From Persian “Prologue” to English “Invocation”: A Comparative Study of Ferdowsi’ Shahnameh and John Milton’s Paradise Lost

The present study aims at revealing Rhetoric in Persian and English language and literature and discussing its major classifications by rhetoricians, while emphasizing “Prologue” in Shahnameh and “Invocation” in Paradise Lost. To do this, some of the most significant contemporary books on Persian and English Rhetoric and literary devices are analyzed, and simultaneously those approximate literary devices such as Prologue, Invocation, Foreshadowing, Prolepsis and Apostrophe are compared and contrasted. The results of this research indicate that Persian and English literary devices are not always identical while sometimes seem to be incompatible. This incongruity refers to the nature of their languages and literary text along with poets’ methods of utterances and expositions. Further, the vague equivalents and lexicographers’ negligence aggravated such incongruity. The method employed in this research is descriptive and analytical. Besides, the American School of comparative studies in which direct influences are not insisted, are followed in order to reveal Prologue and Invocation in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and John Milton’s Paradise Lost and to identify their approximate literary devices.