A comparative Look at Apostrophe in the Most Prominent Persian Rhetorical Books

Althouhg writers and poets know the art of apostrophe and its examples in the Holy Quran, the poetry of the pre-Islamic era and consequently in Persian poetry, Tarjomān al-Balāghe is the oldest rhetoric work that apostrophe has been mentioned in it. The author not only considers the differences between apostrophes in the Arabic and Persian languages but also shows the formation of the array in the two languages. However, after Tarjomān al-Balāghe, this array has been mentioned in most rhetorical books. But most of these sources are influenced only by the Arabic language and at the same time regardless of what is presented in Tarjomān al-Balāghe, they have dedicated their efforts to adding void comments with no artistic aspects in this industry.According to this study, Persian rhetoric works have enhanced the complexity of the art only by adding the extra details, regardless of the specific features of this language and the scientific criticism of the apostrophe, whereas the description of this array in Tarjomān al-Balāghe is very simple and clear and it is completely compatible with the characteristic of the Persian language and the spirit of this language.Radviāni in Tarjomān al-Balāghe has defined the lexical meaning of apostrophe as “looking back”. In this idiomatic definition, it is said that when the poet means another meaning by a distich, it is called apostrophe. He also quotes Ebne Mo’taz’s viewpoint and says that the narrator turns from addressee to absentee, and from absentee to addressee. Radviāni has given two definitions of the apostrophe array. His first definition is how this array was flown in Persian. Another definition refers to how this art was formed in Arabic, and for the second definition, Radviāni is influenced by Mahasan al-Kalam by Marghinari. Distinguishing between how to flow this in the art in Arabic, and how to form the apostrophe in the Persian language shows that Radviāni has considered Mahasan al-Kalam by Marghinari and consequently Badaye’ by Ebne for writing his book. In this respect, , not only he was not a mere imitator, but also he tried hard to adapt these industries with the spirit of the Persian language.In this article, the researchers reviewed the books of the Tarjomān al-Balāghe, Hadaiq al –Sehr Fi Daqaeq al-She’r, al-Mo’jam, and Adab al-Badye’ regarding the apostrophe art.We support Radviāni’s definition based on transferring one meaning to another. It is consistent with the structure of the Persian language, and Tarjomān al-Balāghe has innovated this definition.A comparative and intertextual study of the Tarjomān art in prominent Persian rhetoric books shows that rhetorical schools have called this art “Tarjomān”, and lexically have mentioned meanings such as “looking back” and “re-looking” for it. In terms of terminology, Tarjomān is defined as follows:a) The point of view of speech from the absentee to the addressee and vice versa. All rhetorical scientists in the statistical community of the research except Shams Qais Razi have expressed this definition.b) Transferring from one meaning to another or using a proverb or a phrase of prayer or emphasis to clear up the ambiguity and concern of the listener. Radvināi, Vatvat, Shamse Gheyse Razi, Kashefi Sabzevari, and Ataolah Mahmood Hosseini have mentioned this definition.c) The definition related to returning from past or future to imperative or predictive to the future tense with the past meaning or vice versa is only proposed by Ataullah Mahmoud Hossini in Badaye’ al-Saneyi.It is said that what is acceptable in the definition of the Apostrophe  is transferring from one meaning to the other, which is proposed by the first book of Persian rhetoric, Tarjomān al-Balāghe