Simple Style Writing and Arabic terms in Ali Dashti’s Prose

Ali Dashti (1273-1360) is one of the distinguished writers who upon  publishing the notes”Ayyam Mahbas” in 1301 joined the simple style writing movement in Contemporary Prose.  Apart from this work, many other works in variety of genres such as translation, journalism, story, and literary criticism all share this characteristic.  However, in his prose, particularly his first works, there are considerable numbers of Arabic terms which apparently deviates his prose from the simplicity in terms of choice of diction. The density of such terms has drawn the attention of critics to an extent which they regard this feature as a great shortcoming in his writing style and even comparing his prose particularly in his articles with that of his contemporaries,  they place his prose alongside courtly prose and regard it as a continuation of the same tradition. In this article, the impact of Arabic terms on the simplicity of Dashti’s prose, in particular his critical works is investigated.