فصلنامه متن پژوهی ادبی
پیاپی 67 (بهار 1395)

It is the historians who determine to what extent historical events are important and reliable. Since historians’ ideas are to a great extent affected by the circumstances of the time, even their most objective historical interpretations and writings are more or less contaminated by prejudices and emotional attitudes.This study aimed at investigating Shahab Al-dyn Nasavi’s ways of historiography in his two historical works, Sirat-e Jalal Al-Dyn and Nafsat Al-Masdovr which are on the Kharazmshahian Dynasty and Tatar’s invasion. In contrast to Nafsat Al-Masdovr, Sirat-e Jalal Al-Dyn has been less affected by the author’s affections; consequently, its way of historiography is more objective and scientific and its narrative language is simpler. On the contrary, Nafsat Al-Masdovr, rather than being concerned with facts and events, involves the king’s feelings, personal suffering, and phraseology. As a result, he generally describes the historical events rather than reporting them and his historical interpretation is affectively contaminated. The main research question of the study is that to what extent and in what manner Nasavi’s prejudices and emotional impressions have influenced his representation of historical events. To answer this question, this issue was investigated through drawing on the language and narration of the two books.

This study aimed at describing and explaining the use of ‘meri’ (in Persian ãÑی:) as an obsolete term of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. The study will draw upon the three principles of ‘Recording the most difficult as the most valuable’ (lectiodifficlilior), ‘Recording the oldest manuscripts’ and also ‘the discrepancies among various manuscripts’. To do so, first the verses which included the term were extracted and various recordings of the term ‘meri’ were recorded. Next to that, the different forms of the term were discussed in light of the relevant theories and finally different meanings of the term were analyzed and explained. The second purpose of the study was to investigate the use of the term ‘be jay’ (in Persian: ÈÌÇی) which has been used in some similes of Shahnameh. In so doing, the verses which contained the term were extracted and different opinions about the term were discussed and finally the different meanings of the term were explained.

Wh-question words are linguistic devices which are either associated with the information structure of the sentences or are regarded as signs for the kind of information provided by the sentences. Wh-questions have been extensively studied for their general structure and Wh-movement. The present study aimed to investigate how Wh-questions have changed overtime. It also aimed at exploring the current status of Wh-questions in modern Persian. To do so, a set of prose literary works from the 4th century up to the contemporary time were analyzed. It was found that two types of sluices have been commonly used in modern Persian; a) Wh-in situ b) displaced Wh. The excessive use of sluices not only leads to Information Focusing, but also results in Contrastive Focus via Wh-Movement which could move the focus to another phrase. The results showed that the Persian Wh-questions have changed overtime in terms of Wh-movement and the kinds of information structures.

After Abdolhossein Zarinkoub for the first time proposed the idea of Khhagani’s inferiority complex, some researchers accepted and some others rejected his remarks. Alfred Adler is one of the psychologists who had scientific views on inferiority complex. In his work ‘Individual Psychology’, he has analyzed the psychological characteristics of people through reviewing their life styles. In individual psychology, social interest is regarded to be the main criterion for measuring psychological health. Striving for superiority is another important feature of individual psychology. In this view, the individuals who are psychologically healthy attempt for collective successes while psychologically unhealthy persons strive for individual achievements. Individual psychology is the best way to psychologically analyze Khaghani’s poetry to unravel the facts about his inferiority complex. This study was a secondary research with an analytic-descriptive research design. Although some traces of inferiority are found in Khaghani’s poetry, there are not enough pieces of evidence for persuasive remarks in this regard. However, his weak social interest in some of the poems, tendency towards individuality and superiority in some other poems indicate that he to some extent has suffered from inferiority complex.

The archetype of fertility is one of the most basic and recurrent themes in the world literature. This myth represents the love of the goddess of water (love and fertility) to the god of vegetation and the subsequent death and rebirth of the god of vegetation. George Frazar believes that this myth which represents the recurrent growth and death of the vegetation in the spring and summer and its rebirth in the new year is reflected in mythical and epic literature across the world. Borzunama is one of these epics, which seems to be based on the myth of fertility. In this epic masterpiece, Borzu the farmer is representative of the god of vegetation who along with Shahru, the goddess of love and fertility, breeds the nature and the creatures in Iran.

This study aimed at defining and classifying types of metalepsis, and analyzing its status in Persian stories. Narrative metalepsis refers to the combination of various narrative levels, whereby the author could descend to the story level and communicate with the characters or ascend to the discourse level which is the world of author, narrator and reader. This narrative technique which is also called meta-fictional narration is commonly used in postmodern stories. There are four important types of metalepsis: 1) Descending Metalepsis, whereby the author descends to the story level or the fictional world, 2) Ascending Metalepsis which refers to the movement of the characters out of the fictional world to the real world to encounter the author or readers, 3) Ontological Metalepsis occurs when the author, narrator or character moves across the narrative levels to the fictional or real world, finally 4) Rhetorical Metalepsis happens when the author or character only have a glance at other narrative levels. This narrative device had been used in some Persian stories before it was introduced into Persian sources on narratology and criticism. All the four types of metalepsis have been used in some modern and postmodern Persian novels and short stories. The novel ‘The Gipsy by the Fire’ and the short stories ‘The Last Night, the Last Stairway’ and ‘Bat’ are built upon descending and ontological metalepsis. Other works built upon ascending and ontological metalepsis are the novel ‘Steel-Hearted’, and the short story ‘Again in the Same Streets’. Finally, the short stories ‘The Man Who Didn’t Return’ and ‘Selection’, and the novel ‘The Narrator River’ are built upon rhetorical metalepsis.

Through the excessive application of pictorial and compounding qualities of the alphabet letters, Rumi has versified very beautiful poems in his Divan, Shams-e Tabrizi. A well-documented study of Rumi’s poetry based on comprehensive theories to unravel what cultural elements have influenced his literal attitudes is largely lacking. In response to this shortcoming, the present study aims at investigating the semiotics of literal attitudes in Rumi’s literal poems. Peirce’s semiotics theory is closely related to the prevalent rhetorical criticism in Persian language, but it has a higher interpretative potentiality to yield a more scientific conclusion. This study investigated pierce’s well-known triad of icon, index, and symbol along with their semiotic process of evolution in Shams-e Tabrizi Divan. The results showed that there are three semiotic processes in Shams-e Tabrizi Divan, namely, Singular, Lineal and Involved. It was concluded that the semiotics of alphabet letters in Shams-e Tabrizi Divan is mostly attributed to its content and interpretation.