Processed Syllepsis: a New Rhetorical Art in Persian Literature

Syllepsis and the determination of its types have not been a subject in some of the earlier rhetorical books. Mirza Abootalib Fendereski, the author of the treatise Bayanolbadi’, is the first person who defined and explained it in Persian rhetoric, following the Arabic rhetoric. After him, other people have discussed how and why those arts have been used and determined the boundaries of this art. The results of the comparison between these definitions and opinions are as follows: A. Syllepsis has three sub-categories: metaphorical syllepsis (verbal and nominal), non-metaphorical syllepsis, and pronoun syllepsis; B. The use of pronouns is most usual in Arabic language and literature not in Persian; C. There may be several A and B’s (two sides of a simile) in syllepsis; D. In metaphorical syllepsis, the form has a concrete and real meaning in one of the parts of the syllepsis and is conceptually rational, abstractive compared with the other. To clarify the issue, we provided examples for each of these types of syllepsis.