Literary Arts (Sep 2024)
A Comparative Study of the Rhetorical and Aesthetic Function of Persian Ghadiriyyas Before and After the Constitution
Abstract
The visible and hidden layers of literary compositions can be better understood and highlighted by making comparisons between different literatures. This method makes it clear which literature is superior to the others in terms of perspectives and linguistic power. The philosophical field of aesthetics explores many facets of beauty and can improve the enjoyment of reading literature. Given the importance of the Mashruteh Era, knowing the viewpoints of liturgical poets before and after the Mashruteh Movement is vital. This research uses a comparative-analytical approach to investigate the most notable Ghadiriyyas in Persian poetry spanning from the Qajar era to the early Mashruteh Era and the eighties. This research is an effort to identify the most common components that enhance aesthetics. The findings show that before the Mashruteh Era, literature had considerably improved both in terms of quantity and variety—as well as rhetorical strategies—than subsequently. From a linguistic standpoint, musical repetition is the most often used element. Free repetition, dissonant puns, and assonance repetition were more common before the Mashruteh Era, while the Zoghafiatain was more common in regular repetition. After the Mashruteh Era, assonance repetition and dissonant puns in free repetition, as well as portmanteau in regular repetition, achieved the highest frequency. Allusion became the most popular literary device following the Mashruteh Era, whereas simile was the most common rhetorical method in poetry written before that time. Keywords: Didactic literature, Persian Ghadiriyas, Constitutional, Rhetorical function, Aesthetics. IntroductionFrom Kisai Marvzi onward, Persian poetry reflected the events of Ghadir, and with the rise of the Safavid dynasty, this trend continued to increase significantly. One of the most well-known and influential periods in Persian studies is the Qajar era, which also represents the beginning of the modern literary movement and the change in Persian prose. Before the Mashruteh Era, religious poetry was often differentiated by its forms and intellectual as well as linguistic aspects, primarily by its repetition and imitation of preceding masters. Beyond slave imitation, poetry following the Mashruteh Revolution started to propose new concepts never seen before. Changes also occurred to the Ghadiriyyah's concepts and content. One significant research area is an assessment of poets’ literature through the lens of aesthetics, especially literary and linguistic strategies. In order to determine which methods each poet used most effectively and how aesthetic considerations impacted their artistic creation, this study compares the most significant Ghadiriyyas in Persian from before the Mashruteh Era till the eighties from an aesthetic standpoint to establish which aesthetic characteristics have been more extensively used in this form of poetry. The research question in this study is: What part of beauty has received more emphasis in these researches from a rhetorical and linguistic standpoint, and what has been the influence of the Mashruteh Revolution on religious poetry? There are few studies on the aesthetic investigation of religious poetry, and none have looked at the aesthetic characteristics of Persian Ghadiriyyas. As a result, the current study represents a new step in the aesthetic analysis and comparison of research, concentrating on the most prominent Ghadir poems from the Qajar period to the post-Mashruteh era. Materials and MethodsThis study examines the most prominent Persian Ghadiriyyas from the Qajar era to the post-Mashruteh period, using an analytical-comparative method to answer the aforementioned question, and analyzes their aesthetics within the realm of rhetorical figures and ornaments (literal and figures of thought). To that end, twenty poems from the best and most prominent Ghadir poems from the Qajar period to the early Mashruteh Era, as well as twenty poems from the most outstanding Ghadir poems by poets of the Constitutional Era and later (14th-century poets who lived until around 1370), were selected. First, the most prevalent rhetorical devices were evaluated and discussed, with examples offered. The generated statistics were then presented in a variety of charts, with data represented in terms of counts and percentages. Given the vast scope of research and the extensive list of poets under review, only the names of a few prominent ones were mentioned as examples. Prior to the Mashruteh Era, notable figures were Vāmiq