An Analysis of Persian Lyric Elegy (Based on the components of verbal communication

Elegy is one of the most prominent types of literary genres. One of the first structural definitions of elegy is that of Schiller’s. He describes elegy as a text in which the poet confronts art with the nature and the reality with the ideal and in this way sets his passion for the ideal (Wellek, 1994: 307). This definition goes with most of the masterpieces of the Persian verse. Poets have shown great emotions in literary and artistic terms; but, relying on this definition, it still remains to be questioned whether the most beautiful elegies are the most artistic ones, or the most successful of them are the most idealistic ones, and whether it is possible to measure the purity and intimacy of the passions in elegy merely according to the poet's artistic expression? In this article, we will answer the above questions, while presenting a model for formalistic analysis of the elegy; we will also determine the different examples of the elegy by referring to their linguistic and formalist features. In general, in the analysis of Persian classical elegies, most external factors, such as historical, social and biographical facts have been considered. In this article, the author's attempt is to examine the classical Persian elegy with the perspective of the literary theory of formalism; this method has not, of course, been taken into account in research studies.

This article is done by descriptive-analytical method. First, the most important examples of the classical Persian classical elegies have been chosen and analyzed according to the framework of literary theory of formalism, especially the theory of verbal communication of Jacobson. Accordingly, the orientation of the message in the components of the verbal communication in the elegy is determined and analyzed. If there is an orientation in the message to the subject or context of the message, we encounter with a narrative or descriptive text. In this type of poetry, at first sight, the referential aspect is dominant in the poetry. The speaker focuses much more on what has happened and when that incident happened rather than how it is expressed. This feature reminds us of the events of the newspapers rather than a literary emotional text. In these texts, the subject is more prominent than the form. So, with we are faced with a kind of historical report and event description, not an emotional propositions. In the latter case, the message orientation may be directed towards the audience. In the cases where the message is directed toward the audience, we are faced with two types of audience. The first is the audience that is alive and the speaker is sure he is listening and the second is the presumptive and the speaker is aware that he does not speak. In this latter type, the method of presenting poetry is like soliloquy. The third mode of verbal communication is when the message is directed towards the speaker. These elegies are the most emotional ones. Another topic that is important in the analysis of elegy is what the relationship between the poet and the dead person who is often addressed is, and how this relationship is seen in the literal language. The speaker sometimes has to compose and elegy as a compulsory task. Some of court elegies, that is, the elegies written for the death of the king or one of the courtiers, have this feature. On the other hand, the speaker may be one of the close relatives of the dead person. This kind of elegy is called personal or family elegy. Most researchers consider these sorts pf elegies to be the most affectionate and most intimate ones (see Imami,1990: 50)

Lyric poetry is one of the most important literary types in Persian poetry. In this type of poem, expressing feelings and emotions is very important. One of the most emotional of this kind is elegy. The emotional depth of an elegy is rather recognizable through its analysis from the point of view of the theory of verbal communication. In elegies, the orientation of the message may be towards the subject, the audience and the speaker. In addition, the poet can, in view of his dominance in expressing feelings in the language of poetry, simultaneously make the messages be oriented towards the message itself. If the orientation of the message is directed toward the subject, the reader encounters a sort of descriptive report; no matter how the poet strengthens his poetic work, the emotion of the latter is often peripheral and less intimate. If the message is oriented towards the audience, either the poet's audience is a hypothetical audience or a deceased person; in the first instance, his discourse is depicted as a soliloquy, and in the latter case, it finds a form of an internal soliloquy. In this latter type, emotional intimacy is more intense than previous ones. In addition, the poet can in the same way address things: in this case, the poet highlights the emotional color of his speech with the element personification and causes the de-familiarization to occur. The most emotional elegies are those that are directed toward the speaker. If the speaker and the deceased are from the same family, the emotional intimacy is highly reflected in the language of poetry; In this kind of elegies, which in this article is called lyric elegies, language has an emotional function and words and phrases are simple and easily understood. In these poems, the poet employs a lot of emotional sentences and repeats syntactic constructs and sentences and emotional words in poetry. These repetitions always carry a kind of music and tone through the language to the audience. In the lyric elegies, the reader also faces metaphors, whose seep structure is the emotional domain of the speaker.


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