نشریه جستارهای نوین ادبی
سال پنجاه و سوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 208، بهار 1399)

If we do not say that Hafez is the greatest employer of the novel technique of ambiguity in Persian, we can at least acknowledge that the novel and unique technique of "ambiguity" is present in the structure of most of Hafez's poems and is among the poets of ambiguity. On the other hand, the use of irony is one of the reasons why Hafez's poetry is widely understood by common groups of people, as Zarrinkoub points out: The use of colloquial words and sarcasm of the common people is also sometimes graceful. By this usage, Hafez's poems will receive a special elegance and we can say that although Hafez's poems are scientific, but the irony doesn't hurt its body. And it gives a special elegance to his poetry, and on the one hand, it is easy to make Hafez’s words prosperous, even though it is refined, wise, and to an industrial extent, the use of vulgar and market words and allusions (Zarinkoub, 2004).

Ambiguous irony technique is a combination of the individual techniques of "irony" and "ambiguity". For example, due to interpreting the term trouble as wine, it will take two meanings: a real and an irony concept. Because of these two concepts, we can say that we have ambiguity. Like interpretation of "trouble" term for the wind; Which, considering the two real and ironic consequences, is ambiguous; For example, in these verses of Nasser Ali: They sell zucchini douche and now I am the wound of my head I bought a measure of gold, I bought gold and I bought trouble In this verse, the irony of "buying trouble" on the one hand refers to hardship, noise and suffering, and on the other hand to the headache caused by a hangover; Therefore, this irony has two meanings and consequently ambiguity.

This research which is descriptive-analytical and uses library sources, tries to reintroduce the technique of "ambiguous irony" (which is on the verge of oblivion) in Hafez's lyric images.

This combined technique has a significant presence and influence on the structure of images throughout Hafez's divan, and one of the reasons is that the poet pays too much attention to the technique of ambiguity. In fact, Hafez's use of this novel element cannot be compared with any of the poets before and after him, and from this perspective, he is the best among all Persian language poets (Mirdar Rezaei, 2018). With this explanation, many poets who show less evidence of ambiguity in the structure of their images (such as Khorasani style poets), are automatically out of the range of poets who make their images from composite and special industries. They use the trick of ambiguous irony, they go out. But as mentioned, Hafez has a special place in using this technique (and other combined techniques).

Meaning of notions and idioms changes over time. Hence, we necessarily ought not to compare the novel understandings of the meaning of such concepts with that of the predecessors. If the aim is to interpret an idiom, one must employ an evolutionary look, trying to grasp the processes through which the idiom transforms over time. If the purpose is to paraphrase a text, there is no urge to study its past. Among the terms associated explicitly with poetry and prose, and generally with literacy, are the “disturbed order” and its related equivalents such as “disordered literacy” and “disturbed figures.” These concepts have had special meanings to the people of the past, which included poetry and prose that were either unconsidered or were of low quality. Some of the researchers and interpreters, nonetheless, have a different understanding of this term. Drawing upon the use of this term in the poetry of Hafiz, they argue that “disturbed order” implies that Hafiz’s poetry, although disturbed in appearance, has a firm order in its core. In this vein, the old interpretations, when compared to today’s scholars, give a completely different implication. This paper endeavors first to introduce the background and history of this term in ancient poetry and prose and then evaluate the contemporary understandings of it. The goal of this study is to demonstrate the significance of the evolution of notions and shed light on an idiom and its equivalents that had a specific meaning in the past poetry and prose.

This research is based on several theoretical concepts. One of the more beneficial methods in theoretical research is the use of ‘concepts’ and their evolutionary process. Concepts play an imperative role in people’s epistemological views. Literary historians rely on these concepts in order to grasp the ways in which classical poetry and literary criticism were construed. Two additional concepts that are utilized in this paper are “interpretation” and “paraphrasing.” In the tradition of Muslims, these two notions are considered separate from one another; for instance, in his book entitled “Almasal-o-Assaer,” Ibn Athir has elucidated the difference between the two notions. Moreover, the research employs the concept of “interpretation” in a fashion through which the reader would be able to draw upon vocabulary, grammar, and historical context to construe a text in ways that are close to what the original author intended to imply. On the other hand, “paraphrase” means that the interpreter uses their subjective understanding of a text without necessarily having to refer to the historical context of the transcript. It seems essential to mention that in “interpretation,” the subjective understanding of the reader is not neglected; it is only limited due to factors such as history and context. Nevertheless, the point is that the readers ought to identify their approach towards the text, and then if they realized a difference between the two concepts, they should recognize whether they are aiming at interpreting the text or paraphrasing it.

