Stylistics of Nafthat ol-Masdur by Zeidari Nasvi

Structuralism theory is accepted as one of the most effective theories in the current century. This theory’s final goal is to discover the hidden secret and linguistic aspects of a literary work via structural elements of a work based on this theory. In structural analysis of a work, implications beyond the text are not important and just the text is considered, and also the meaning is wanted from the structure. According to this theory, the current essay tries to study the structure and the interactions of the numerous elements in Nafthat ol-Masdur from three points of view: content, lingual technic and form, to achieve the hidden layers of the writers mind patterns. Besides these internal elements, two external elements, i.e. social and political structure and the writer’s taste and thought are considered. The fiction-narrative pattern of Nafthat ol-Masdur is analyzed with biographical content of this work as well. Nafthat ol-Masdur is a major historical book which is written by Zidari Nasvi, one of the great authors of 7th century. It is the description of hardships of Sultan Jalal od-Din Khwarazmshah. The author also describes his own hardships in the book. The content of the book is historic-autobiography which is explained in literary-artistic form. The author has adopted fictional-narrative form for his writing and with his subtle and precise viewpoint illustrates the governing policy of the society of his time and speaks the issues of the government. Nafthat ol-Masdur is a narrative story in which the narrator -the author- recounts the events with general overview; events which he had witnessed himself and were tied to his emotions and feelings. He expresses his internal reflections in a descriptive-narrative method. The book is skillfully written in figurative prose and it is decorated with the diverse literal and semantic figures and arrays. Using words with compound and derivative structures, especially for verbs, is one of the morphological features of the book. But, heavy and formal sentence structure is a syntactic feature of Nafthat ol-Masdur. Verbosity of the author, redundancy and using scientific terms affected the style, morphology and syntax of his language. One of the salient features of the book is the use of expressive and innovative arrays by which the author has decorated his prose. Although it tends towards sophistication and formality, the author narrates the story with their mask. Recognition which is the most vivid and dynamic metaphor, is a prominent feature of the book; namely, literal arrays by which the author in addition to aesthetic measures, has highlighted the language. However, the story is event-driven.
Sometimes, he describes and illustrates the characters in such a way that it becomes character-driven. One of the issues that is very prominent in characterization of Nafthat ol-Masdur is the offensive attack to the negative characters of the story. The scenery in Nafthat ol-Masdur is a real description as if the audience or the reader is present in the scene. Zidari has coordinated the moods of sadness, joy, fear and panic in each part with the events and incidents of the story. One of the story-telling tools is the narrator being the first-person with prolocutor and narrative style that recounts the events. The author with a general view which is called “bird-like view” opens up and illustrates his memories.
The most important motifs of his story can be noted as escape and evasion, treachery, mean-breeding of the time, gratitude and loyalty to the masters, conflict, dispute and the description of hardships. Nafthat ol-Masdur has a story frame; the author is quite familiar with scribing and teaching words and it is possible to find out the style and manner of teachers of that time from his writings; the style and manner which preserves the concept of redundancy. Nested tales are also seen in Nafthat ol-Masdur so that sometimes they disrupt the sequence of the events. The author, in accordance with the society and the available prose, adopted the mix of Arabic and Persian prose and this is one of the effects of socio-political structure on his prose. The presence of different social classes in his book reflects the interaction between literature and society.