{"title":"Naqd-i Khayāl: Barrasī-i Dīdgāhʹhā-yi Naqd-i Adabī Dar Sabk-i Hindī","authors":"Shaahin Pishbin","doi":"10.5325/intejperslite.5.1.0085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/intejperslite.5.1.0085","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40138,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Persian Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42693928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Love Letters: Letter Symbolism in Ḥāfiẓ’s Poetry","authors":"Sykes","doi":"10.5325/intejperslite.5.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/intejperslite.5.0002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Persian poets since Rūdakī have drawn on the letter symbolism of the Perso-Arabic alphabet. Visually, its characters have attracted poets who find the likeness of the beloved in their shapes. Spiritually, it enjoys a special status as the language of the Koran and therefore, in the eyes of some, God. Classical Persian lyric poetry combined these aesthetic and religious connotations, and as one of the foremost voices in that tradition, Ḥāfiẓ was no exception. But a review of the extant literature shows that, as a trope, letter symbolism has been largely overlooked when compared with wine, the moth, or the candle. Through a comprehensive study of the letters’ use in Ḥāfiẓ’s dīvān, this article argues that, by playing with particular letters’ connotations, or punning on their physical shapes and homographs, Ḥāfiẓ invokes disparate meanings, only to then reveal their underlying unity, in the process affirming the affinity between love and language, the beloved and the divine.","PeriodicalId":40138,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Persian Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45383507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Persian Literature and Modernity: Production and Reception","authors":"Wali Ahmadi","doi":"10.5325/intejperslite.5.1.0091","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/intejperslite.5.1.0091","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40138,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Persian Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43734462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Persian Alexander Romance: The Cupbearer’s Functions in Niẓāmī’s Sharafnāma","authors":"Seyed-Gohrab","doi":"10.5325/intejperslite.5.0040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/intejperslite.5.0040","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The notion of “cupbearer” is central to Persian Bacchic poetry. The cupbearer appears in descriptions of convivial courtly gatherings from the earliest specimens of Persian poetry, usually as a young agreeable companion, adroit in dancing, music, and singing in the festive arena. This paper gives a brief background of the cupbearer in order to analyze the rise and the usages of curt sāqīnāma passages in Niẓāmī of Ganja’s Alexander romance (Iskandarnāma). I argue that such passages not merely are invocations of an imagined cupbearer or wine but have narrative functions, containing flash-forward allusions, through which the poet teases the audience, making him wonder how specific images and metaphors can be connected to the main elements of the episode the poet is going to narrate.","PeriodicalId":40138,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Persian Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47412105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Emerson in Iran: The American Appropriation of Persian Poetry","authors":"P. Karim","doi":"10.5325/intejperslite.5.1.0099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/intejperslite.5.1.0099","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40138,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Persian Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46306422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Women and Crafting the Self in Moniro Ravanipour’s Novels","authors":"Shahnahpour","doi":"10.5325/intejperslite.4.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/intejperslite.4.0008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In the late 1980s, when feminist discourse became prevalent in Persian literature, a new generation of female writers appeared in Iran who used fiction, both short story and novel, as a literary vehicle to express their feelings and desires, and to criticize the gender gap and women’s social restrictions. Their writings thus offered a new outlook on how literature can shape the discourse of self-expression. As one of the most acclaimed female writers of postrevolutionary Iran, Moniro Ravanipour employs fiction, with autobiographical overtones, to express herself as a woman, a writer, and a native of the southern region of Iran. This article analyzes Ravanipour’s novels: Ahl-i Gharq (The drowned, 1989), Dil-i Fūlād (Heart of steel, 1990), and Kowlī Kinār-i Ātash (Gypsy by the fire, 1999) to highlight the representation of rural, urban, and tribal women—three types who have, albeit in different ways, adapted and changed both law and lifestyle to survive in an Iranian patriarchal society. It will also reveal the author’s concerns about femininity through analysis of her female protagonists, each of whom is an avatar of Ravanipour in the fictional world.","PeriodicalId":40138,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Persian Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43586378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Fluidity of Iranian-Armenian Identity in Zoya Pirzad’s Things Left