Investigating the Role of Persuasive Rhetorical Methods in Creating Suspense in Nezami’s Khosrow and Shirin

Nezami Ganjavi’s poem (epopee) of Khosrow and Shirin is one of the most prominent works of lyrical and festive stories in Persian literature which has fascinated a wide audience. Although some papers on the structure of the narratives of this poem had been published before, no specific research was conducted on the use of rhetorical devices to persuade the audience and thus to create suspense in this fictional work. Therefore, in this study, first we defined persuasion in different fields of study and its role in the history of philosophy and rhetoric and then with a brief look at the definition of suspense, we clarified how rhetorical devices could be used to serve fictional suspense. It is worth mentioning that the suspense in the story of Khosrow and Shirin is to a large extent the result of rhetorical devices that the poet used to persuade the audience. This suspense, which causes parting and distance between the lover and the beloved at different intervals of the story and at the same time leads to expectation on the part of the reader, is seen in different parts of the story. In the current study, semantics and eloquence were used to investigate the role of persuasion in creating suspense. Among the semantic devices, the secondary purposes of speech, i.e. encouragement and persuasion, prevention and warning, honoring and praising, and especially blaming and warning; and among the eloquence techniques, the use of simile, metaphor and allegory have played a more effective role in persuading the audience and creating suspense.