In this research, the abovementioned idea is explicated in two different stages. In the first stage, the idiom “disturbed order” and its equivalents such as “disordered literacy” and “disturbed figures” are construed, and their meaning in the past is interpreted. In the second stage, it is demonstrated how some of the contemporary scholars have understood this idiom differently. If this novel understating is an “interpretation,” it should be considered a misunderstanding, and if it is a “paraphrase” not only it is not a misunderstanding, but it will open up new doors in comprehending this idiom and the poetry of Hafiz.

The findings of the present research are as follows: In the old literacy, “disturbed order” and its synonyms such as “disturbed figures” and “disturbed literacy” on some occasions imply a unique meaning and, on some other cases, have a negative value and meaning. If we take an interpretive stance when comprehending Hafez’s famous poem: حافظ آن ساعت که این نظم پریشان می‌نوشت طایر فکرش به دام اشتیاق افتاده بود We ought to understand “disturbed order” as a futile poem. Apparently, after Pournamdarian and Khorramshahi, authors who tried to understand “disturbed order,” paid no attention to the historical meaning of the notion and gave it a novel value and implication; they should consider the fact that this implication would be correct when “paraphrasing” and not “interpreting.” If we take the “paraphrase” stance, we can give the notion of “disturbed order” a new meaning, comprehending it as a positive term and opening a new door towards the poem of Hafiz—as did Pournamdarian, Khorramshahdi, and other similar authors.

This paper, relying on various evidence, unveils that despite the opinions of contemporary scholars, Hafiz did not imply “disturbed order” as a poem that has a disturbed appearance while having a firm core. Conversely, processors and Hafiz thought of the idiom in a way that implicated a low-quality poem. The article, moreover, puts forward that the main reason that the present-day researchers misunderstand this idiom in the Divan-e-Hafiz is the modern poetry and its related theories that affect the subjective construes of scholars from the poem. To support their deduction, scholars with this viewpoint argue that the idiom “disturbed order” uses a paradoxical figure of speech. While this point of view has the potential for being further explored, it is not necessarily true, since the evidence put forward by its proponents is not compelling enough; not only that but the historical evidence and reasons are against such perspectives. Therefore, if the researchers intend to “interpret” the idiom, their comprehension of this word would be erroneous. Nevertheless, if their purpose is to “paraphrase” this idiom, not only their point of view is not wrong, but it also provides a new perspective for exploring Hafiz’s poems through a modern viewpoint.

Since the beginning of the 21st century and with the arrival of "Web2" in Iran, technological changes and the development of cyberspace have brought about tangible changes in various areas of social and cultural life, including literature and especially poetry. After the spread of blogging in Iran, the production of content in Persian in blogs clearly increased so that Persian became one of the ten languages in which most blogs in the world were written in those languages (Razi, 2018). Many literary blogs were created, and literary blogging became popular during the first decade of the 21st century. At the end of the first decade and the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century and with the development of social networks and media, the activity of poets in this field continued. Personal or group webpages and channels with the theme of poetry and literature have been created on various social media platforms. the study aimed to know how cyberspace has affected poetry, and how poets evaluate this impact as beneficial or detrimental to poetry.

A qualitative research method was applied based on the lived experience of poets. In other words, a phenomenological approach was used to gain new data. The phenomenological approach is based on the assumption that the lifeworld around us is the combination of me and the others. So the world is something common. In the phenomenological approach we are talking about a world that humans have experienced, not an abstract world that is far from real life. One problem in interdisciplinary research of literature and communication is the lack of local theories. Phenomenology gives us a wise and broad possibility to reach a theory and can fill this gap. Cyberspace and new media and communication technologies have emerged in the real world. Poets have used this capacity since the era of blogging and have had experiences of the good and bad of blogs and social networks and social media. To understand these years of experience and its results, the poets themselves are the best reference for retelling experiences and expressing their perceptions of this influence. Researchers must use these experiences from living in cyberspace to reach a theory, based on facts. Using the same approach, it was also tried to reach a conceptual model that would compensate for the lack of local theory in this area.

