Literary Arts (Nov 2013)

Visual and Artistic Functions of Letters in Khaghani’s Poetry

  • Mohsen Zolfaghari,
  • Aliakbar Kamalinahad

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5, no. 2
pp. 49 – 66

Abstract

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Abstract The intensity of emotion and fluctuation of meaning in the poet's mind causes him to go beyond the ordinary language and convey intellectual and emotional meanings through metaphors, similes and linguistic preparations. He has sharp eyes and a sensitive spirit and creative temperament and attempts strengthening his own literary language and creating personal style by inventing novel images, showing the creativity and imagination and entering in various arenas of imagination. This point more than anything else could be done by presenting images and new figures. Perhaps in the sixth century, and especially in Azerbaijani school, more than other periods, poets have been looking for creating innovative style in eloquence. Their major attempts were mainly in imaging, a wide field that they have competed. It is obvious that in this illustration the alphabet letters would be very helpful. Khaghani's Divan of poetry, as one of the greatest poets of this school, is the perfect poetical book of paintings in which meaning has been hidden under a delicate pattern and new different scientific, cultural and religious images. Letters are a broad range of elements that put a new field in front of the poet and he is aware of the potential features of the letters, new images, and artistic creativity techniques as well. This paper shows descriptive - analytical study of various aspects of Khaghani’s poetry and frequency of letters in the alphabet letters, alphabetic-based authenticity of images, different similarity reasons, semantic and literal multi-relevance of letters in the context of poetry, producing figures of speech based on letters, sensational relationship exists between images and letters which have been shown in his poetry. Letter have a double and even multiple application in Khaghani's poetic works (divan) and moreover the construction of words and conveying meaning which is the real and common usage, they were used as artistic instruments with a new essence. There is a world in the heart of every letter, word and morpheme lies in the poet's point of view is not the last and smallest part of speech, but it is a starting point for the imagination of the poet, to the extent that his sharp and sensitive eye sees a world in every letter. Accordingly, this study includes some of the functions and artistic aspects of letters created novelty and authentic style in Khaghani's poetry. Auditory and visual aspect (letters of a specific word or appearance of a letter and its resemblance to other things such as the shape of " teeth" and "mouth", shape of letter "s" or " a" and "spear" and "arrow"), the semantic aspect of the letters, numerical aspect of letters, inspiring from the separated letters of Quran, the aesthetic aspect of letters (respecting figures of speech, syllable, allegory, ambiguity, metaphor, simile etc.) In general it can be said that the letters have a lot of potential capacity in poetry and Khaghani as a creative poet and modernist is aware of the power of words well and could use skillfully this power in the artistic context of his poetry.