مجله مطالعات و تحقیقات ادبی
سال هفتم شماره 1 (بهار و تابستان 1394)

Ambiguity and equivocation are among evident features and perhaps the most noticeable rhetorical figures employed in Hafiz’s poetry. When this rhetorical and aesthetic technique is mingled with 'cleverness’ understanding the intention of Hafiz becomes problematic and even sometimes hard-to-grasp. One of these clever ambiguities noticed in his poems is ambiguity in the word “Hafiz". This paper has discussed the final lines of his Ghazals in which the word “Hafiz” has been mentioned. Accordingly, the paper argues that if we regard “Hafiz” in its Persian equivalent as a memorizer of the holy Quran, we might be closer to the poet’s intention. The main reasons to prove this issue are the ‘alterations’ noticed in some of Hafiz’s lines. In other words, some scribes of his Divan have alternatively used some related words such as "Zahid" (pious), "Vaez" (preacher), "Hafiz" (memorizer), and at times, based on the atmosphere of the Ghazal, they have suggested terms like Memorizer of the Quran or Hadith for the word “Hafiz”. Therefore, to the list of hateful characters in Hafiz’s Divan, such as pious, preacher, Sheikh, Faqih, Malik-al-Hajj, Mufti, Judge, and Sufi, ‘Hafiz’ must be added as well.

Founded on Shii beliefs, Safavid dynasty adopted an ideological policy for its survival. It went so far as to develop directives and a set of principles for poets and composing poetry. For instance, poets were expected to write odes about the position of His Majesty the King, the true follower of the Imams, and the Imams, peace be upon them. By doing this, they received rewards from the court. With the increasing popularity of jurists, needless to say, the poets’ career dwindled. Indeed poetry’s audiences were not but ordinary people. Nonetheless, poets who had considered the Safavid court as a place to honor poets and a reliable institution for publishing their poems for a long time, left the Safavid court at this time. Instead, they took shelter in the great Mongol Timurid’s court in India, where literature, poetry, and poets were well-liked and gifts were bestowed on the poets. Therefore, the Iranian poets decided to immigrate to India for their art to be glorified and to gain the freedom and the initiative to expand the scope of their subjects, thoughts and poetic images and to increase the repertory of Persian words, expressions and images. This article aims to discuss briefly this matter.

The reflection of historical events of the 1330s in Iranian calendar, due to their special importance in Iran’s contemporary history, is one of the issues which have always been considered by intellectuals, scholars and committed poets of that decade. Government's dominance and its widespread repression are the most important reasons for the committed poets of 1330s to use symbolic expressions. While Nima is considered as the pioneer of contemporary symbolists, Mehdi Akhavan Salis, who is one of the committed poets, has greatly put this way of expression into focus of attention. The result of this study shows that he has used public and personal symbols to express the events and to inform the following generations about them. The high frequency of personal symbols in Akhavan Salis’s poems reflects his poetic sense and passion to speak of social problems. The study was carried out through a descriptive method and data was gathered and analyzed by library research.

Persian poetry first entered the Indian subcontinent during the second period of Qaznavid dynasty in the north of India and is mainly reflected in the poetry of such poets as Masoud Saad Salman. The second wave started with the Moghul invasion during which many Iranian scientists, scholars, poets and Sufis moved to the north of India. The result of this mass emigration was the emergence of such eminent poets as Amirkhosro Dehlavi and Amirhossein Dehlavi. During the Baberian period, the third wave took place. During this time, which lasted around three hundred years, India became the center of Persian poetry giving rise to a form that came to be labeled as Indian style of Persian poetry. This article attempts to conduct an in-depth study of three major poets of Indian style: Orfi, Zohori and Taleb-e Amoli. Moreover, it endeavours to show how their innovations in Persian poetry encouraged a host of indigenous Indian poets and the style of poetry that came to be called "Tarz-e-Khiyal", with Bidel-e Dehlavi being the most prominent poet of this style. Thus Persian poetry spread across India until the advent of the British colonization.

Sadi is one of the greatest poets and writers in Persian language and the creator of several literary masterpieces, such as Gulistan. Since a literary masterpiece in any language contains some unique features, by investigating Gulistan we can recognize “brevity” as one of the prominent features of Sadi’s prose that needs to be analyzed more deeply. The aim of the present study is to investigate the extent of Sadi’s tendency to brevity, various types of brevity, and the grammatical-rhetorical elements in Gulistan. After defining, classifying and comparing different kinds of brevity and providing a brief history of this trend, the researchers in this study have attempted to analyze and classify different types of brevity in Gulistan. They have reached the conclusion that the kind of brevity mainly used in Gulistan is ellipsis. Although the frequency of pithy brevity in Gulistan is lower compared to that of the first kind, it enjoys a wide variety, such as grammatical and semantic brevity.

