نشریه پژوهش های ادبی
پیاپی 18 (زمستان 1386)

Despite all the different interpretations and analysis written on the story of Rustam and Esfandyar, it still demands re-reading and explanation of some of the ambiguous parts and points. This paper intends to reveal the following points through an analysis of three verses as a sample:  According to some evidences and documents, Gashtasb imprisoned Esfandyar’s son in women’s prison in order to humiliate Esfandyar. And therefore it is most likely that “bad doers” in a line of this verse refers to this story narration. In a verse the name “Kariman” is mentioned; in Iran’s past literary tradition and also in reading the Shah-nameh ( by Ferdowsi), it was a proper name; and also the name of Nariman’s father. It is the plural of “Karim” bearing its denotative meaning. Alluding to the murder of Shah Haamavaran by Rustam in more than one part of this story; which totally contradicts the destiny of this figure in the narration of Haamavaran’s War, appears to be the antithesis of what is said about it in Shah-Nameh. The reason for this issue is related to two reports on this story in the history of the Iranian epics; while traces of both can be still observed in Shah-Nameh.

As narratology has been known as a field of scientific study since a few decades ago, the narratologists have made an attempt to define specific narrative patterns. As a result they can analyze and interpret all the narrative structures through these patterns in both the old stories and the new modern novels. Many attempts took place in this field, but Vladimir Propp was ahead of others in his own time, and so his theory provided and caused a huge evolution in the science and field of narratology despite all its shortcomings and deficiencies. Propp focuses on the description of stories on the basis of their constructive elements and their mutual relations in his book entitled as “The Morphology of Fairy Tales”. After analyzing about 100 Russian stories, he obtained 31 conclusions. He believes that even the folk tales and the romances can be analyzed and interpreted within the framework of this pattern.The Tales of Sam’ak A’ayar are long Persian folkloric stories composed in the pre-Islamic era and finally developed in the sixth century.This paper intends to reveal Propp’s pattern, considering the Tale of Sa’mak A’ayar and then it compares the outcomes with Propp’s analysis and interpretation. In other words the present paper intends to study the Tale of Sa’mak A’ayar through a morphological approach. Although Propp’s theory is about the fairytales, still it enjoys a high potential for the Iranian stories; including the story of Sa’mak A’ayar. Many of the functions and the pragmatic studies made on the Tale of Sa’mak A’ayar are quite similar to Propp’s theory on morphology.

The present essay is written through a referential method for the analysis of bird symbols in Rumi’s work; Massnavi. Once the author derived all the functions of birds, he categorized, described, and also explained the symbolic concepts of each through context analysis as the major technique. On the basis of these findings, there are about 30 birds mentioned by their names, while about 100 birds are mentioned without referring to their actual names. These create merely a part of Rumi’s creativity in symbolism. One of the most significant findings of this paper is; regarding the final analysis of birds; they are actually a symbol and sign of fate of the human soul within the prison of body and the materialistic world.The meanings and symbolic concepts of birds hold an inseparable connection with their natural characteristics. Furthermore, the religious, cultural, and mythological teachings, which have been created about each of them throughout time, all enjoy a stunning role in the particular concepts given to them by Rumi. In overall it can be said that some of Rumi’s interpretations and understandings on the birds are quite new and innovative; while some of the others are rooted within the cultural traditions. The construction of symbolic concepts regarding birds in Massnavi derives from Rumi’s unique and special approach on one hand, while it is the result of his personal findings and understandings added to his potentiality and talent on the other hand.

 In Shamloo’s poetry, creating prominence through the construction and artistic function of adverb and the related adverbial groups is one of the devices used for changing the everyday language into a literary language.  The variation of different genres, structures, and the role of adverbial groups in creating rhythm and imagination, in addition to depiction and making atmosphere in Shamloo’s poetry reveals his peculiar attention and concern for this linguistic aspect; used as a factor for creating beauty and extra prominence.Shamloo has utilized the adverbial groups from both formalistic and contextual aspects in order to foreground his poetry. Repetitive structures, constant adverbial groups made of “ the core + subordinate clause”, the substitution within the linguistic correlation, and using all such these features and elements for creating different varieties of musical rhythm, in addition to the most significant formalistic aspects in function, creating images and innovative forms such as recognition and defamiliarization in the realm of recognition of the commonplace and normal elements such as personification, simile, symbolization, paradox etc- from the contextual dimension- all count as the adverbial groups which were in mind for foregrounding in Shamloo’s poetry.

This essay intends to show that Nima Youshij’s innovation is not limited to breaking the forms within the old traditions. In addition to bringing about innovations in the poetic form and creating new approaches and conceptual experiences, he also created a very new and unique form in the Persian poetry. In the present essay this form is called “Organic Symbol”, which is a special poetic structure. In it a phenomenon, or an image, becomes the major focus of the poet, and gradually that image takes over the whole poem and finally turns into a compressed symbol for both the literary and artistic concepts. This poetic form covers over 20% of Nima’s poetry and faced the acclaim of the contemporary poets; therefore part of the well-known Persian contemporary poetry is composed in the same form. This essay discusses the entity and basic principles of this poetic structure and its development, while it also points to the influential factors leading to the foundation of this poetic form during the mentioned period in Iran’s history.

The morphological analysis of about 200 mystical narratives from the valuable Persian books – Kashf-ol-Mahjoob and Tazkerat-ol-Ouliya – revealed that within the particular field of mystical narratives, generosity possesses a prominent position in the climax of the story; while it is also more faithful to the meaning compared to other genres. At the same time though these unique roles face more limitation, they enjoy more variety as well. The only factor for similarity is due to the position of their functions; like the position of codes in an allocated space considering the turning point of the tale. Therefore Propp’s theory fits in the semiotic domain. Through this research three actions were realized; though the number of functions reached eleven. Some of these are similar to those functions in folktales, while some of the others are new as in the mystical tales.

This research has surveyed the stories in “Toti-Nameh” from a variety of different aspects. “Toti-Nameh” is a series of lyrical prose and allegorical stories related like “A Thousand and One Night” stories. Most of the story features can be traced in the “Toti-Nameh” stories; such as emphasis on incident, the existence of supernatural factors, loose connection between the cause and the effect within the events, absolutism, ending with moral conclusions, the inalterability of characters, the quality of narration and also having an assumption about the setting- including both the time and place. The tone of all the stories is serious and there is actually no sign of humor and wit in them. Toti-Nameh is combined of 100 stories. About 521 characters are used in these stories; while 67.5% are general and 32.5% of them are specific ones. Most of the characters are chosen from the animal species ( 22.5%) and then the important individuals with a high position possess the second place with 19%. The narrators and storytellers in “Toti-Nameh” stories include; the parrot ( the Persian name is Toti) which relate about 57% of the stories. Animals such as shark, snake and jackal etc make up 11% of the stories, humans such as the monk; minister and king etc narrate 18% of the stories, whereas the narrator of about 6% of the stories is unknown. Among the 100 stories, 69% enjoy action while the other 31% lack any specific action at all. Also about 54% of these stories bear moral conclusions and advice, while the rest don’t bear this characteristic. Thirty five percent of these stories point to supernatural incidents, fifteen percent have a particular time setting, but eighty five percent of them lack any specific refer to the time. In addition, about 50% of these stories possess a place setting, though the other 50% do not mention any certain place for their setting. This survey has revealed the findings through charts and tables for a more clear and tangible understanding.