نشریه تاریخ ادبیات
سال پانزدهم شماره 1 (بهار و تابستان 1401)

Collections of biographies of poets (tazkera)s are among the primary sources of literary history, and they should be considered as the first modern form of history of literature. So far, the tazkeras mainly have classified the poets regarding their social class or in contemporary, general, ethnic, and other categories. But authors have not paid much attention to compiling tazkeras regarding the literary genres of the works of the poets. Critical poetry, especially invective, is an abandoned genre, and we know much less about its poets than poets of praise. Fakhri Heravi is the first author of tazkeras of invective poets, specifically by compiling Majles-Aray in 962-963 AH/ 1555-1556. In Majles-Aray, the poets, from Rudaki (4th AH/ 10th century) to contemporary poets with Fakhri (9-10 AH/ 15-16 centuries), are mentioned without a specific order. In this article, for the first time, citing newly discovered information, the significant tazkera of Majles-Aray is introduced and studied in terms of bibliography and codicology; afterward, more works of Fakhri and the works attributed to him are mentioned.

Saeed Nafisi’s critical edition of Rashid-al-din Watwat’s Divan, published in 1960, is the only edition available. Due to Nafisi’s lack of access to many manuscripts of Rashid-al-din Watwat’s Divan and many old anthologies and miscellanies containing his poetry, plenty of errors and flaws entered his edition. One of these flaws, neglected in the studies of the researchers, is the absence of some verses in qasidas, tarkibbands, tarjiʻbands, ghetʻehs, and ghazals, and in some cases, the elimination of the whole poem or some scattered verses. So far, the studies have focused primarily on vocabulary errors and the need to re-edit his divan. Still, no separate research has been done on the poet’s newly-found poems regarding the manuscripts and anthologies that include his poems. This study presents 75 newly-found verses of Rashid-al-din Watwat based on seventeen manuscripts and four old anthologies and discusses the reasons for their attribution to Watwat.

In the book Daqayeq al-Sheʻr, two characters are mentioned, Shams-e Razi and Aswadi, and a quatrain is quoted from each of them. There is almost no mention of these two poets in other works. This paper is focused on finding information about the two poets above. For this purpose, in addition to reflecting on the remaining quatrains, tazkiras, anthologies, and other sources were explored, and authentic historical texts related to the Seljuk period were studied. The findings indicate that Shams-e Razi traveled between 588 and 607 AH/ 1192 and 1211 in Bukhara, Delhi, Makran, Sistan, and Esfezar and spent some time in the court of the vizier of Ghor and Firuzkuh and the governer of Esfezar. Shams-e Razi was the son of Saeed Razi al-Din Abu Saeed, a well-reputed finance minister of the Seljuk period, and the brother of Aziz al-Din, a finance minister and vizier of the era. What is left from Shams’s poetry are two verses in the form of a quatrain in satire of “Aswadi” and the beginning of an ode in praise of Abu Bakr Jamji. Aswadi is the other character, who lived in the 6 and 7 centuries AH/ 12 and 13, and from the only surviving quatrain, it appears that he was probably a satirist who had arguments with Shams-e Razi. His quatrain in satire of Shams-e Razi is recorded in Daqayeq al-Sheʻr; therefore, a satirical quatrain by Shams-e Razi against him has also been preserved in the book.

There has been an ongoing debate over the correctness of the record of 'Sar-ʻalaf' and its meaning in the "Shotor va Shotorbān" (Camel and the Camel owner) story in the seventh book of Marzban-Nameh. Allameh Qazvini has pointed out, in the footnote, that the form is unanimously the same in all the editions, but putting a question mark, he cast doubt on the accuracy of the form and its meaning. Other editors, and researchers who worked on editing and annotating this text, have adopted different opinions towards it. Some accepted this record and tried to delineate it; some considered it an instance of miswriting, and some have removed parts or all of it. They have argued for eliminating, accepting, or suggesting an alternate for the form. In this study, we tried to identify the accurate record based on dialectical evidence and then provide an exact meaning. 'Sar-ʻalaf' means newly grown and soft parts of plants and refers to any high-quality forage.

