in Shahnamehis Rustam’squestto Mazandaran in order to rescue Kavoos and his soldiers, which led him into killingDivSepid (the white demon), rescuingKavoos from captivity, and also entrusting Mazandaran to his children. This story, which is known as Haft-khan Rustam, has influenced a number of heroic poems, manuscripts of rhapsodies and oral/public narrativesof Shahnameh. The influence that these works have from the narratives of Rustam’s battle with the demons of Mazandaran can be classified into two categories: first, in many of these texts, are various narratives about or references to Rustam’sjourney to Mazandaran and his battle with DivSepid. Second, in some Iranian epic texts, be it poetry or prose, a number of demons or descendants ofDivSepid are present that each try to take revenge on Rustam or one of the members of his family. But, in all of these stories, they either have failed or were killed by the hero. Although these types of narratives have briefly been expressed in most of Iranian public prose literature, they have been expressed in more details in a number of texts including ShabrangNameh, ShahriyarNameh, and TheNew BorzoNameh. In this paper, first, these types of narratives in some heroic pieces of poetry are addressed. Then, common grounds or differences of these stories with the narrative of Shahnameh are analyzed.

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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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Simile, which appears in different modes, is one of the major subjects of a branch of rhetoric called Bayan. Some of these modes, such as intellectual-intellectual and sensible-intellectual are not in harmony with the illuminating   role of simile; therefor, the books on Bayanhardlyhave positive attitudes towards these modes of simile, but contrary to this attitude, such similes appear with a high frequency in some literary ages and some Persian texts. By critiquing and analyzing the intellectual similes in Tarikh-e-Vassaf, this article tries to study the reason why these similes were widely used. This research shows that Vassaf’s tendency for this mode of simile was because of his penchant for breaking with tradition and departing from the literary norms, widespread desire for innovation, the limitations of creating simile’s by the restricted views of ancients, general inclination for circumlocution, and a tendency to use the exaggerated forms of imageries. By using artistic elegances,the author of Tarikh-e-Vassaf has tried to elude the negative consequences of these similes, yet he has not been successful in all his efforts. Moreover, one of the important reasonswhy the text is abstruse and obscure, is the high frequency of intellectual similesin this text.

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One of the most important issues in narratologicalstudy of Masnavi is methods of reading and interpreting the allegories. The relationship between this subject and narration is best revealed when we attend to the relationship between interpretations and storylines, regardless of the content of those interpretations. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the methods by which Mawlawiinterpreted the allegories narrated in Masnavi. It can be said that presenting the interpretations on the syntagmatic axis is the most important property of Masnavi. To interpret these stories, Mawlawi reads these as separated storylines, then, presents an interpretation corresponding to each of them. Multiplicity of these storylines is the result of two factors: Multiplicity of characters and Multiplicity of sequences. In this process, the value of main storylines is equal to subsidiary ones. Therefore, sometimes, the motivation (initial interpretation) of telling an allegory is not proportionate to the final and medial ones. The validity of the storylines for presenting the interpretations is both a factor for polysemy of allegories of Masnavi, and a presenter of a narratological explanation for association in Masnavi.

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The Poetry of the Constitutional period in Iran has been a turning point away from encomiums and mystical poetry of the prior ages. This shift is primarily characterized by a poetry dealing with socio-political issues such as freedom, homeland, etc. Contemporaneity of the Jadidieh Period in Tajikistani Poetry with this era in Iran paved the way for the maturation of the Constitutional Poetry in Iran. The method of the research is analytic-comparative and aims to investigate how this two interact in terms of subjects and contents. This study classifies the poets into three categories of “patriots” (like AdibulmamalekFarahani and Irajmirza in Iran and Fitrat in Tajikestan), “revolutionaries” and “elegiast” (like NasimShomal and MomenGhena’at in Iran). Studying the poetry in this period shows that the title “Motherland” is the first shared subject of Iranian poetry (Constitutional movement period) and Tajikistan (Jadidieh) which replaced the romantic lyrics of the previous age. The poets in the era of “Awakening” and modernism speak in their poems of their love of homeland, “freedom”, “prosperity” and “progress”. The topic of “homeland” both reveals the universality of the subject in the literature of this era and also indicates the changes in their essence and tones. Of other common thematic issues are 1- Fighting with dictatorship inside the country and defending motherland against foreign threats, 2- human rights, women’s rights and gender equality, 3- freedom and law, 4- acquiring modern sciences and education, 5- reforming and modernizing poetic topics and using colloquial terms, 6- fighting with religious superstitious ideas and ignorance.

