Morphology of Didactic and Mystic MasnavisBased on Literary Traditions (From the Beginning to the End of the 7th Century AH)

The history of Persian literature owes the immortality and influence of its pure didactic and mystical topics in its various forms to the form of “masnavi” poetic genre. Masnavi structure stands as one of the most extensive forms of Persian poetry due to its distinctive feature in rhyming, witnessing the creation of some of the greatest literary masterpieces in the Persian language. The most effective approach to understand and fully comprehend these compositions and to articulate the points of divergence and commonality among them, is to delve into their form and structure. This research undertakes the examination of the external aspects of masnavis from the studied period and delves into the internal exploration of these collections, focusing on their form and structure. Accordingly, the text (the central core) and paratexts (preface and conclusion) of long didactic and mystical masnavis until the end of the seventh century AH are discussed and analyzed. The purpose of this article is to examine the form and shape prevailing in the text and paratext of long didactic and mystical poems in terms of their adherence to the literary traditions of the poets’ era. The authors, recognizing that literary works, as integrative discourses, presupposes the existence of a beginning, middle, and end, endeavor to examine the functions of paratextual elements in seven didactic and mystical masnavis (Hadigat al-Hadigat, Makhzan al-Asrar, Manteq-o-tteyr, Mosibat-Nameh, Ilāhī-Nāma, Bostan and Masnavi). Through the examination of these paratexts, the authors aim to highlight the functions envisioned for the use of these elements and articulate the unique features of Rumi’s Masnavi as the exemplar of masnavis.