نشریه تفسیر و تحلیل متون زبان و ادبیات فارسی (دهخدا)
پیاپی 28 (تابستان 1395)

In order to express his mystical notions and thoughts Attār refers to the numinous and mystic figures in his anecdotes and tales and advises everyone to follow their deeds and examples. The present study investigates the character of Shebli, a mystic of the fourth and fifth centuries, who was respected by great Sufi scholars. He was a high ranking lover and mystic of unequalled lore and devotion. Many intellectual points, advices, phrases and also revelations and miracles have been attributed to him. Attār depicts him as the narrator of the anecdotes in Conference of Birds and his other works to expresses his own thoughts and ideas in both simple and cryptic ways. In this study, we have tried to analyze and interpret or demystify these anecdotes and tales. We have attempted to uncover the hidden secrets and symbols behind the lines. In every one of these tales and anecdotes, bearing the secrets and ways of mysticism, Attār puts forth his own words as quoted by Shebli, and revealing the hidden secrets in them is what this present study has attempted to achieve.

Iranian literary scholars have shown less interest in the study of prose works than those in verse. This is why a great number of Persian literary works in verse have had the chance to be revised and reedited and go to print again and again, while the number of the prose works presented to the culturati and scientific society has been fairly less. However, the necessity of introducing the importance and true validity of Persian prose and emphasizing its significance from different viewpoints is strongly felt. Then the present paper tries to conduct a research on The History of Sistan (written c.445 AH), a primary resource for the early Persian prose evolution. This book was one of the unknown and forgotten works of Persian literature until Etemad Al-Saltana, Naser Al-Din Shah Qajar’s secretary of publications, printed it in Nos. 474 – 564 of Iran Daily (1920 – 1923) as installments of a serial. Later in 1935, Mohammad Taqi Bahar, the well-known poet and scholar, revised and reedited it with a comprehensive introduction to be published in the form of a book. The present research, based on Bahar’s revision, explores its inflectional and syntactical features including parts of speech, their functions, simple and complex sentence structures, subject and verb agreement, order of the components, deletions, coordination, subordination, etc.

The importance of home and birthplace and how regretfully or joyfully poets and writers think about them have always been the subject of consideration throughout history. Nizar Qabbani, the Arab innovator poet, and Akhavan Saless, the Iranian contemporary poet, have viewed Beirut and Susa respectively in a mournful and tearful tone recollecting their affluence and destruction in the past in their poems. This paper compares two odes of the poets to argue the importance of these two places in their depictions.

Narratology is a noteworthy branch of twentieth century criticism, and the general concept of it is the transition from the initial position to the second position and it becomes the basis for the actors’ actions to take place on. Algirdas Julien Greimas, the semiotician narratologist, has done a lot to provide certain patterns in narratology. His narratology is based on Vladimir Propp's morphology of the tales. The present paper aims to investigate “Story of Akvān the Demon” in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh based on the actantial model of Grimas, and the researchers have studied the plot of the story through his semiotic square approach.

Zamyad Yašt, aka Kayān Yašt, as the nineteenth Yašt of Avesta is considered the most important document in the ethnographic researches of the geographical foundation of the history of Iran. According to this Yašt, the kingdom of the Kayānian kings (Kay Ghobad, Kay Kavus, Kay Kosrow, Kay Lohrasb, and Kay Goštāsp) and their successful sovereignty is bound to the river banks leading to Hirmand River and running to Kiansiyeh (Hamoon) in Sistan. Other evidences – such as Zoroaster’s living during Kay Goštāsp’s sovereignty in eastern Persia (or Balkh) and certain congruity between the Gash and the northeasterners’ language, as well as the establishment of Kayānian kings (Kay Kavus, Kiani Kings and Kay Lohrasb) in Balkh according to Islamic period historians  and stories of Shahnameh, traditions and monuments like the Gang Dezh in Turan built by Siavash, and the fireplace building at Sistan by Kay Kosrow – attest that the geographical borders wherein the word Kay – relating to the territory for the kingdom of  Kayānian – was used stretches from the farthest parts of  the northeast  to the southeast of Sistan.

Iran is an ancient civilized country. A search in its epic literature with venerable motifs and myths can lead us to trace back the track of many social phenomena of old-time societies in Iran, and so to claim this country to have been a community, especially one the members of which had had identity and their nationalism had always supported it. The literature produced in a community will fully reflect the ideas and introspections rooted in its social conditions. Revolution, as a social phenomenon and in its modern concept rather than uprising or rebellion, has been manifested in the story of Zahhak. This story of Zahhak and Kava is a mythical narration, and while the myths are so old that no social data could be found for them, then considering the social phenomena in Persian literary texts it can be concluded that revolution is as old as the ancient Iranian community. The present paper studies Kava’s fighting against Zahhak based on Lucien Goldmann’s theory of “Genetic Structuralism” in order to conclude that the social phenomenon of revolution had been chronicled in Iran before any other community

Through a deep study of the literary texts of recent decades, and considering narratology as the most noteworthy outcome of structuralism, one can notice that the structure and motifs of narrative texts based on the functions and relations of the characters have been focused on. That is why each one of the narratologists has pointed to the recurrent models in literary texts. Russian folklorist, Vladimir Propp, brought about major developments by introducing a comprehensive model for structural analysis of narrative texts. Regarding the vast and wide range of narrative fiction which provides a good ground for discovering the narrative structure and analysis, the researcher has tried to analyze the structure of Nizami’s Leyli O Majnun</em> as a work of lyrical fiction. Then, after an introductory account of formalism, structuralism and morphology, the researcher has embarked on analyzing this story based on Propp’s morphology model in order to find out what techniques Nizami has used to narrate his story.