Persian Literary Studies Journal
Volume:3 Issue: 4, Summer-Autumn 2014

Nasir Khosrow embarks upon a seven year journey in order to come to terms with his spiritual crisis. The quest was the inevitable outcome of the tensions and conflicts between Nasir and the institutionalized forms of power and knowledge. The tensions lead to the formation of a series of binary oppositions—verbal and nonverbal—within the text of his travelogue. The researchers have analyzed the text of Nasir''s travelogue with a semiotic approach and have unearthed the binarized structure that underlies Nasir''s report. The objective world around him is in contrast with the world he idealizes in his subjective mind, he draws a boundary line between the transient nature of his journey and the timeless journey he would undertake after death, the civilized cityscapes mark a sharp contrast with the savagery of the desert in which he has to reside temporarily. Another binary is formed when Nasir distinguishes his dietary habits from those of bedouins. The pictorial appeal of Nasir''s painting comes to be contrasted with the authority of his words. These binary oppositions are directly related to Nasir''s preoccupation with the concept of power (the kingdom and the court) and knowledge (institutionalized schooling and hypocritical erudition). He wishes to leave behind the present forms of power and knowledge in favor of an idealized version of the two. Separation from the familiar, adventure, and return form a circular structure. Power and knowledge are sometimes combined and sometimes function as separate motifs. On his return journey, Nasir, in order to survive, has to take refuge in the very institutions and the very bureaucratic system that he initially left behind.

At the time of its publication, Nima Yushij’s “Qoqnus” (The Phoenix) emerged as a radical departure from the norms and conventions of classical Persian poetry. Nima employed phoenix symbolism in this poem to present his zeal for a literary renaissance. Likewise, George Darley (1795-1846), the Irish Romantic poet who found himself lonely and isolated at the mitigating time borders of Romanticism and Victorianism, articulated himself through a poem entitled “The Phoenix”. “Qoqnus” is comparable to Darley’s “The Phoenix” in terms of theme, symbolization, and context. Darley, living on the ending edges of Romanticism and Nima, on the course of leaving classical poetry behind in favor of New Persian Poetry, both move against the literary and social currents of their time. To demonstrate this tendency, they employ the symbol of the phoenix, the mythological bird of rebirth and resurrection, and represent not only their own position as poets in the society, but also their desire for a revival of literary and social attitudes. As Jungian view on archetypes and human psyche suggests, the two poets’ vision of the phoenix has an archetypal and psychological significance in that, in a rather similar way, the image serves as a reflection of these poets’ mental and spiritual conditions.

The Western fascination with Persia, intensified though it was by the nineteenth century obsession with Indo-European languages, extends back into the classical origins of European culture. As Edward Said notes, Aeschylus'' The Persians demonstrates how deeply embedded in the European mind is the belief in Persia''s quintessential status as an Oriental society. For many Orientalists Persia demonstrated, perhaps more than any other Eastern country, the exotic otherness and romantic fantasy of Oriental culture. Said finds that Aeschylus «represents Asia, makes her speak in the person of the aged Persian queen, Xerxes'' mother. It is Europe that articulates the Orient» (1978-57). However, while The Persians demonstrates how deeply embedded is Europe''s power to create the Orient through the representation of Persia, it is perhaps James Justinian Morier''s The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (1824) which best demonstrates the operations of Orientalist assumptions within literary discourse. It is also Hajji Baba rather than The Persians (despite the latter''s higher literary merit) which has served most powerfully to perpetuate Orientalist assumptions about the superiority, corruption and deceitfulness of the Persians.

Mystic literature (Irfān) in general and Sufi literature in particular has always been alluring to the scholars interestingly working in different fields from literary, religious, philosophical, historical to other fields which may have little in common. Among Sufi theologians, Farid ud-Din Attar Neishabouri is the one whom no one has ever been able to surpass in creating works which have richly furnished Persian literature with mystic ideas and images of Sufis. Attar is a prolific author but, among his works, Mateq at-Tair, or The Conference of the Birds (Darbandi and Davis, 1984) is generally known as his magnum opus which has earned a worldwide reputation. Though all the tales of this book are artfully well made in their own right, the story of ‘Sheikh San’an’, without doubt, is second to none. Recently a large number of scholars have tried to interpret the tale with the aid of various methods, both traditional and modern, in order to give a better understanding of its implications. This paper is also intended to investigate ‘Sheikh San’an’, this time, in terms of Roland Barthes’s five codes of narrative (proairetic, hermeneutic, semic, symbolic and cultural). The reason to choose this approach is to employ the codes in mystic literature and to verify if it is possible to uncover some esoteric concepts which might have still remained untold about this story.

Rabiʿa al-Aʿdawiyya (717-801 A.D.) the first female Sufi in the Muslim world, who introduced the concept of ‘love’ into mysticism, was popular for her witticism, sharp reprimands of her contemporary male Sufis and her gender-bending practices. In ʿAttar’s Tadhkirat al-Awliya, Rabiʿa is portrayed as a challenger of the established gender norms of her day. Rabiʿa’s crossing of gender boundaries and her mysticism presented in ʿAttar’s works can be regarded as defense mechanisms employed against her experience of exploitation as a slave and for the sake of necessity to transcend her limited gender identity and feminine sexuality as well as her inability to reach liberation that she longed for. In order to get a more nuanced view of female mystics’ gender transgression, I will also examine similar gender transgression in Rabiʿa’s Christian counterpart, the English Margery Kempe (1373-1438). Margery is known for having written The Book of Margery Kempe. Margery’s public expression of spirituality as a laywoman was unusual compared to the more traditional holy exemplars of her time. Margery’s spiritual career began past her traumatic childbirth experience which resulted in her developing abject feelings about femininity and motherhood. The book shows Margery, like Rabiʿa in her days, crossing gender boundaries of her time and reshaping her identity so as to re-enter the world as a new subject. I argue that the power of divine love and the encounter with the divine Other allowed these two women to transgress gender boundaries, de- and reconstruct their identities through annihilation of their self, rediscover the ultimate Reality, and unite with the divine.

The present paper seeks to investigate how power relations work in Saedi’s An Eye for an Eye and how discursive formation of justice brings the conflicts of the play to resolution. Foucault believes that power and knowledge create each other reciprocally. This creation happens within a domain of relationships in which discursive statements are voiced alongside and against each other. Truth, morality, and meaning are created through discourse. People live in discourse unconsciously. In Saedi’s play, all that happens revolves around discursive justice. The characters are to establish justice which is nothing more than a set of statements from the position of authority. This discourse of justice set the engine of the play in motion and brings about conflict and clash among the characters. Knowledge is created in strategic ways. This knowledge is circulated in the hands of different characters in the play. What is used and misused by the characters is knowledge. The give and take between the characters constitutes the core of the play and permits Ruler and Executioner to bring about marginalization and the discursive formation of justice. Those who are supposed to be accused of the crime, namely Old Woman, Vendor, Blacksmith, Hunter Man, and Flute Player, fell to the trap of domination. Except for Hunter Man, the other named characters are marginalized minorities. Firstly I close read the play and unearth the story line and mechanics of the play. Later on a review of Foucault’s theories which are relevant to the present argument is delivered. And lastly, theories of Michel Foucault are applied to the play.