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Abdul Qadir Jurjânî, with his two famous books, is the most important scholar of Islamic rhetoric. He is the founder of rhetoric in the Muslim world. One of Jurjânî’s most prominent accomplishments is his comprehensive classification of metaphors. First of all, Jurjânî distinguishes between non-expressive and expressive metaphors, and then presents subclasses for expressive, or “useful”, metaphor. Most writers before Jurjânî used a particular kind of metaphor to present examples for clarifications in their discussions, but Jurjânî distinguishes different kinds of metaphors whose mechanism he does not reduce into a single one. In his classification, Jurjânî approaches metaphors innovatively. This article aims to study this classification from a fresh perspective.

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At some historical points, all classes and professions of a society, despite all the differences and disagreements, flow into one single stream to reach a higher goal. Iranians have had this historical experience many times throughout history: during the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911), and also in the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In the Constitutional Revolution, all classes and professions of the society sought a higher goal that was the eradication of despotism and the establishment of the reign of law. In this Revolution, Persian literature, including poetry and prose, was at the service of the Revolution and satire became the revolutionaries’ main media. Literature of this era became so thoroughly mixed with politics that we can consider the great literati of this period as the great makers of the history of Iran. In this article, we have tried to explore and prove their importance.

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The "Mour" is an elegiac dirge in Laki – an ancient language still spoken in regions as diverse as Lorestan, Hamadan, Ilam, and Kermanshah. Sung in an elegiac non-rhythmic tune and just in one distich in memory of a dead person, these wistful melodies have a rather long history. The purpose of this article, which is descriptive-analytical and library-based, is to explore the relationship between the distiches of Mour and the socioeconomic status of Laki-speaking men. In this regard, it has been pointed out that in Mour dirges, men’s bravery, magnanimity and hospitality, as well as their economic and social status, physical strength, etc. are often described. The frequency of these descriptions indicate the position of epic, elegy, and narrative in verses of Laki poetry that often in just one distich capture the most outstanding feature of warriors, thanes, tribal sheriffs, farmers and herdsmen.

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One of the most important aspects of analyzing literary texts is the consideration of the reflection of the author's thoughts, wishes, griefs and regrets as defense mechanisms. In reviewing the reflection of an author's unconscious in his or her work, psychoanalytic or psychological criticism is often used, in which the critic tries to reveal the influence of the author's mental constraints on hidden layers of the work or to open textual ambiguities using psychoanalytical or psychological principles. The authors of this article have tried to investigate in a short story collection, Be Ki Salaam Konam?, one of Simin Daneshvar’s most important psychological anxieties, that is, "infertility pain"; a pain which though is not traced in Jalal al-Ahmad's independent works, it is present in Daneshvar's stories and appears in different ways. Be Ki Salaam Konam? has become a feminine narrative of Jalal’s Sangi Bar Goori. The subject of most of the stories of the former is "infertility", which is presented using child, adopted child, and grandson in the form of free or affiliated motifs. Daneshvar uses unconscious symbols such as the old women to suggest infertility. The reactions of characters in the stories to infertility can be described through defense mechanisms such as displacement, sublimation and projection. Nonetheless, throughout the discussion, when necessary, the paper will benefit from approaches such as archetypal criticism as well.

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The crisis of representation is a topic widely discussed in critique and theory of postmodern literature. This refers to the crises of the present era including the crisis of meaning, the perplexity of contemporary humankind amidst a mass of valid and invalid data, alienation, etc. Literature, as the epitome of human life, is a reflection of these crises in the contemporary era. Azadeh Khanoom and Her Author or‌ the private Auschwitz of Dr. Sharifi, written by Reza Baraheni, is among the most well-known novels of the last three decades in Iran. This novel is regarded as a noteworthy example of postmodern fiction. In the present article, the crisis of representation in Azadeh Khanoom and Her Author is analyzed based on “subject”, as the philosophical substitute for the concept of “man”. In this analysis, the crisis of representation, its consequences for human subject and its influence on Baraheni’s fictional characters are explored; consequently, crises such as identity crisis, personality crisis, etc. can be considered as complications of man’s current affliction of the crisis of representation.
 

