The Holders of Evil Eye in the Poetry of Persian Poets

Persian poetry not only reflects the emotions and thoughts of Persian poets but also provides ample room for the presentation of thoughts, beliefs, customs and cultures governing their society. Therefore, it is helpful to investigate elements of the folklore in their poetry from two perspectives which are very interactional: first, extracting the cultural characteristics and features of these elements from the works of these poets; second, investigating and criticizing the manners and the methods which the Iranian poets have applied in order to present these cultural elements and to display them as poetic devices. One of these folkloric elements which is very noticeable in the cultures of all nations in the world is the concept of Evil Eye. This concept is observable almost every where from the old legends of the past, and the religious texts down to the present-day internet websites. In Persian poetry, one can encounter a great number of lines dealing with the Evil Eye. The diversity and the number of these lines indicate the cultural and literary significance of this element in literary texts and poems. Surveying the collections of poems, the divans, of the great Iranian poets reveals that the element of evil eye has been probed by these poets from various points of views and considerations. The poets have created a great deal of concepts out of evil eye through the use of conceits and metaphors unprecedented anywhere before.