Unsaid","authors":"Yaghoobi","doi":"10.5325/intejperslite.4.0103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/intejperslite.4.0103","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In Things Left Unsaid, Zoya Pirzad creates characters that invalidate the concept of a unified and coherent identity. Pirzad arms these characters with the ability to reshape their selves and emerge as new subjects—all as a result of integration in an Iranian cultural system. Clarice Ayvazian, Pirzad’s Iranian-Armenian female protagonist, demonstrates a full range of diverse characters. Clarice represents an incoherent subject with clashing identities that pull her in different directions. Some of Clarice’s concerns are gender-specific, while others are culture-specific. Since Clarice is both the narrator and the protagonist, and the story is narrated in the first person, there can arguably be an association between the narrator, Clarice, and the author. After all, Pirzad determines Clarice’s behavior, language, and characteristics. It is Pirzad who created a distinct linguistic and syntactic structure for the novel to represent Clarice’s inner predicament with maintaining her Armenian identity and her hesitations about assimilating within the Iranian Muslim community through Parvin Nurollahi’s invitation. Clarice’s struggles are suggestive of Pirzad’s endeavors in reconciling the two sides of her identity and negotiating her Armenian self through writing in Persian.","PeriodicalId":40138,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Persian Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45597753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Expressing Selves: A Comparative Study of the Memoirs of Tāj al-Salṭana and Bībī Maryam Bakhtiyārī","authors":"Sadeghian","doi":"10.5325/intejperslite.4.0037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/intejperslite.4.0037","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Born and raised in Nāṣirī Qajar Iran, both Sardār (commander) Maryam Bakhtiyārī (1874–1937), daughter of Ḥusayn Qulī Khan, the Īlkhānī (chief of the tribes) of the Bakhtiyārīs, an influential nomadic tribe, and Zahrā Khānum Tāj al-Salṭana (1884–1936), daughter of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah, wrote memoirs. Both of these texts are incomplete, and only one - Tāj’s autobiography - has been translated into English. The two memoirs present the female narrative of Iranian society through two different lenses: from inside the royal harem and from the landscape of nomadic life. This article argues that despite their different lifestyles, both women were the subject of Foucault’s “docile body,” the “body as object and target of power,” which “may be subjected, used, transformed, and improved”1 in the misogynic institutions that controlled and employed them. As Saud Joseph argues, a “predominant patriarchal family system”2 designated guardians for these women through the male relatives. This system also allowed men to act with impunity so long as they fulfilled their procreation duty inside their family institution. Women, on the other hand, were the instruments of reproduction. This article also provides an overview of the ways these women reacted to the conditions constraining them. Their reactions distinguish Tāj’s and Maryam’s lives as role models who went beyond the social framework and pushed the boundaries.","PeriodicalId":40138,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Persian Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42152409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction","authors":"N. Rahimieh, C. Yaghoobi","doi":"10.5325/intejperslite.4.1.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/intejperslite.4.1.0003","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40138,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Persian Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47615578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Construction of Social Identity by Collective Memory of Iranian Baha’is in Novels: “The Cradle of the Beast” and “Utab’s Memories”","authors":"Fahraji","doi":"10.5325/intejperslite.4.0068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/intejperslite.4.0068","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines the relationship between collective memory and social identity in the Iranian Baha’i community through the study of their literary works of recent decades. Utab’s Memories by Rouhieh Fanaian and The Cradle of the Beast by Omid Fallahazad are the only Persian novels penned by Baha’i authors with Baha’i characters after Iran’s 1979 Revolution. Therefore, they will serve as the primary sources for this study. A comparative analysis of these novels yields an understanding of the relationship between collective memory and social identity in the Baha’i community. This article draws on Ross Poole’s notion of memory as a socially constructed capacity in order to explain how the act of retelling memories enables the protagonists of both novels to define and redefine themselves in relation to other members of their Baha’i community as well as the members of the Muslim community. It also draws on Maurice Halbwachs’s collective memory argument, which suggests individual memory presupposes a social framework. Stuart Hall’s notion of a constantly transforming aspect of cultural identity is harnassed in order to better examine stages of transformation and construction in the Baha’i community’s social identity as reflected in these novels.","PeriodicalId":40138,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Persian Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45910353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}