In this research, a purposeful sampling was used. Using a biographical study method, we identified poets who have relative acceptance and fame among the audience and are also active in cyberspace and have many followers on social networks and their poems are shared on social media. We then sent questionnaires to the poets and asked them about the impact of cyberspace in various areas such as text, audience, poets' interaction with the audience and themselves, poetry publishing media, and poetry effects and feedback. Eighty three poets answered the questionnaires. Then, using a systematic approach in grounded theory method, after extracting raw data and categorization, we reached the axial coding of data. To formulate the conceptual model, we named the central category "technological anxiety of poets" and based on it, other categories and subcategories were extracted from the answers and a model was presented.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of cyberspace on poetry. Based on this, it was found that poets believe that cyberspace has provided a space for the presentation of worthless poems and plagiarism, rather than the publication of valuable poems. Cyberspace has contributed to the reputation of poets on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has removed the monopoly of producing and delivering poetry from intellectuals and elites. Poets acknowledged that the circle of poetry audiences has expanded due to the expansion of cyberspace, but many of these audiences read poetry only as a hobby. Most poets still consider the book as the reference for elites and main medium of poetry, but at the same time believe that cyberspace has reduced the possibility of the influence of the publishing and media mafia and censorship in the process of literary creation. Acknowledging the new possibilities that poetry has acquired through cyberspace, poets are interested in the previously established and accustomed situation (production monopoly, professional stratification, rhetoric and non-interactive media). We defined the poets' prediction of the continuation of this trend in three approaches: 1. The integration approach, according to which the weak poems that have many fans in cyberspace these days, will form the main and dominant current of Iranian poetry; 2. The continuation approach. The Persian poetry is considered too powerful to be defeated by cyberspace; 3. The combination approach, which believes that the poets should have the opportunity to provide the poetry and the readers should be given the chance to select and cyberspace is the key. It is also important that the poets make efforts to improve the reader's literary and media literacy of their audience’s knowledge there.

The conclusion is that poets have not been able to use the possibility of dialogue, interaction, and decentralization of cyberspace. They have become accustomed to centrist and non-interactive media, they have been unable to create a public literary sphere. For this reason, it is suggested that poets in cyberspace not only advertise and share their poetry, but also try to acquaint the audience with the criteria of good and quality poetry by creating channels, pages, and groups of poetry. It is also suggested that poets engage in dialogue and interaction with their audiences and recognize different tastes to have representatives outside the predetermined and established sphere of literary production. The audience are recommended to use this opportunity to improve their literary knowledge. Both sides of this communication must enter into a real dialogue based on mutual recognition. Instead of hiding or eliminating the other side, they should help to understand each other and promote the literary literacy of the society.

Literature as a powerful communication medium is able to affect the audience from different angles. By studying the views of theorists, it can be found out that in different periods of the history of literature, “the Author” has used the influencing techniques to achieve goals such as persuasion, teaching, getting active, and making literary pleasure. The instrumental use of the “influence” has faded in the postmodern era, and then the influence itself, has become a priority in the process of literary creation. Iranian postmodern poets believe that the techniques of influencing the audience in traditional rhetoric are repetitive and accordingly ineffective now. They declare that today's poets must encounter the audience from new and various angles, especially those derived from today's life.

Through the centuries, literature has been considered as an effective medium to persuade the audience to an exact thought or ideology. From this perspective, the audience is a passive and impressionable element. After the invention of the printing industry, the perception of the passivity of audience was shifted to activity. Since then influencing the readers was important because it could encourage them to act independently. From the eighteenth century, “making literary pleasure” was added to other goals. This purpose was followed, especially in formalist literary and critical works. Postmodernism is a broad movement that developed in the mid- to late 20th century all over the world. The concept of “influence” in postmodern superficial philosophy, is totally self-referential. The postmodern author makes his/her work appear quite astonishing and mesmerizing at first glance. Through this technique he/she takes away any opportunity of thinking and reflecting from audience; accordingly attract them unconsciously.

This paper, through a descriptive-analytical perspective, first focuses on the reasons of postmodernism’s emphasis on the concept of “influence” and reveals the quality of influence which is intended by postmodernism. Then, categorizes and studies the most effective techniques which are used in Iranian postmodern poems to have a highest impact on audience. Each of these techniques is referred to one or more dimensions of postmodern philosophy, as well as from living in the cybernetic/cyberpunk (human-technology) world.

Iranian Postmodern poets use various techniques to influence the audience. The first and most effective technique is “eliminating distinctions” between poet and audience, elite audience and public audience, formal language and informal language, the shiny world of poetry and usual world of the daily life. The second technique, is “Being surprising” which causes excitement and quick impact on the audience. The postmodern poets often achieve this goal through two main methods De-harmonization (musical, linguistic, moral), and irregular collage of poetic elements. The third technique, is applying the method that is used by transactional technologies to have effective communication today: “visual attractions”. For achieving this goal, poets exert the visual and optical elements in the form and content of their poems.

To have a strong, immediate, and superficial effect on the audience, postmodern poets try to employ the unprecedented and eclectic techniques. They have realized that in order to achieve the maximum impact, the literary work must be familiar, fascinating and surprising. To be familiar, poets use the ordinary spaces and details of everyday life, informal language, and personal life events in their poems. To be fascinating and surprising, they apply De-harmonization and visual techniques in both form and content. The quality of application of these techniques is different from previous methods in Persian literature. It seems that they are derived from the techniques used by technological media, especially interactive media, to attract more audience.

