An Intertextual and Extratextual Study of Persian Poems on Safavid Coins During the Reign of Shah Abbas II

Intertextual and extratextual forms of inquiry refer to the same process of discourse analysis and seek to discover open and hidden meanings in discourse. Through a study of the poems engraved on the coins of the period of Shah Abbas II, the present study aims to provide some answers to the following questions: What do the Persian poems on the coins refer to? Do the intertextual meanings conveyed through morphological, syntactic, and rhetorical devices denote the intended meanings of Shah Abbas’s words? Is it extratextual or metalinguistic factors which impose his intended meanings on the engraved poems? Following a library and interdisciplinary (literature and archeology) approach, the author has carried out a descriptive-analytic research in order respond to the mentioned questions. A discourse analysis of such poems demonstrate that Shah Abbas placed greater emphasis on extratextual factors than on intertextual ones, which demonstrates his intention to reflect the Iranian national culture and identity and consolidate the Twelver Shi’ite religion through the use of these poems.