Persian Language and Literature

Publication Information

The Structure of Constructs

Mohammad Reza Shafiei Kadkani

According to the contemplations advanced by Russian formalists as well as scholars such as Lui Shtrus with regards to the concept of construct and its attributes, any change in the construct will influence all constituents of the construct. These transformations are concerned with the structures of construct in each cycle. As the structures of construct are perfect, the other structures cannot be in a state of complete decline. Looking at the cultural history of Iran from the same perspective, one can see that the structures of construct were perfect in the 4th century. Thus, all smaller structures such as poetry, prose, music, mysticism, medicine and architecture enjoyed a prominent position. The wisdom liberty in poets and mu'tazilites's discussions is the main reason behind the prominence and grandeur of Iranian culture and its macro scale structure in Ferdowsi and Biruni age. The dominance of Ashaari doctrines over the Iranian culture led to the decline of wisdom with the structures of constructs secured by certainty giving way to skepticism arguments and logical propositions replaced by speculative propositions

Reflections on Khavari Shirazi’s Life and Poems

Seyyed Mahdi Nourian

By the crowning of Fatali Shah Ghajar, poetry found a better position and status compared with the previous periods of Zands and Afsharids. The Ghajar king who was a poet himself and whose pen name was khaghan began to support poets and with the formation and establishment of the new center of restoration movement in Tehran, many poets directed their steps from around the country toward the capital of Iran, Tehran. Khavari Shirazi is one of the poets who immigrated from Shiraz to Tehran and by relying on his inherent talent and practicing letter writing and historiography, and poem recitation in the literary circles of the capital, turned into one of the relatively known poets and writers of his era and left many complete poetical works embracing more than seven thousand couplets of different forma such as elegy, ode, compounds of stanzas , mathnavi, quatrain and poems stanzas. In this paper, after providing a brief study of poetry status in Afshar era , up to the end of Fatali shah's period , the biography, the works, the Divan of the poetry and the compilation of the Divan and style of Khavari shirazi are analyzed in details.

The Image of Del (heart) in Nezami -e-Ganjavi’s Makhzan-al-asrar

Qolam Ali Fallah

Del (heart) is one of the recurrent themes in Nezami-e-Ganjavi’s Makhzan-al-asrar. This paper addresses the concept and its true nature as well as its ranks. One may hypothesize that the poet has his own technical interpretation of Del spreading all through his ideas and thoughts and reflected in various sections of the collection. To answer the research questions posed in this research, content analysis method was utilized

The Early Mystics’ Approach to Reason

Seyyed Mehdi zarghani

As the title indicates, the main purpose of this paper is to consider how the early mystics dealt with the essential concept of reason. To this end, we have examined forty works either written on or including the ideas of the mystics living in the first five centuries of the Islamic era. The findings are then placed in ten main categories: Reason and one’s knowledge of god; Reason and the Koran; Reason and Riligion; Reason and Ethics; Reason, this world, and hereafter; Reason and Mystical Hierarchies; Reason and Mystical states; Reason and Love; Reason and soul. Each category has then received its due attention. The paper intends to delineate how these mystics discuss divergent issues related to knowledge, this world, the hereafter and mysticism with reference to reason. Also, attempts are made to shed lights on the relationship between them. It must be admitted that these mystics had a limited view of reason; however, the very reference to reason in their arguments points to their concern about this concept. In fact, in their delineating of the limitations of reason in different realms of knowledge, they have resorted to the same notion (i.e reason). Although our main concern here is issues related to reason in one way or another, one can note the extent and diversity of knowledge theses mystics have touched upon in their works.

Historical Background and Theoretical Bases of Pure writing

Bagher Sadri Nia

Despite much research about pure-writing, no satisfying one about its history and theories has been conducted to date. The present paper aims to study the historical background of this writing method and its theoretical bases up to the constitutional era. This study shows that, contrary to what it seems, pure-writing is not a new method and its history dates back to the fifth century AH. Referring to remains of past periods, the article emphasizes that this kind of writing got increasing attention since the second half of the thirteenth century AH, under the influence of widespread Dasatiri terms especially the nationalism movement. This paper addresses the following questions: 1- Was pure-writing based on any particular theory of Shu'ubiyya in the previous periods? 2- Was there any relationship between pure-writing and nationalism? 3- If there were such a relationship, did all nationalist movements propagate pure-writing or just a some particular ones insisted on it?

Patterns of Clothing in Khosrow & Shirin of Nezami

Eshagh Toqyani

The characterization of appearance is one of the important elements in personification that includes the description of face, size, movement, effect and clothing. Clothing is an important element of personification in Nezami’s versified stories. Moreover, clothing is the original religious custom in the Sasani era, when the story of khosrow & Shirin happened and it is the symbol of abstinence in the Islamic period when the Hakim of Ganjeh composed this story. On the other hand, generally, there is no image of nakedness in the traditions of Persian literature. Therefor, Nizami regarded these traditions and customs in characterization of clothing. In this paper, attempts are made to describe the pattern of clothing in Khosrow & Shirin of Nizami.

Reflections on Functions of Magic in Ancient Magical Tales

Pegah Khadish

Magic tales are considered as one of the most significant types of oral
literature. These tales, specified by number 300-749 in the ATU
international list of folktales, remind us the time when every single
object or phenomenon possessed a magical and metaphysical power in the mind of the primitive man and exceeded man’s power.
Those men believed that at the time of troubles, magical powers would come to assist them and would save them from dangers. Through content analysis of magical tales, we may find clues to the roots of the thoughts of primitive man such including animation and personification of
objects, the ability to speak to plants and animals, metamorphosis, etc.