The study of language has been put into focus of attention by many researchers in literature and philosophy and several outstanding works have been composed in Persian and Arabic languages. The previous studies in this area helped to establish the science of language among Persian speakers and consequently necessary terms for most branches of this science, such as syntax, stylistics, semantic, rhetoric and phonology, were coined. On the other hand, Language in the recent century welcomed the modern way of language studies and many books and articles were translated from western languages, and new words and terms were devised irrespective of local studies. The present study is an attempt to investigate the terms devised in modern branches of linguistics and common terms of local studies and in this way makes a comparison and a link between the old and new achievements.

The literature scholars of the subcontinent were the vanguard and the pioneers in various fields in Persian language, such as rhetoric, biography and especially lexicography. Unlike the Iranian literati, they are the initiator and founder of the theoretical basis of lexicography, rhetoric, biography and even criticism to the extent that the theoretical principle of each of these arts can be extracted from the content of the works in each subject. In this article, first we briefly review the development of Persian language in the subcontinent during different periods, and then we discuss the lexicography in the subcontinent and show how effective the subcontinent was in the formation and development of this process. Therefore, we will explore the written dictionaries in India and mark their most distinguishing features. In the end, we point out the important functions of these dictionaries.

Undoubtedly, the Indian subcontinent has had an undeniable role in the enrichment and spread of Persian language and literature. It has led to the creation of some lasting works in various areas of literature, especially in Persian rhetoric, works that have been written with a unique creativity and innovation. In this study an attempt has been made to investigate three top rhetoric works in the Indian subcontinent: Jame al Sanay’ wal Awazan by Seif Jam Heravi, Sobhat al-Marjan wa Ghazlan al-Hind by Azad Belgerami and Hadaegh al-Balaghe by Faghir Dehlavi. It has been revealed that these three works in contrast with other Islamic rhetoric works, which have been in part influenced by Greek thoughts, are mainly written based on Sanskrit rhetoric. It has also been found that these three works not only include aesthetic criteria and literary figures, but also contain a kind of pragmatic criticism. Finally, the most significant commonalities of these works have been pointed out.

Anjavi Shirazi was the first person to collect and record the middle Persian, especially Pahlavi language in a dictionary. Farhang-i Jahangiri (1005-1017 AH) has recorded a number of words of the Pahlavi language and writing. After Anjavi, these words have been recorded in other dictionaries, especially in the Borhan-e Qate. Some of these words are used in the language with the same pronunciation and some of these are Huzvāriš whose pronunciations are different from those recorded in the dictionary. For example, what was spelled in Borhan-e Qate as "Basrya" was pronounced "Gusht". The Europeans in the 19th and 20th centuries read them with a degree of error. Since the pronunciations of many of these Huzvāriš have been recorded in the Indian dictionary of the eleventh century in Arabic script, the study and comparison of these spellings with new scientific findings will be very useful and will solve many problems.

Amir Najmol Din Hassan Ibn Alaa-e-Sajzy is a Persian speaking Indian poet of the 7th century who composed lyrics in Persian language. According to many critics, the fluency, fluidity, and eloquence of his poems make him India's Saadi. His wisdom and knowledge is equal to that of Amir Khosrow Dehlavi who was his companion. He is well-known for his lyrics and since he was influenced by Saadi, passion, verve, and subtlety are noticeable in every part of his poems. By considering this point, we decided to study the imagery of his poems and after careful scrutiny, we found out that simile is the dominant technique in his poems. In this essay, for a better understanding of his ability in making two sides of a simile and determining the originality of his poetic images, we surveyed his collection in terms of structure and subject and concluded that most of his similes are of sensational to sensational type. The important point is that the allegorical type of compound simile is notable in his poems.  About 90 percent of his poetic images are about the beloved and her related characteristics. Accordingly, most of his poetic images have no originality. They are borrowed from previous poets particularly Saadi. The important point is that Hassan Dehlavi by employing various linguistic and rhetorical techniques has presented these over-used images more attractively and has added eloquence to his speech, so that the reader instantly admires him, and this quality has distinguished him from other poets whose language and images are repetitive.