The Rhetorical Apposition: A Way to Integrate Simile and Metaphor

Truth and image, beauty and ugliness, love and religion, etc. are interwoven in the word of Hafez. This is rooted in the compilation infrastructure of his word. One of the ways that allowed Hafez to combine different semantic domains is substituting concepts in the two lines of each verse based on rhetorical relations between those concepts (Rhetorical apposition). One of the types of rhetorical apposition is the substitution of two words or two concepts based on similarity. Apposition is one of the two sides of simile that substitutes the other side. In this structure, Hafez combines features of metaphor and simile and makes new images and wonderful meanings. The referencing of concepts is sometimes obvious and sometimes hidden. Rhetorical apposition is placed in a sentence independent of the substituted item. Therefore, the substitute maintains its independent meaning of the substituted item. This feature causes rhetorical apposition to have a virtual meaning in referring to the substituted item, but regardless of the syntagmatic relations, it maintains its main meaning. Hafez uses this tool to create new poetic themes, mystical symbols, the expression of mystical concepts, ambiguity, humor, and to visualize abstract concepts, and so on.