Prison of Soul A Study on the Meaning of Cage in Poetic Texts of Persian Literature

Considering their thought and ability، poets select some words، which have both useful meaning and high capacity of suggestion and imagery، for conveying their messages. This article discusses one of the frequent، effective، symbolic and imagist words، i. e. “cage”. The main question is how and with which linguistic and rhetoric meanings this word has been used in Persian texts. Exploring the Divans of poets from third century onwards –of course the selected poets- it is found out that such word، which itself entered Persian from Arabic، represents various linguistic and rhetorical meanings keeping pace with movements of Persian poetry and proportionate with different subject in the history of poetry. Proportionate with subjects and their temperaments، poets have ascribed different literal as well as figurative and metaphorical meanings like world، body، country، society and other meanings to this word. In classical and mystical poetry، this word has been mostly used in the sense of “body and world” whereas in contemporary poetry it has been used mainly in the sense of “prison and society”. In general، cage suggests the image of a prison for the soul of human being.