The Grounds of Artistic Creation in Mystical Texts

This paper tries to investigate the relation between mystical thoughts and aesthetic aspects of mystical texts. In other words, this research tries to introduce the thinking fields that produced artistic works from mystical works. The importance of these fields is in their conscious or unconscious role in the creation of these texts. To achieve this goal, defamiliarization has been used as a criterion for recognizing the artistic aspects of mystical texts. Therefore, by giving a general review of literary theories of 20th century, defamiliarization and foregrounding have been considered in the works of Formalists and Structuralists. In this framework, the function of some of the features of mystical thought such as symbol and interpretation, revelation, relativism, repeated creation and wonder (Hayrat) in artistic creation have been investigated. These features produce a multilayered insight in authors of mystical texts. The results of such insight can be seen in the language of these texts. In this language, defamiliarized features produce an artistic perception in the readers of the texts.