فصلنامه نقد ادبی
پیاپی 46 (تابستان 1398)

The focalizations with their validity facilities and limitations are considered as the most significant elements in creating suspense and surprise. In this article, with an approach based on the face and content traditions in the analysis of validity discourse, we seek to examine and find the validity facilities and limitations of types of focalization in creating suspense and surprise and stating the aesthetical reason of using one dominant focalization in the novel Bamdad-e Khomar.

Metalepsis, in its narratological sense, is a trope in which an unnatural relationship is built between different levels of narrative. The natural relationship between narrative levels is formed by the act of narrating; a character from one level becomes the narrator of another. The term “Metalepsis of topic and illustration” can be coined to name a similar trope. This trope has been used for centuries in Persian poetry. Every Image comprises a topic and an illustration. The topic is what is being talked about and the illustration is what the topic is compared to. When several images are present along together, two different levels are distinguishable: the level of the topic and the level of illustration. The natural relationship between these two levels is similarity and any other relationship will result in metalepsis. As in the narratological metalepsis, there is always a paradox in the metalepsis of topic and illustration. The effect of these two kinds of metalepsis is also similar and can be humorous, fantastic, or a mixture of the two.

Whenever the place and quality of life simultaneously cause formation of predicates created by transmission of one situation to the other, we face eco-semiotics. As the basic elements forming human’s ecology are place and quality related to the place, therefore each ecology can be known as the tranjective chain. Berque, calls this tranjective chain mesology. Ecology can be a process if we consider a situation relating to a pre-situation and also cooperating to the next situation. In this process each existentialism is ready to be transferred to a new existentialism in the case of being put in the tranjective chain. This process formation is based on the idea that no existence is independent of the other existence. The best achievement of this mesologic idea is the deletion of bipolar world. Each existence has the ability of transmission inside the place and movement to the other existence. That’s why considering the existed experiments shows the formation of predicated based on the figures and interactive situations that each existence is completed on the process of action based on discontinue that cause its completion and transmutation. Regarding the subject, existences are various and grow up gradually inside time and place which are capable of being transferred. Our main aim of this research is showing the quality of existence growth and our main approach on this paper is formed by concentrating on human semiotics and visibility of existence. Also we’ll try to render literal eco-semiotics theory based on Berque’s mesologic idea and tranjective chain.

Nowadays, one of the most fundamental and controversial theoretical discussions in literary criticism is to evade meta-theory in literary practices. The prominent thinkers in this area, known as neo-pragmatists, include Terry Eagleton, Stanley Fish, Steven Knapp, and Walter Benn Michaels who emphasize that the course of theory and criticism has now been diverted from its original aim of advancing social justice in the early eighteenth century and has now become a fetish that solidifies and reproduces the hierarchical society. In 1980s, we witnessed the acme of theoretical discussions and practices in literary studies; yet, in this decade, anti-theory and anti-theoretical discussions come to their acme, knowing Knapp and Michaels’ ideas as one of their key manifestos. Knapp and Michaels believe that theoretical discussions have been the result of the separation of such inseparable terms as meaning-intention, language-speech acts, and theory-practice, leading to “theoretical enterprise.” These two critics argue that since authorial discussions are “empirical” issues, theoretical responses to them do not solve the problem; rather, they are merely a “theoretical temptation.” In this article, following a concise survey of thinkers in the realm of theory and related concepts, in particular anti-theory, meta-theory, and post-theory, we have attempted to explore the two’s ideas, review reactions to them and the errors in their argument, and finally investigate what message Knapp and Michaels’ article can have for our country’s literary society.

In the literary tradition of Iran, literary criticism was never conducted in a systematic wayand what remains bearing the title of “criticism” is mostly the result of the critic’s impression of the text which, instead of having a scientific approach, relies mostly on their literary taste. Starting from the end of Qajar period and with the various cultural and social developments at the time, criticism also experienced changes and literary critics attempted to involve scientific perspectives in their criticisms more and to avoid impression-based and idiosyncratic criticism. A growing number of press were utilized by literary critics of the time to publish their critical articles. Literary critiques published in the first Iranian press can be classified into three categories, namely theoretical discussions about literary criticism, criticism of a literary genre or trend, and criticism of literary works. In theoretical discussions, the critics elaborated on the literal and terminological definition of literary criticism and its purpose, and, outlining the necessary characteristics of a literary critic, focused on the relativeness of criticism, explaining its types, and role of the press in promoting literary criticism. In articles that focused on a particular literary genre or trend, criticism of modernists as well as of the research into literary works, and discussion of the nature of poetry and novel are more prominent. In criticisms of literary works, in addition to the content and verbal and literary features of the works, the critics sometimes focused on the moral and personal characteristics of the authors as well.

Structuralism is one of the most important areas of the modern literary theory, which has contributed to the creation of new subjects, the evaluation of similarities and differences, and the possibility of the analysis of the Persian literary texts based on standard universal models. Recently, Western literary theories have been increasingly used in the analysis of many literary research studies in Iran, aiming to shed some light into the hidden aspect of literary works and provide new insights. And few studies have ever not used structural and morphological approaches in their literary analysis. Based on a review of the Persian literary morphological studies conducted in different decades, the present study aimed to analyze the growth of them qualitatively and quantitatively and also to analyze their literary genres. Further, it investigated the degree to which Propp’s morphology theory has been used in a standard scientific way in these texts. Finally it was concluded that the inappropriate and mechanistic applications of Propp’s morphology theory in the Persian literary texts have led to inappropriate theory selection, simplification story elements, disregarding the goal and context of the theory, repetition of the method, poor introduction, and unrelated conclusion.