The Russian Revolution of October 1917 caused Tajikistan to be under intellectual, economic, and political dominance for nearly seventy years. Over these years, Tajik literature was named Soviet-Tajik literature; and as socialist realism, the dominant literary school was formed in Tajikistan around 1920. Any mystical and religious thought was suppressed, particularly in the literature of this era. With the death of Stalin and the rise of Khrushchev, there has been an opportunity for freedom of thought and speech since 1953. Perestroika and Glasnost policy (economic reform and open political space) was founded by the last Soviet leader, Gorbachev, in 1985. After this era, religious and mystical themes came to life again, particularly with the Soviet Union collapse in 1991 as well as the declaration of independence of Tajikistan in the same year. This research, given the full-of-censorship background of Tajikistan in the period of Soviet domination, examines the recent efforts of poets in religious (Shiite) and mystical poetry and reviews this theme in today’s poetry in this country. The most important question is: how has the evolution of religious (Shiite) and mystical themes been in contemporary Tajik poetry? Poetic evidence from contemporary Tajik poets are analyzed and this statistical community constitutes the most prominent Tajik poets of religious and mystical concepts to answer the question.

When socialist thoughts emerged, religious and mystical concepts were considered as serious threats to the government of Tajikistan at that time and censored. The government that understood the true vacuum of spirituality in literature chose an alternative in this field; a fully humane, friendly, instinctive and, safe alternative. Under the influence of Russian literature, mother was praised to the level of God and Prophet. Thus, many “mother letters” were written, like the mother letters of Loyigh Shir-Ali. Sometimes, in order to fill the huge vacuum of spirituality as well as the lack of true theism, the homeland of Tajik poets, referring to the unified communist homeland in many cases, has been praised at the level of God, such as some of Golrokhsar’s poems (see: Safi Ava, 1994). In continuation of the same materialist perspective, “Soil and Earth” as “Mother of God” is observed in the works of most Tajik Soviet poets (see Ghanat, 1994). Nevertheless, particularly after fading of socialist thought, some poets have considered a disregard for spirituality as the reason for social problems. For instance, in the poem “Bell of Awakening” from Earth and Time, Loyigh Shir-Ali complains a lot about the lack of spirituality (see Loyigh, 1993). Since the study deals with a later part of the contemporary Tajik poetry (from 1991 to 2015) and since in the introduction and the previous lines, a brief overview of the Tajik poetry’s status over the peak period of Soviet domination (Soviet literature) was proposed, only the era after the end of Soviet domination by 2015 (see Khodayar, 2018) is reviewed: 1. The decline of Soviet literature and soft return to tradition (1953-1985), “Khrushchev Thaw”; 2. The beginning of awakening and freedom (1985-1991), Gorbachev Era; Declaration of Perestroika and Glasnost (economic reform and open political space); 3. National independence and self-awareness (1991-2015), collapse of the Soviet Union and independence of the Republic of Tajikistan (1991); 4. Independence, doubt, and strangeness (2015), the beginning of the de-Islamization (Secularization) period.

This study aimed at studying contemporary Tajik poets’ religious (Shiite) and mystical poems through poetic evidence, library and analytical methods, and using the Iranian and Tajik libraries and Persian and Cyrillic references.

With the death of Stalin and the rise of Khrushchev in 1953 as well as the establishment of some political and theological freedoms, some poets, particularly Loyigh Shir-Ali, benefited from the lack of spirituality and religious and mystical beliefs. Later, in 1985, with the Perestroika and Glasnost policies by Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, poets succeeded to create forbidden themes such as religion and mysticism. With the former Soviet Union collapse in 1991 and Tajikistan independence in the same year, Tajik relations with their ancestral homeland, Iran, enhanced. In this regard, the effect of the religious atmosphere as well as the mystical thoughts of contemporary Iranian literature on Tajik’s present literature and poetry (before 2015 and the beginning of the secularization period) should not be ignored; since a more religious mystical (particularly Shiite) religious atmosphere is observed in the poems wrote by many young Tajik poets.