Yazdi, Sorush Isfahani, Oman Samani, Shabab Shushtari, and Adib al-Mamalek Farahani. Following the Mashruteh Era, prominent figures were Ha'iri Mazandarani, Iraj Mirza, Khushdel Tehrani, Saghir Isfahani, and Ebrat Naini. Research FindingsThe most often employed rhetorical methods from the Qajar period until the early Mashruteh Era, in order of frequency, were simile, trope, and metaphor. In terms of poetic power and solidity, the employment of rhetorical techniques (simile, trope, metaphor, and metonymy) was substantially higher in this period's poetry than in the post-Mashruteh Era. During the Mashruteh Era and afterward, among the rhetorical devices used in Ghadiriyyas of this period, simile was notably significant. The most commonly utilized rhetorical devices in this age, listed in order of frequency, are allusion, simile, antithesis, adaptation, exaggeration, implication, and personification. Among linguistic methods, palynology was the most frequently used throughout the Qajar period and the early Mashruteh Era in terms of aesthetic considerations in rhetorical beauty, especially in natural and musical situations. Free musical repetition includes many forms of puns, paragmenon, quasi-paragmenon, and phonetic repetition (consonants and vowels). It is worth noting that these poets have used puns more extensively in the field of musical connection. In this era, the following methods were most commonly used in regular musical repetition, in order: zoqhafiatain, portmanteau, syntactic repetition and parallelism, metabole, epanastrophe, and embellishment. Allusion, antithesis, and exaggeration are the three most often utilized figures of thought in this age. From a linguistic standpoint, poetry from the Mashruteh Era and later periods has examples of natural repetition, particularly varieties of repetition that suggest abundance and emphasis. The most prevalent kinds of regular melodic repetition in this age, in order of frequency, are portmanteau, metabole, epanastrophe, syntactic repetition and parallelism, and zoghafiatain. Table 1. Expressive Aesthetics of Ghadiriyas Before and After the ConstitutionLiterary typesExpressive aesthetics of Ghadiriyas before the constitutionExpressive aesthetics of Ghadiriyas after the constitution Simile16891Trope7337Metaphor7042 Figure 1. Innovative Aesthetics Before the Constitution Figure 2. Innovative Aesthetics After the Constitution Figure 3. Free Musical Repetition Before the Constitution Figure 4. Free Musical Repetition After the Constitution \Figure 5. Regular Musical Repetition Before the Constitution Figure 6. Regular Musical Repetition After the Constitution Discussion of Results and ConclusionsThe study findings demonstrate that, from a linguistic viewpoint, musical repetition at both free and ordered levels was most often used throughout these two periods and had an important role in directing the intellectual domain of poetry. From a rhetorical viewpoint, the rhetorical technique of allusion has played the most crucial role in the production, transmission, and exhibition of poets' ideas in their research. The foundation of the beauty of poetry during the Qajar period, up until the Mashruteh Revolution, was built upon simile, trope, allusion, exaggeration, antithesis, pun, riming-prose, and metaphor. In the period following the Mashruteh Revolution up to the present day, allusion, adaptation, pun, irony, simile, exaggeration, implication, and personification were the most commonly used literary devices. Overall, the use and diversity of literary techniques were substantially larger in the time preceding the Mashruteh Revolution than in the period after it. Before the Mashruteh Revolution, simile, particularly addition simile, was employed more frequently than other literary techniques; nevertheless, in poets' literature following that time period, allusion is considered the most widely used figure of speech. Prior to the Mashruteh Revolution, Ghadir poets depended heavily on the popular style of the day, using similes to beautify their language. Poets used this mechanism to glorify the Master of Ghadir, paying little attention to the event’s intricacies. Following the Mashruteh Revolution, poet Ghadir's poetry became increasingly concentrated on describing the events and issues surrounding the event. The authors of this study believe that Ghadir poets are bound to employ allusion in their poetry because they focus on telling a historical event that is supported by several hadiths and accounts confirming its authenticity. As a result, the tactic of allusion is often utilized in the literary genre of Ghadir poetry.
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