One of the most fruitful periods of literary criticism in the history of Persian literature is the era of Indian-style poetry, in which treatises were composed specifically on literary criticism. In some tazkiras and treatises on rhetoric, there are detailed scientific criticisms and opinions, which indicate the height of literary criticism in terms of quantity and quality. Especially in the Indian subcontinent, scholarly critics like Khan Arzu and Azad Bilgrami created valuable works in rhetoric and literary criticism. Khan Arzu authored independent treatises on literary criticism, but Bilgrami’s criticisms should be searched for in his tazkiras (especially Khizanah-i Amirah) and rhetorical treatise (Ghizlan ul-Hind). Azad Bilgrami has looked at Persian poems from different perspectives such as linguistics, rhetoric, prosody, and stylistics and has expressed pioneering opinions in these areas. Azad should be considered one of the prominent rhetoricians of the eighteenth century due to his original treatises in the field of rhetoric, Ghizlan ul-Hind and Subhat al-Marjan. Therefore, his rhetorical approach to literary criticism is of particular importance. In this paper, Azad’s rhetorical criticisms have been collected and explained, then his aesthetic viewpoints have been extracted, analyzed, and categorized through the criticisms. Most of his rhetorical perspectives aim to create semantic congruence and correlations, expand the association network of words, and increase their connection. His criteria for literary beauty include escaping from the constraints of the real world and distancing imagination from the limits of nature laws and the conventions of the mind. Azad considers “applicability by native speakers” to be one of the essential criteria for the correctness of unfamiliar language constructions and strange metaphors and similes. He also considers the expansion of the aspects of similarity to be the criteria of the excellence of similes. The beauty of poetry in his opinion is based on the three pillars of aesthetic astonishment, congruence, and objectivity.

Bahr al-Maʻāni is a collection of mystical letters of the Chishti Order Sufi, Seyyed Muhammad ibn Nasir al-Din Ja’far Makki Hosseini (732-825 AH/ 1332-1422). The Academy of Persian Language and Literature (The Department of the Encyclopaedia of Persian Literature and Language in the Subcontinent) published it in 2018, edited by Dr. Mohammad Sarvar Molaei. After a lithography print in 1889 in Moradabad, this book is the first edition of Bahr al-Maʻāni, but due to the accumulation of incorrect, illegible, and ambiguous words and phrases, incoherence and disorganization can be seen throughout the book. On the one hand, this is related to the editing process, in which the editor should have revised the misreadings of the author or the scribes by comparing various copies of Bahr al-Maʻāni and the sources used by its author. On the other hand, it is related to the fact that a large part of the book is reciting previous mystical works without mentioning the references. By false omissions and additions, the author has impaired the text’s coherence, fluency, and integrity, and consequently, in many cases, he has left the reader with considerable ambiguities. In this paper, we have tried to analyze these issues in the abovementioned edition of Bahr al-Maʻāni with a critical approach.

One of the religious poems written in India as a supplement to the book Hamle-ye Heydari by Bazel-e Mashhadi is entitled Jazbe-ye Heydari. The verse was composed by Abd ul-Ali Khan Bangali pen-named Ahsan in 1151 AH/ 1738. Jazbe-ye Heydari has been arranged in the poetic form of Masnavi and contains about 8000 couplets. In this work, Ahsan-e Bangali has versified the events of the period between the caliphate to the martyrdom of Imam Ali and the three battles of Jamel, Siffin, and Nahrawan. The present article deals with an introduction and exploration of Jazbe-ye Heydari and a text analysis of it, with a descriptive approach based on its manuscripts and other library sources. The research findings indicate that in narrating the events, the poet relies on the words of narrators as well as citations from the sources available. He has managed to include the literary genre “Saqi-Namah” at the beginning of his tales and has mostly used hyperbole in creating epic images. Describing the events in detail along with full descriptions of the events is quite evident throughout the poem.

What we read in the tazkeras about poets and writers is mainly a mixture of truths and lies. Some ambiguities in the history of Persian literature can be removed by reading these texts carefully and comparing them with the works of poets and writers and other sources of the kind. This article examines several narrations about “Obeyd Zakani” in the tazkeras, which originated from one narration and are repeated with variations. Two tazkeras were the primary references of this study: Tazkerat al-Shoʽara by Dolatshah Samarqandi (completed in 1487) and Kholasat al-Ashʽar by Taqi-al-Din Kashani (completed in 1607). Initially, this paper mentions the main parts of the narratives of the two tazkeras about Obeyd Zakani. Then it compares their similarities and differences and associates them with other tazkeras. The sources of this study are Obeyd’s Kolliyāt, the divans and historical texts of the 14th and 15th centuries, and the writings of contemporaries. This study tries to show the extent of the authenticity, validity, and correctness of the most elementary propositions in Persian tazkeras written about Obeyd to clarify his life events. In the end, Obeyd’s teacher, Azed-al-Din Iji, his grave, and the date of his death were verified.

