Literary figures in the hymns of the Iranian language Manicheans

Much of poetry of Iran in middle period has been composed by Manicheans in middle Persian, Parthian and Sogdian languages. These poems are praise and liturgical or mystic hymns that narrate the story of strangeness of light in the prison of Matter. In the latter, because of more connection with human, the emotion and imagination element are clearer, and the poetic art can be better observed in them. The figures of speech, both figures of word and figures of thought have been greatly used in these poems. Apart from existing the figures that are expected in every poem and are in the nature of poetry, the specimens can be seen that they are correspond even with the definitions of rhetorical books in Islamic period. The figures of speech in Manichaean poems can be divided in two groups; the sound music (figures of word), and spiritual music (figures of thought). It has been used in the figures of word field, the repetition (words, sentences and phonemes); and in the figures of thought field, the figures such as antithesis, amphiboly and apostrophe. It has been attempted in this article to show the quality of use of figures of speech in Manichaean poems surviving in Middle Persian, Parthian and Sogdian languages, along with citing the specimens.