Literary Arts (May 2013)
A Flame of Nezami’s Language
Abstract
Abstract Nezami’s Poem is in the front rank of poetry. He always attempted to choose the best words- fine words using beautiful words and expressions. His poetry is enriched by his power of imagination and awareness of the common knowledge and beliefs of the time. The common features of his speech includes a unique use of the words-word choice, creating new compounds, compounding- description, repetition, emphasis, transformation, omission, using Quranic verses, Islamic hadiths and Arabic compounds, expressions of astrology and medicine, adages, proverbs and idioms regularly used by ordinary people. He is a poet familiar with the language of ordinary people and their beliefs, customs and traditions. Since he rightfully attended to the spoken language and because of his particular style of speech, his works are full of street talks to the extent that this propery can be viewed as the prominent stylistic feature of his poems. He took advantage of the common sciences of the time and utilized the scientific, astrological and medical terms and also the technical meanings and themes of these sciences. His imagination and awareness of the sciences and beliefs made his poems productive. Some of the features of his poems are as follow: 1- Imagery : Imagery refers to producing pictures, paintings or shows in the mind of readers /listeners using words. That is, the poet or writer should have such mastery over using words, space, meanings and their relations that makes him able to effectively use the sentences and words to create paintings, pictures or shows in the mind of readers or listener, to enable the reader to imagine a real painting or picture when he is over with his reading. 2- Diction : Experts of language issues and grammar beliefs that word coining can strengthen the foundation of language. So, the first premise in creating fine text is to choose musical words appropriate for the given text and meaning. In the first step, melodic, expressive, rich words compatible with the spatial totality should be choosen. This powerful diction is one of the major reasons for the immortality of Nezami’s poems. 3- Compounding : In addition to words which need to be musical and melodic, literary compound should supplement the musical quality of the text. Since compounding is one the major features of Persian language, Nezami effectively utilized his power of compounding and its one of the prominent features of his poetry. 4- Description : In his poems, description of the nature is done through personifications, descriptions, similies and metaphors, and this description is indispensible feature of the theme that improves the manifestation of the heroes and events from the poetic perspective. Since His poems are full of personifications, all the manifestations of the nature simply represent characteristics, attitudes and thoughts of human beings. A plentiful supply of finest descriptions can be found in his Masnavi-e Khosro va Shirin 5- Repetition: Repetition of a morpheme, word or picture proves to be one of the main characteristics of his poems. Nezami uses a large variety of repetitions in his poems and this variety in repetition enriches his works. Reading the poems of Nezami, one can understand that the initial words determine the following morphs and words. In fact, words are chosen based on their melodic properties. Conclusion: Generally speaking, in a noble poem, imagination, melody and form should be consistent in order to reach the optimal goal. If they are not consistent with each other the poem may not be influential as well as possible. So, the music of the poem should be compatible with the imagination and the language of the poem. A successful poet attends both to the form and meaning of the poem and does not strengthen one at the expense of the other one. Nezami attends to both form and meaning.
