A Rhetorical Analysis of Image in Parodies of Mirza Abdullah Gorji Esfahani

Satirical poetry appeals to a wide range of audiences. Satirical poets look at phenomena from fresh perspectives, choosing subjects that are usually avoided. One of such windows is the imagination of a poet who creates caricature-like pictures in the form of a satire. This very thing provides the audience with a kind of delicacy and freshness and allows them to see unseen points, too.In this respect, parody is a subgenre of lyrical literature, through which the poet expresses their intentions. Parodies are composed for the purpose of satire, criticism, entertainment, and fun in most cases; they sometimes come near to red lines and even cross them when they are facetious and lampoons.One of the prominent parody poets in the era of Qajar in the 13th century Hijri is Abdollah Ibn Fereydoun Gorji Isfahani known as "Eshteha" and "Sargashteh". From the perspective of poetry, he composed around 1400 verses in Abu Ishaq Atma’eh Shirazi's style mostly in the genre of ghazal that describe foods and drinks. His collection of poems represents the culture and civilization of his time. Through his poems, he has been able to keep alive the language and culture of his society that could have been destroyed by a foreign culture and civilization and protect the idioms, expressions, ironies and foods of his time in them.Knowing he was no match for great Persian poets like Molana, Saadi, and Hafez, he wisely went for a specific genre -- parody -- so that he could display his abilities and compete with his predecessors like Atmaeh Shirazi. In addition to showing his art, Eshteha saw poetry as an opportunity to convey important concepts and themes to his readers, too. Through his poems, he has displayed his art in satire and made criticisms of the problems and decencies of his era.An investigation into Eshteha's poems reveals that this poet has paid special attention to his readers who have been mostly from the lower and unlearned classes. In addition to using simpler figures of speech, he has used their potentials, created a coherent structure, and by disorganizing the poetic system of the poems memorized by the public, he has been able to display the turmoil of his society using bitter or funny satires.Eshteha has paid attention to similes and ironies more than other figures of speech. The reason is that his readers have been from the public who can understand simpler figures of speech more easily. In order not to both lose specialist readers and voice his criticisms indirectly, he has used metaphors in his poems as well. He has utilized sensory similes containing the five senses of taste, sight, smell, hearing, and touch for foods. Regarding metaphors, he has given a sense of life and joy to foods using animation and tried to make his poems more fanciful.Eshteha has tried to make full use of ironies and has also used the literary arts of tanasob, opposites, and equivoques. It should also be mentioned that figures of speech are expressive of his mental condition and terrible living conditions as well; an unsatisfied longing for foods which had become an obsession for him and found a way into his parodies. Deprived of food, homeless, and wandering the streets, the poet used to look for a portion of food. This overwhelming yearning for food has made him choose 'Sarghashteh (wandering)' and 'Eshteha (appetite) as his nicknames.