Fakhr-al-Din Abu-Bakr b. Abu-Nasr Hawayeji was the bārbak and prime minister of Atabak Abu-Bakr b. Sa’d b. Zangi, the powerful ruler of Fars from the Salghori family. He is one of the prominent political, military, and cultural figures in the vast territory of Fars in the first half of the 7th century AH/ 13th century, and part of Sa’di’s life coincided with his period of authority. Sa’di praised Fakhr-al-Din in the preface of Golestan and perpetuated his name, and addressed him in two less-examined parts of his Kolliyāt. These two parts have always been a matter of doubt, but now, based on reliable old documents, we can clarify them. What previously Mohammad Qazvini had doubted was a short elegy in which a historical contradiction was found about the life of Fakhr-al-Din, the Salghori minister and ruler; it was not clear whether this elegy was for him or someone else. Now we can undoubtedly elucidate that Sa’di composed the elegy not for him but the death of his son. In another part of this article, important historical information about this minister is presented; some was extracted from historical sources and some taken from poets’ Divans

Manuchehri Damghani was one of the prominent composers of the 5th century AH/ 11th century. He moved from one state to another several times, joined various courts, and praised various high-ranking people for acquiring a patron who would accept him and his poetry and reward him greatly. He praised people from Qumis, Gorgan, Ray, and Ghaznavid courts. One of them is the patron that Manuchehri called “Sepahbad” in one of his poems. Some researchers have said that this Sepahbad is Manuchehr ibn Qabus, the king of the Ziyarid dynasty who ruled Gorgan at the time. Some others have claimed that the patron was one of the Sepahbads of northern Iran, not the king of the Ziyarid dynasty. This article tries to provide some information about the Sepahbads in North Iran based on Manuchehri’s poems and other available sources to suggest the possible patron of Manuchehri.Manouchehri Damghani, who is one of the prominent composers of the 5th century, has moved from one state to another several times, and he has joined various courts and praised various high-ranking people; in order to find an patron who would accept him and his poetry and reward him greatly. He praised people from Kumis, Gorgan, Ray and Ghaznavid court. One of these people is the one whom the poet called "Sepahbad" in one of his poems. Some researchers have said that this "Sepahbad" is the same Manouchehr bin Qaboos, the king of Ziyari dynasty who ruled Gorgan at.

Bahr al-javāher is a Persian and Arabic dictionary with 5926 headwords in conventional medical science, compiled by Mohammad ibn Yousof Heravi. Observing the range and variety of the explicit content of Bahr al-javāher, we can consider it one of the first encyclopedias in the field. With its significant features, this book has been a reliable source for authors and researchers, but no revised edition of it is available. Therefore, its lexical and content features have been neglected, among which are: validating the definitions by referring to dozens of authoritative medical and, in some cases, non-medical sources; mentioning the opinions of doctors, scholars, and sages with a critical approach; referring to Arabic and Persian dictionaries, hadiths, and proverbs; applying Heravi dialect vocabulary; using rare Persian equivalents, novel combinations, Arabic forms, and infrequent simple and compound verbs. This article examines the content and lexical features of the Persian section of this work as an ancient Persian scientific text from the 10th century AH, and provides new points about its unidentified aspects.

Literature is constantly related to and interacts with society and environments, including natural and artificial environments. It not only is affected by discourse changes such as environmental discourse but also plays a crucial role in discourse changes and evolutions. In the present article, in addition to introducing a triadic functional model of literature as cultural ecology, three roles of literature in confronting environmental discourses have been addressed. The three roles include cultural-critical metadiscourse, imaginative counterdiscourse, and reintegrative inter-discourse. In addition, samples of literary works in contemporary literature, including these roles, have been examined and criticized. Based on the results, it can be concluded that literature can be assigned three essential functions using imagination and the creation of possible universes: criticism and reform of the existing environmental discourse, the abrupt replacement of the marginalized or neglected environmental discourse, and interaction and familiarity with various environmental discourses and their reconciliation. These three functions of literature can play a significant role in boldfacing and preventing environmental threats, which are often neglected by a generation because of being gradual