Aesthetics of Rhetoric Figure of Quotation in Marzbannameh with Emphasis on Qur’anic Verses

The rhetoric figure of quotation is one of the eloquent and innovative methods of rhetoric in Marzbannameh providing a wide field for the author's rhetoric and subtleties. Varavini has used various capacities and types of this figure of speech to coordinate the expressions and beautify the words with emphasis on Qur’anic verses. Attention to the rhetoric figure of quotation is necessary to know the aesthetic and semantic details of Marzbannameh. Accordingly, this study deals with the aesthetics of this important literary figure of speech in this book using the descriptive-analytical method. The results of the study indicate that this figure in the Qur’anic verses is one of the most important features of the style and the most prominent aspects of the beauty of speech in Marzbannameh which has given it lexical and content richness leading to more cohesion, coherence, and conciseness of expressions. In most cases, Varavini intends to use more than one rhetoric figure of quotation of a verse and uses some of the prominent words of a surah or neighboring verses in the warp and woof of his expressions. Sometimes, using this figure of speech, he has established a connection between the common words of some verses in different suras, but with a related semantic context, and its result has been used in combining the words, expressions, or making similes, or metaphorical and allegorical combinations, etc. Many of the words of the rhetoric figure of quotation in Marzbannameh are indications of understanding the implications applied in the text.

Varavini’s Marzbannameh is one of the brilliant works of technical prose in the classical educational literature in the seventh century AH, and one of the important figures of speech that has been widely and variously used in this book with an effective role in the beauty of this book is the rhetoric figure of quotation. Among the advantages of the rhetoric figure of quotation is the indirect and implicit use of verses, narrations, poems, and the like. In addition to documenting his speech in the natural course of speech, the author leaves the comprehension of these items to the reader. The main purpose of this research is to conduct an aesthetic analysis and explain the way of processing the rhetoric figure of quotation and its functions as one of the special methods of rhetoric in Marzbannameh prose, and in the light of this knowledge, some textual nodes, as well as their implicit and semantic implications, are revealed.
The present study aims to answer the following research questions:
How is the rhetoric figure of quotation processed in Marzbannameh and what are its aesthetic aspects?
What are the functions of the rhetoric figure of quotation in Marzbannameh and can it be considered as one of the prominent and stylistic features in the prose of Marzbannameh?

The research method in this study is descriptive-analytical based on library resources. After studying the rhetorical resources about the rhetoric figure of quotation and extracting the salient features from the text of Marzbannameh, the author matched them with Quranic verses and then made an aesthetic analysis of this figure.

The rhetoric figure of quotation is one of the most technical literary techniques and the most prominent stylistic features in Marzbannameh. It is applied in two areas of words and meanings in two ways: in the first instance, the author extracts verses and hadiths, poetic verses, proverbs, etc. from the chain of the original order and rhyme and texture or structure of Arabic, and uses one or more prominent words of this text with the same word or derivatives and meanings of those words in organizing his prose phrase. In the second type, the author, by preserving the structure of the verse, hadith, etc., embarks on adapting, changing, omitting, and adding to its words. The rhetoric figure of quotation has provided the author with linguistic and lexical facilities for novelty and the construction of similes, metaphors, allusions, puns, etc. Among the various types of this figure of speech, the quotation from Quranic verses has been the focus of Varavini’s attention. Lack of attention to the widespread use of this figure of speech in Marzbannameh sometimes causes deficiencies or errors in the meanings of words and phrases. A better understanding of the meaning, the subtleties of choosing words, and the exact relationships and proportions between them are associated with paying attention to this figure of speech. The use of Quranic verses in Marzbannameh to organize phrases and construct similes, metaphors, and irony combinations can be seen at four different levels: 1) the use of salient words of a verse or several adjacent verses in a surah, 2) the use of prominent and frequent words from different verses of a surah, 3) the use of salient words of two or more related verses (often with verbal commonality) from different surahs and combining them, and 4) the use of verses and hadiths simultaneously. In Marzbannameh, sometimes the words of a verse or surah are used as the figure of quotation included in a relatively long distance in the vertical axis of each of the chapters. In addition to creating coherence to understand it, it is necessary to consider all the expressions of a chapter and realize the subtleties embedded in the text. This is one of the reasons why Varavini emphasizes reading from beginning to end to get the subtleties hidden in his words. When describing scenes and events or mentioning the personality traits of individuals and positive or negative moral actions and the ending of their actions, Varavini uses Quranic verses related to the mentioned cases and weaves the words of these verses within his phrases. This has led to the development of intentions and meanings in the text and the creation of a deep Quranic structure in the heart of the anecdotes. With the help of the rhetoric figure of quotation and expressing Quranic themes and narration, especially in educational topics and in the heart of anecdotes in the positive words of fictional characters, Varavini added to the content richness and eloquence of his speech and also conveyed moral messages to the reader implicitly and with more inductive power.