فصلنامه متن پژوهی ادبی
پیاپی 71 (بهار 1396)

Esfandiar’s Invulnerability is one of the attractions in the story of ‘Rostam and Esfandiar’ in Shahnameh. Esfandiar is a hero who is believed to be safe against all kinds of weapon and goes to fight with a person who has defeated demons and devils for 600 years. Surprisingly, this Invulnerability is not helpful and even accelerates Esfandia’s failure and death. But why is this? With Contemplation in Shahnameh, we recognize the main features of invulnerability that can answer our questions: 1. Invulnerability is not uniquely assigned to Esfandiar and other heroes are described with it. 2. Though invulnerable, Esfandiar wears armor and is wounded. 3. Esfandiar has never claimed that he is Invulnerable. 4. All the people who consider Esfandiar as invulnerable worry about his fight against Rostam and believe Rostam will be the winner. 5. Shahnameh never reveals how Esfandiar became Invulnerable. 6. Finally, it is not clearly demonstrated in Shahnameh that Invulnerability means the person is never damaged. So, the Invulnerability of Esfandiar should have another meaning. This is a code of Invulnerability that is in people’s mind about heroes. The meaning will collapse against death.

In everyday talk, we usually use the terms story and narrative interchangeably which is wrong. Not only story is different from narrative, but also there is a difference between narrative and non-narrative texts. Story is what happens while narrative is the way an event is expressed. For example, a single story can be narrated differently for children and adults using different rhetorical devices without any noticeable change in the general theme and message. By the same token, there is a difference between text and narrative text. While a text comprises of different objects such as images and words, a narrative text is a text telling the story. For example, the documents related to the Cold War are not a narrative text, but a short story is a narrative text because there are cause and effect relationships between its constructing elements. It can be stated that every narrative is a discourse, but all discourses are not narrative. The preset study, with use of an analytical approach and secondary research aimed at explaining the difference between narrative and non-narrative texts.

Various semantic capacities of poetry are shaped by its linguistic system and its diverse roles. Accordingly, various interpretations of a text should be in line with respective semantic systems. As reader plays an active role in discovering the latent meanings of the poetry, the poetry itself constrains the perception of the reader. But reading a poem on the basis of a single literary theory does not express its various dimensions. A more comprehensive approach is required to reveal various latent dimensions of poetry with use of intratextual and intertextual pieces of evidence (linguistic or metalinguistic context). The paradigm proposed in this paper reviews poetry in 5 levels: descriptive, linguistic, thoughts, aesthetics, and interpretative. The main characteristic of this paradigm is studying and analyzing all the dimensions of a poem in relation with its totality. This paradigm is text-based, but also relies on meta-text to the extent it can be semantically beneficial for the analysis. Basic questions relative to each level have been designated to read and analyze poetry in the same level. These questions have been designated in such ways that eventually result in a coherent understanding of poem. Put differently, an accurate reading of poetry along with the analysis of all of its relevant components in terms of linguistics, rhetoric, aesthetics and thoughts will yield a coherent all-inclusive interpretation of the poetry.

The present study aimed at comparing the degree by which the main features of Social Symbolism are presented in the 1330s poems of two well-known poets of this stream, namely, Nimayooshij and Mahdi Akhavansales. The study enjoyed a descriptive-analytic research method and the data were analyzed by means of content analysis adopting a library and document-mining style. The results showed that Nimayooshij’s approach to symbolism, under the influence of European Symbolism, aimed at promoting artistic aspects of poetry. In other words, from the two characterizing aspects of social symbolism, Nimayooshij has paid more attention to its symbolism while Akhavansales has equally heeded the two aspects of social commitment and symbolism. A great part of this difference goes back to their different social outlooks.

Color is one of the most efficient tools for artistic and literary creation. Although this element lacked its modern diversity in the classic Iranian literature, it has always had a determining role in literary images and inducing concepts to audience, especially in the realm of poetry. The investigation of the way color has been used in ancient and contemporary poetry is a groundbreaking attempt to enter the poets’ worlds of emotions and thoughts. Accordingly, the present study aimed at analyzing the contextual function of colors used in Rumi’s poems; the one who, after the mainstreaming movement of Sanaee and the pioneering efforts of Attar, uniquely enriched mystical poetry in terms of meaning and content. Reviewing his poems in this regard can help identify other aspects of his thoughts, experiences, and poetic features. The findings showed that Rumi has used different colors in romantic-mystical or didactic contexts. Respectively, the most frequent colors used in his lyrics are black, red, yellow, and green.

Ambiguity and hidden ambiguity as two figures of speech have dominated literary texts from the sixth century on. The frequency of this figure of speech in the Divans of poets such as Khaghani, Khajo, Salman Savoji and Hafez is so high that it could be considered as a main part of their literary style. More importantly, Khaghani and Hafez have utilized majority of the possible linguistic and lexical devices in favor of hidden ambiguity. Two of the good examples of these devices are the names given to slaves and bondwomen. The present article aimed at investigating the special functions of these two terms for hidden ambiguity.In doing so, the hidden ambiguities created by Khaghani and Hafez with use of these terms were classified and analyzed. With use of some pieces of evidence form Persian texts, the meanings of each of these terms were clarified and their functions in Khaghani and Hafez’s poetry were examined. It is noteworthy that most of these names, such as luck, shekel, master, dinar, hyacinth, basil, happy, ruby, fortunate, and crescent have been omitted from valid dictionaries. Therefore, the present article has substantial implications for an attempt to register these omitted meanings in modern Persian dictionaries.

Enneagram is one of the important patterns for character recognition in modern psychology that can be used for the recognition of a person’s personality type from among the nine possible personality types. Rumi, in his Masnavi, has masterfully created characters like a great artist and is aware of the hidden layers of his created characters like a great psychologist. Among a collection of more than two hundred stories in Masnavi, "The King and the Maid" is the one of the prominent literary-didactic ones where a king runs the first role. Rumi has applied different approaches for characterization that has made possible the recognition of the king’s personality type based on the Enneagram pattern. The overall atmosphere of the story, sayings, actions, behaviors and the king’s communication with other characters and his personal and social place has made possible this type of study and analysis. This study which had a descriptive-analytic research design aimed at analyzing the king’s personality type based on the eighth personality type (Boss and ruler) on the Enneagram pattern