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As one of the most famous philosophers of the twentieth century, Heidegger has proposed significant ideas about ontology. The undercurrent of his philosophy is the question of being in the world or Dasein. He believes that human is the only creature for whom being in the world is a question and only human is capable of asking about Dasein. Heidegger thinks that authentic poets with their particular use of language are the rightful peoples that can perceive and reveal the truth of being. Sohrab Sepehri is a contemporary poet who has a systematic frame of mind. In his poems, especially in his late works, consciously, continuously, and varyingly he speaks about the true being of things. In this analytic-descriptive article, the authors study Sohrab Sepehri's philosophical perspective towards the ontological state of being. Similar to Heidegger, in order to understand being in the world, he refrains from any stereotypical and utilitarian outlook on it, and ignores the presuppositions. In his final Collection, Sepehri's earnest endeavors to understand the reality of existence are evident. Yet, although he eventually confesses that he has not completely understood the meaning of existence, he never despairs.

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Many noteworthy studies have been done to examine the discursive relationship between gender and metaphor in the context of politics, media and literature. In this research, however, I try to investigate the relationship between gender and metaphor specifically in poetical discourse. The main questions of this research are as follows: What is the role of gender in the production and selection of metaphors in the poems by Shamloo and Moshiri? And also can we claim that metaphor is an instrument for representation of sexism in given poems? Research data are extracted from poems by Shamloo and Moshiri and they are analyzed based on Charteris-Black’s discourse theory of metaphor. The results of research indicate that there are manifestations of sexism in these poems, but the degree of sexism in the poems of Shamloo is higher than Moshiri’s. The reason is that the semantic domain of war on conceptual metaphors in Shamloo’s poems is more than Moshiri’s. Therefore, the results of the research indicate that the production and selection of metaphors in poems are decided by gender, attitude and thought of poets, as well as their feelings and social atmosphere. Indeed, gender plays an important role in production and selection of metaphors in poems.   

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Non-verbal communications could be a part of visual signs that, because of their importance in interpersonal relationships and transition of meaning, are highly regarded by psychologists and sociologists. One of the major subdivisions of this topic is called "Body Language" that has existed in all human societies since ancient times. These non-verbal signs, some thousands of years old, have cultural and rhetorical functions, with common and sometimes conflicting aspects, in the cultures and social traditions of different tribes. The more ancient and comprehensive the literary context of a piece of research is, the more valuable that analysis in explaining the cultural, social, and even aesthetic aspects of texts will be. Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, as a representative of Iranian culture and thought in prehistoric age up until the Islamic era, can be the best representation of metalingual communicative performance in Iranian cultural history. Due to the prototypic nature of characters in Shahnameh, many of their non-verbal signs can also be considered the archetypal source of the behavioral interactions or body language of the Iranian people when in the context of epic their national and social identities as Iranians are formed. In this article, attempts has been made to decode these obscure and complex cultural concepts by exploring the "body language" in non-linguistic acts of main characters in Shahnameh. The results of this research demonstrate that the body language of characters in Shahnameh is not accidental but totally conscious. Indeed, the purpose has been to draw the attention of the readers to rethink the patterns of individual and social behavior of Iranian and non-Iranian ethnicities so to recognize the cultural identity mainly through irony and symbolism.

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Hardly could any poet, like Al-Mutanabbi, draw to himself the constant attention of scholars, literary man and poets. In this article, we try to find the secret of the admiration that Al-Mutanabbi’s poetry has won and see why he is one of the most preferred poets and considered the prophet of Arab poets. Scholars have studied this issue from various perspectives. In this article, however, I will examine this issue taking a number of points into account: first, two terms of “presence” and “absence” in Sufism, wherein like poetry the emphasis is on intuition; second, concepts such as “experience-near” and “experience-distant” and, finally by relying on this verse of Al-Mutanabbi: “the horse and night and dessert are known to me / also sword, paper and pen”. Al-Mutanabbi by his constant presence in his poetic experience has been able to see so openly what has been hidden from many scholars that this spiritual perception turns into an objective reality to him. We can seek the secret of Al-Mutanabbi’s immortality in the constant presence or, in other words, in his “experience-near” and in his deep wisdom which made his poetry to be considered “the true reference of life”.