In Tajik poetry, due to the institutionalization of communist thought in the former Soviet republics like Tajikistan, religious and mystical concepts prevailed after Stalin. Although they have experienced a rowing trend due to Iran’s growing interactions with Tajikistan as well as its intellectual and ideological effects - before 2015 that is considered as the onset of this country’s de-Islamization stage, such concepts can only be observed in the poems of younger Tajik poets. Another significant point is that the mystical themes stated by the Tajik poet are usually a type of religious mysticism. In other words, the confusions, bewilderments, and confusions of pure mystical texts are hardly observed in their works. In Shiite religious concepts like praising Imams (AS), waiting for the promised savior (Mahdi) (AS), speaking about the Karbala event, besides the love of Imam Hussein (AS), it should be noted that since the Tajik poets are Sunni, the advent of these emerging concepts in Tajik’s contemporary poetry along with the fading of socialist thoughts and some alterations in the writings and thoughts is highly notable.

Reading the works of some Persian poets and writers such as Khaqani, Nezami, Beihaqi, etc. we face a rare usage of the word "sneezing" (عطسه) in a particular sense which is related to the concepts of reproduction and father son ralationship. In the explanatory notes on these works there is no comprehensive explanation elaborating on the reason for the poet or the writer’s usage of the word "sneezing" in this sense. Most of the scholars refered to some Islamic mtyhs but none of the myths make the relationship between sneezing and reproduction clear enough. The fact that the word is used in the same sense in English and French idioms and expressions (both comparing a child who looks exactly like his father to the father’s spit), raises the question as to whether there is any ancient myth which can be considered as the origin of this particuar usage of "sneezing" in different languages? According to the studies of Horn (2004) and Gadalla (2018), who traced respectively the origin of the English and French idioms, the ralationship between Sneezing and reproduction has its roots in an ancient Egyptian myth. The goal of this study is to show how the ancient myth has transformed to appear as a metaphor in Persian literature.

As Horn (2004), Gadalla (2018) and Frayer (2013) showed separatedly in their studies, the relationship between sneezing and fertility can be traced in different languages and cultures. Horn (2004) showed its examples in Italian, German, Portuguese, Greek, etc. He believed that it had originated from an ancient Egyptian myth according to which the God "Shu" begot his heir by sneezing and that is why his son was called "Tefnut" meaning "sneeze". The results of Gadalla's studies on the origin of the French expression corroborates this assumption. Frayer (2013) explained that saliva played a significant role in many ancient myths depicting the scene of the very first creation. As he put it in his article, saliva, just like dust and clay, was an essential component of the creation. In this respect, breath, spit as well as sneeze are three main images of creation and reproduction in myths since all the three contain saliva. In each language and culture, one of these three images dominated the other two. In ancient Greece, sneezing was considered sacred and divine. Aristotle believed that sneezing is related to soul as it comes out from head where soul is located in. Some African, American, Asian, and European superstitions stemmed from the belief that there is a relationship between sneezing and soul too. In Christian culture, the image of spitting was repeated in myths and the stories of the wonderworks of Jesus. In Islamic culture, although breath is the dominant image in creation scenes since according to The Holy Quran, God breathed out his soul to give life to Adam sneezing is considered sacred as well. It is believed that Adam sneezed following God's breath. It is also believed that cat was born when lion sneezed in Noah's ark, so there is a hint of relationship between sneeze, soul and creation/reproduction in Islamic culture, too. This relationship is highlighted particularely in Khagani's odes in 12th century. He repeatedely used "sneeze" as a metaphor for "child", "outcome" or "concequence" in his works.

In this study, it was tried to find what the Persian metaphors using the image of "sneezing" to indicate "reproduction" have in common with the other idioms and expressions using the related images in the same way in other languages. Horn (2004) and Gadalla's (2018) studies had already brought it in light that such images have the same origin. Frayer showed also how the original metaphor showing parent's saliva as the ressource of reproductive power has ramified into three main metaphors (sneeze, breath, spit) in different cultures and literatures. Since the images used in Islamic culture and literature were ignored in the previous studies, examples from both Persian and Arabic texts were analayzed to find out to which branch they belong. They then were compared with those belonging to other branches.

According to an ancient Egyptian myth , saliva is related to fertility. As breath, spit and sneeze, all contain saliva, they were used as the metaphors of "reproduction" in different cultures and some French, English, Italian, German, Portuguese, Greek expressions reflect the relationship between these three images and fertility. Having analyzed the images related to the metaphor cited above in Islamic culrure, we concluded that such relationship between the word "breath"/"sneeze" and reproduction exists in the latter culture, too.

In Islamic culture and Persian literature, the absolute dominant image among "breath", "spit" and "sneeze" (the three images related to fertility in different languages) is "breath". Evidently, the dominance of this image in Islamic literature is the natural corollary of the use of this image in the creation scene described by The Holy Quran, The image of "sneeze" also appears in some Islamic myths and Persian verses, specially in Khaqani's odes, to indicate "reproduction".