A New Look At Allusion and Its History in Arabic and Persian Rhetorical Works

Allusion is one of the linguistic techniques which, like many other literary techniques, have been neglected by researchers and critics in different periods of history of rhetoric so that only one aspect i.e. alluding to a hemistich, a line, or some lines from another poet. For this reason, this study intends to look at the history of allusion as a figure of speech and its status in Arabic and Persian rhetorical subjects, and, while describing and interpreting rhetoric attitudes it refers to its types and names and finally gives a new definition and title for allusion by resorting to the principle of semantic extension to release it, to some extent, from semantic limitation of traditional rhetoric. Result of the research shows that the definition of allusion in all rhetoric books refers to some types which, in the more comprehensive fields as eloquence, rhetoric, prosody and plagiarisms, are referred to as esteghbal, tatabo, tamlit, esteaanat, idaa, tafsil, etc. Therefore, considering this mixture and the mismatch between the meaning of allusion and its types, it can be defined as participation and exchange of verbal and semantic elements − including a line, a hemistich, a verse, or a parable − between the speakers which is performed based on the circumstances or to embellish and emphasize meaning and which results in highlighting, referencing, creating meaning, and creating artistic ambiguity and brevity.