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Proverbs as a part of colloquial literature are always nourished by religion, culture, traditions, and philosophical beliefs of a community, and thus they mirror the common beliefs of a people. The frequent repletion of a proverb pregnant with a specific thought makes that type of thought a behavioral pattern and affects the actions and behaviors of the people of a society. In the Iranian society, always two trends in theological rhetoric were dominant; i.e. the Mu'tazila's espousal of free-will and the Ash'ari's advocacy of determinism. However, because governments continually and in different ways have reinforced the Ash'ari’s determinism, these beliefs have penetrated into the mindset and language ​​of the people. This mentality is so widespread that most Persian proverbs reverberate with this deterministic overtone. A similar determinism in ancient Iran is traceable in the creed of Zorvani who knows this through the concept of "bhakht" which is reflected, for example, in belief in absolute determinism, belief in God's judgment, the will of God and the lack of independence to control one’s own destiny. It also led them to misconstrue issues such as trust in God, delegation of authority, and submission to the will of God: misunderstandings that have had damaging consequences for the Iranian culture throughout ages.

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As the most prominent novelist in contemporary Persian prose, Jalal Ale-Ahmad has had great influence on Persian writers, insofar as many writers have followed his suit. Employment of colloquial language is the characteristic style of his fiction. What makes his different, however, is mainly the employment of colloquialism in a subtle, precise and accurate way. Due to the extensive use of colloquial language in his fictions, this article studies terminologies, phrases and figures  such as metonymy, interjection, onomatopoeia, reduplication,  and also argot and proverb. Having defined these components in his selected works, the authors of this article will put forth some examples and, in multiple tables, illustrate their frequencies. According to a precise examination of his novels, we concluded that among different types of speech, respectively, the metaphoric phrases, argot, assimilation and then reduplication have the highest frequency in Al-e-Ahmad’s prose. He writes in broken Persian to convey the sense of colloquial language in his novels. Substitution and reduction are the most frequent methods he uses when he writes in broken Persian. Interestingly, this frequent colloquial style in his writings has led to a widespread popularity of his novels among the people.

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“Borrowing” is a lingual process that is studied in diachronic linguistics. In this process a language borrows elements from another language. This process usually occurs in areas that two languages make contact with each other. In a dialect spoken in South Khorasan the language borrowing happens. Arabs living in this part of Iran probably have immigrated in the early centuries of Islam. In this paper, the process of borrowing the verb “ast” and its varieties in “Sarab” village will be studied. In this village, this Farsi copular verb is used in three ways: est (with the phonetic, morphological and semantic transformation), hast (without any transformation) and mest (as a participle). In Arabic dialect of Sarab “ast” and its varieties are used in three modes of predictive, subjunctive and imperative. The use of Arabic identifiers in construction of “ast” is different in this dialect and its Farsi structure.
 

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The terms “majmūʻe”, “safīne”, and “jong” are presently used in the senses which may differ from their past meanings. Some related terms in Arabic and Persian languages, such as “bayāż”, “jarīde”, even “korrāse”, “daftar”, “mofrad”, and “jozv” have been coined for special concepts, which are hardly definable in some cases. Therefore, acquiring a relative perception of these terms, with regard to their application in the texts and documents of each period, is indispensably necessary. Some of these terms have been inserted into each other’s semantic fields or have lost their exact meanings in various periods; therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to their semantic evolution. In this paper, firstly the oldest uses of the three basic terms “majmūʻe”, “safīne”, and “jong” are studied in Persian texts up to the end of the ninth century A.H. For this purpose, the literati and poets’ references in the texts, and the old anthologies (safīnes and jongs) are examined to clarify the meanings of the terms and their semantic changes during several periods. In addition, the relationship between the terms and their common uses in other eras are referred to in brief.