The Stylistic Analysis of the Eloquent Similes in Nahj al-Balagha's Sermons

Simile is one the most beautiful artistic expressions and statements of rhetorical science that augments beauty of meaning with various implications. Eloquent simile would be considered the most elegant and frequent ever invoked in Nahj al-Balagh's sermons, which embraces about two third of the sermons’ similes. Since the syntax is the basis of speech, and similes are presented in a variety of structures, each of them has a special function and implication. The present study is aimed to investigate the style of the simile of Nah al-Balaghah on the syntactic layer.

Theoretical Framework:

The purpose of stylistic studies is to investigate literary texts to discover and explain their characteristics through the analysis of style making elements in order to indicate the personal style of the writer. A stylistic analysis text would divide the text into five layers including phonetic, lexical, grammatical, rhetorical, and ideological sectors.
One of the most important issues that is considered in stylistic analysis of a literary work is the analysis of syntactic (grammatical) features of the text or its syntactic style. In linguistics, syntax is the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences. The term syntax is also used to refer to the study of such principles and processes.
In this paper, the syntax layer of the eloquent simile is considered in sentence structure and parallel forms. The eloquent similes in the Nahj al-Balagh sermons are in different positions, according to the role of the word and image. They have been located in six syntactic forms that this article was aimed to study them. The great work of Amir al-Mu'menin (peace be upon him) is abundant use of parallel (similar( structures.

According to the extensive use ofsimiles in Nahj al-Balaghah andthe role of syntax in speech, the present study tried to investigate the style of similes in Nahj al-Balagh in syntactic layer through the descriptive-analytical method.

Discussion and Conclusion:

 Similes have been extensively used in Nahj al-Balaghah and this is suited to the ideology of sermons that are intended to persuade and guide people and introduce the speaker's thoughts.
Eloquent simile includes about two third of similes of the Nahj al-Balagh. This means that 66% of similes in Nahj al-Balagh are eloquent; whereas many of the similes used are plural simile, which means they have several images, and if any image is considered a simile, the number of similes will increase.
In terms of structural sentences, the eloquent similes have located in six syntactic structure regarding to the syntax role of the image, which are syntactic roles of absolute object predicate, added to likened, and type of expression, respectively. The structure of verb clause in the similes of the absolute object implies some kind of modernity. The repetition of the infinitive form produces a smooth music in addition to the emphasis in. In the similes that image is an informative sentence, the noun clause implies in stability. Hence, the similes used in these structures are also in line with Imam's goals. In most of the additional similes, sensory likened have been added to rational image. Also, most of the similes that are considered to the second object are plural simile.
Another syntactic and stylistic method used in Nahj al-Balagh is the abundant use of parallel structures. Parallel structures are made up of parallel forms connected by coordinate conjunctions and take an identical syntactic role. These structures have been used in two ways in sermons.
The first type of parallel structure is between two consecutive similes, which is the syntactic structure of the second simile that, in turn, is similar to the syntactic structure of the first simile. The second type, which is more frequent than the first type, is in plural simile, which parallel construct are between images used in the same structure. These structures have created some literary devices including repetitions, pun, rhyme and contrast in the similes that have led to their musicalization.