فصلنامه متن پژوهی ادبی
پیاپی 68 (تابستان 1395)

The culture of every society comprises different parts. One of the most important constructive parts of each culture is literature or poetry which originates from the mythology, religion, and social/historical events. It is also one available source to explore the history of civilizations in different centuries. Having a deep knowledge of the change and development of the poetry over time is an effective step to recognize the political, social and cultural destiny of communities. With such a knowledge base, the relevant scholars can find out whether a society has progressed, regressed or hasn’t changed at all. Persian poetry has changed and developed during centuries in response to various political, social and cultural events. This study investigates the extent to which some Persian poets have been able to go beyond the common features of Indian style to adopt the style of ancient Persian poets in terms of word combinations, concepts and content. The comparison of the poetic features of Khorasani and Restoration periods show that even the most elaborate imitations of the ancient poets cannot be of the same value and originality. The imitators of great literary figures have never received the same amount of attention as the literary figures themselves. In fact, imitation is an indication of a static society where there is no room for innovation. This study, with use of statistical data, aims at exploring the extent to such imitators have successfully replicated the ancient literary masterpieces.

Postcolonial analysis, as one of the important branches of literary criticism, is concerned with the political, social, and cultural aspects of literary works. This critical approach is used to analyze those literary works narrated from colonial, dominated communities and their different issues whether comparatively or separately. The main goal of this critical approach is to provide a deconstructive approach for representing self and other or center and margin in analysis. This paper aimed at reviewing the basic tenets of post-colonialism such as the other making, gender, language, decolonization, etc, and providing a post-colonial reading of Simin Daneshvar’s novel of ‘The Island of Wandering.’ More specifically, the study is an analysis of issues like decentralizing and raising awareness against the single-sided western viewpoints which are highly reflected in Persian literary works. In so doing, the reflected themes of the novel are presented into the two main categories of 1) alienation which includes promiscuity, chaos and death thinking and, 2) Attachment to signs and beliefs of national identity. These two major themes are used to analyze the author’s views about and her reaction to the western culture. The results of the study showed that the author not only analyze prevalent issues such as identity, culture, and alienation, but also presents the cultural and intellectual levels of different social classes and their degrees of awareness as determinant factors affecting the general reaction to the western culture.

Nezami’s works, especially ‘Seven Bodies’, contain messages and concepts emerging from his individual and collective unconsciousness reflected in symbolical and mysterious expressions. This literary trend has emerged from his deep mythological understanding manifested in the form of stories that impose on the reader an experience of wonder and timelessness. This article aimed at demonstrating Nezami’s mindsets which have mythological tenets in their innermost aspects. The analysis was based on a mythological approach with a focus on the myth of creation an and the myth of circle. The study was an attempt to explore myterious and interpretive meanings of issues such as the myth of tree, the myth of immirtality (staying in heaven for a day and night), and the main reason for Adam’s fall. The findings of this study provides a new understanding of the two legends of Black Dome and Turquoise Dome in the narrative structure of the myth of creation.

Homeland and defense are among the important issues of Resistance Literature. This study aimed at exploring how the issue of defending homeland is reflected in the titles of contemporary resistance literature works. This study was an attempt to investigate the way title as a threshold for going into the main text of the literary works draw on the pattern of woman-mother as homeland to shape noticeable works in Resistant Literature. In so doing, the relationship between title and main text were investigated in the two novels of ‘Omm-e Sa΄d’ by Qassan Kanfani and ‘Daa’ by Seyyed Azam Hoseini, from a paratextual perspective. These two novels were selected for analysis because they are two of the most prominent works of Resistance Literature. The titles of the two novels reflects the contents of the novels. The author of ‘Omm-e Sa΄d’ has used the term mother as a symbol for Palestine which is reflected in the main text as well. Qassan Kanfani has successfully followed the features of Resistance Literature to create a great literary work of Resistance Literature. On the contrary, although the protagonist of the novel ‘Daa’ is a fighter and the title of the work means mother, there is no conceptual relationship between the title and the main text. The novel of ‘Daa’ could not be considered as a good example of Resistance Literature work.

Following the formalist tradition which was after creating new forms through the application of verbal strategies, the creators of literary works were also attracted to the issues relevant to form and technique. Using intricate forms and techniques, and expressing the themes in the shortest language forms as possible, this group of writers created a new story type to deeply influencereaders’ affects and beliefs. This new type of story writing, which was later known as minimalism, actually drew upon techniques such as simple language and concept, surprise, attractive themes, brevity and realism. As believed by some scholars, some of the classical Persian literary works such as Jami’s Baharestan include stories with minimalist features. This study was a descriptive-analytical comparison of Baharestan’s stories and the minimalist features of story writing. It was found that the short anecdotes of classical Persian literature including Baharestan are not absolutely compatible with minimalist stories. There were significant differences between the two, though they were superficially identical.

The aim of this study is to demonstrate why and how the Persian classical poetic form Ghazal has changed into a commonly used literary genre in North America during the last thirty years of the twentieth century. The study first provides a brief account of how the North American poets got familiarized with Persian poetry, particularly through the Transcendentalist movement and specifically through Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works in the nineteenth century. It then deals with the roles of the two Indian poets and scholars, Aijaz Ahmad and Agha Shahid Ali, as fundamental promoters of Ghazal in the North American literary system. It argues how their efforts in introducing the ghazals of Mirza Ghalib Dehlavi resulted in the extensive translation and adoption of this poetic form by the U.S and Canadian poets, followed by famous poets like Adrienne Rich and Robert Bly who applied the poetic form of ghazl to express their intentions.

According to intertextuality approach, there is no self-sufficient text; but every text is intertextually related to its previous and following ones. In this study, first, different aspects of text and intertextuality were described, then, the Story of ‘The Jewish King who killed the Christians because of prejudice’ from Masnavi was analyzed from an intertextual perspective. As the proponents of intertextuality believe that there is no original text, the results of this study also showed that this story of Masnavi is a reflection of its earlier stories such as ‘Shaghad and Rostam’ from Shahnameh, ‘Jazymat olabrsh’ from Balami's History, ‘Firouz, the king of Iran and Hytalyan’ from Tabari's History and ‘The owl and the crow’ from Kalileh and Demneh. In all of these five stories, there is enmity between two nations and one of the king's followers asks the king to beat him in front of people. The beat person succeeds to gain the enemy’s trust and finally defeat them hard.