Rhetorical Topics in Safavid Historiography

Among all the approaches that have been the focus of scholars in literary criticism, the share of rhetorical criticism is very small. Rhetorical critique, also known as Neo-Aristotelian critique, was founded in 1925 by Herbert Witches with a paper entitled "Literary Criticism of Oratory". In this article, he discusses the main frameworks of this critique and shows its differences with literary criticism. He made a distinction between literary criticism and rhetorical criticism there. After him, rhetorical critique, using the teachings of oratory teachers, such as Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, etc., intends to discover and examine the persuasive strategies of the text. This critique uses factors such as eloquence, audience, methods of reasoning, ethos, pathos and logos, as well as other rhetorical tools for text analysis. In this method, the critic seeks to achieve the methods that the speaker intended to persuade the audience by using the elements of the speech In this article, we will use only one part of rhetorical criticism, namely invention. The speaking element is the part of the speech in which the speaker must find a way to present his speech This subject has changed in modern literature and rhetoric from that used in traditional rhetoric.The purpose of this article is to show what topics the historians of the Safavid period took in order to make their narrative more believable. In other words, behind every topic there is an argument that the historian wants to present to the audience in order to convince the audience.