Comparing the Use of Colors in Persian and Arabic Narrative Poems and Prose Stories: The Case Study of Nizami-Ganjavi’s Eskandar-Nameh and al-Hariri’s Maqamat

Poets and writers, for a long time, have figuratively or explicitly uttered their emotions and feelings in their works through various colors, in such a way that significant results can be achieved regarding their personality traits if their works are examined psychologically. The present study was an attempt to analyze the use of colors in Nizami-Ganjavi’s Eskandar-Nameh and al-Hariri’s Maqamat, recruiting descriptive-analytical approaches. The results revealed that Nizami-Ganjavi had exploited colors by 380 times in Eskandar-Nameh, namely, 261 times directly and 119 times indirectly, using words such as dark, light, pitch-black, and the like. Accordingly, black and its derivatives with 107 repetitions, respectively with 57 and 50 direct and indirect cases, had the highest frequency. The use of colors had been typically employed as a simile, a metaphor, and an irony to account for the inner states of humans, which was to a great extent in agreement with the views of contemporary psychologists about different colors. Al-Hariri had also referred to 37 colors in his Maqamat, with yellow having the highest frequency (14 repetitions). In contrast to Eskandar-Nameh, the use of colors in Maqamat had been more symbolic and ironic, often stemming from the nature of colors; for example, white signifying hopefulness, black representing despondency and misfortune, or yellow indicating sorrow, ailment, and demise in one place and a symbol of delight and exhilaration in another. Additionally, the frequency of the colors in these two works is illustrated in diagrams.