Lyrics of Sanai: Expression of Color in the Form and Content

Color is one the most influential tools of creating literary – artistic works. Although, in the history of Persian literature this element lacked today’s diversity, in the realm of poetry, it has always played a critical determining role in inducing concepts and visualization. Studying the extent and manner of using different colors, either in ancient or modern poetry, is a useful attempt to get into the world of emotion and thoughts of poets and to understand the level of their mastery of using literary forms and techniques. According to the significance of this matter, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the functional role of color in the form and content of Sanai’s lyrics; an initiator of several literary movement of Persian poetry. Reviewing his lyrics with regard to this perspective can help identifying another significant part of his thought and poetic features. Sanaei mostly used color in to express theme of love in his poems. The most frequent colors used in his poems are: black, red, white, yellow. Simile and metaphors are the most common rhetoric – imagery figures of speech that he used on this ground.