طبیعت طوطی و بازتاب های بلاغی آن در شعر فارسی (مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
درجه علمی: نشریه علمی (وزارت علوم)
آرشیو
چکیده
طوطی از پرندگان شناخته شده ادب فارسی است و ویژگی های گوناگونش دستمایه مضمون پردازی ها و سخن سازی های بسیاری بوده است. بررسی ریزبینانه آثار ادبی نشان می دهد سرایندگان فارسی گو که در نواحی جغرافیایی گوناگون می زیسته اند به خوبی با ویژگی های طبیعی و زیستی طوطی که بومی ایران نبوده، آشنایی داشته اند و در ساخت تشبیهات و تصاویر و شکل دادن به شبکه تداعی های بلاغی آثار خود از آن ها بهره برده اند. در این مقاله برآنیم با بررسی آثار منظوم ادبی نشان دهیم شناخت ویژگی های طبیعی طوطی تا چه اندازه در بررسی اشعار به کار می آیند، ظرافت ها و دقایق آن ها را روشن تر می سازند و در فهم معنای آن ها گره گشا هستند. بررسی شواهد متعددی از متون منظوم نشان می دهد از میان ویژگی های طبیعی طوطی، ویژگی های ظاهری و دیداری در ساخت تصاویر بلاغی که مبنای آن ها بر تشابه استوار است، نقش عمده دارند. در این میان رنگ سبز یکی از قوی ترین و متنوع ترین شبکه تداعی ها را پیرامون طوطی ساخته است.The Nature of Parrot and its Rhetorical Reflections in Persian Poetry
Parrot is a well-known bird in Persian poetry, and various features of it have been implicated to form literary themes and poetics. Scrutinizing literary works represents how Persian poets living in different geographical regions, knew the natural and biological features of parrots closely and utilized them to create literary images, similes, and rhetorical associations. However, the bird has not been native to Iran. In this article, by examining Persian poetry, we show how much the natural features of the parrot are helpful to study poems, enlighten their elegance and minutes, and help to unravel the text difficulties. Perusing cases found in Persian poetic texts shows that among the natural features of parrots, physical and visual ones play a significant role in constructing rhetorical images based on similarity. Meanwhile, the green color has created one of the strongest and most diverse networks of associations around parrots.
Keywords: Ancient Zoology, Green Color, Parrot, Rhetorical Association.
Introduction
Animals have always been present in Persian folklore, fiction, didactic and mystical texts. Thus, there have been many possibilities to deal with them in literary research. In these researches, animals are usually treated with mythological, symbological, and genre approaches. Meanwhile, birds have had a particular place in allegorical-mystical interpretations due to their relationship with some mystical texts called Risala-ut-Tayr. Among the birds, the parrot is one of those that has received specific attention for some reasons. Here, we intend to distance ourselves from such literary research by focusing on the natural and biological aspects of the parrot, to show how Persian poets have been able to create delicate and accurate images by using their innate knowledge about this bird. Some of the knowledge has become so familiar due to repetition as if they were free from explaining and clarifying their origins. One of our goals is to show these origins and document them with literary evidence. Showing step by step how a natural feature in a parrot brings the poet to create complex images, helps to solve poetic problems and understand the intricate imagery of poets.
These are our two main questions: How does scrutinizing the nature of parrots help the researcher to better figure out the images and rhetorical associations in which the parrot plays a role? And, is it possible to recognize a pattern or a procedure in the rhetorical depictions related to parrots?
Literature Review
As we mentioned in the introduction, due to the role of animals in a significant category of narrative, didactic and mystical literary texts, many types of research are relevant to animals in different ways. As one of the prominent examples in this rich background, we can point to one of the chapters of the book Ramz va Dastan-ha-ye Ramzi in Persian literature by Taqi Pournamdarian (1364), which deals with the treatise about birds (Risalat-ut-Tayr). In this chapter, he speaks of birds as the codes of the sublimation of the human spirit. Another research about animals is an Investigation of Animal Stories in Persian Literature up to the 10th Century, written by Mohammad Taqavi (1376). In this book, Taqavi has divided and analyzed the stories told in the language of animals as a type of literature, considering their relationship with didactic literature. Apart from such works that have generally dealt with animals or birds in allegorical or genre approaches, some studies focus specifically on parrots, i.e., texts in which parrots are the main characters. Yet, these researches are mostly restricted to structural or narratological studies. For example, we can refer to two articles "A Discussion in Folk Literature: A Brief Analysis of Parrot Tales" by Reza Anzabinejad (Journal of Persian Language and Literature, 1354) and "A Narrative Analysis of Parrot Tales" by Mohammad-Reza Haji-Aghababaei (Literary Text Research, 1396). Fatemeh Mehri in her paper "Role of Parrots in Indian Storytelling and Creating Mystical Themes in Persian Literature" (Kohan-name-ye Adab-e Parsi, 2019) shows that the root of some mystical and fictional themes about parrots in Persian literature could be traced to the sacred figure of the parrot in India.
As can be seen, in this research, the examined texts are often narrative and mystical. So they comprehend the parrot, more than anything else, as a symbolic and allegoric figure. In the works related to animals in Persian literature, no place for independent research clarifies the relationship between literary images of animals and their natural and biological image. The present article examines the literary role of the parrot by considering its innate features. This new arena requires us to focus on various texts to clarify the roots of images and rhetorical associations about the parrot. In this way, this research explores a new field in terms of the examined texts.
Methodology
When we talk about rhetorical association, we refer to discussions related to "associative" relationships between the elements of language. Saussure (1378: 180-180) was the first who talked about it in the field of linguistics. Later, this "associative" relationship became a basis for talking about the conceptual metaphor in literary studies. In linguistics, this relationship refers to the relationship between linguistic units which can be used interchangeably. In the works of theorists such as Jacobsen, who used linguistics to study literature, this associative relationship, or as it was called later, the relationship in the axis of substitution (see: Safavi, 2010: 2/26), is the basis of "choice" in literary language, which is based on "similarity" and forms similes and metaphors (ibid., 2/147). Examining the literary choices, it becomes obvious that there are other components beyond mere similarity which play a role in literary choices. These components usually come from outside the language and may differ from one society to another. Safavi (ibid., 2/151) refers to these components as a "cognitive system" and explains it by citing an example: "For a system like the color system, two layers we can imagine: a language system where black is black because it is neither white, nor green, nor blue, nor red, nor anything else; and a layer as a cognitive system beyond the language system for colors, where black evokes sadness and mourning." Now, with this explanation, we can return to the main topic of this article: Parrot in Persian literature is the source of many imagery and rhetorical associations. To find aspects of "similarity" in the rhetorical associations related to the parrot, one must first have a close observation of the bird and then understand the cognitive system surrounding it. It is clear that we have general knowledge about parrots, so at first, talking about the cognitive system around it seems trivial. But we aim to scrutinize the subtleties of poetry and to show the elegance and accuracy of poets who have created rich images by carefully observing birds. We organize this article by focusing on the historical recognition of the parrot, which can be inferred from ancient zoological statements.
Conclusion
Our research shows that from a rhetorical point of view and compared to other natural characteristics of parrots, appearance and visual characteristics have played a leading role in imagery and associations. Among these characteristics, many images centered on colors: the colors of feathers, beaks, and tongues. Although the green color is more frequent in these images, we also have pieces of evidence that show that Iranian poets, even in the western regions, were very likely familiar with the rare or less-known species of this bird in colors other than green. The most important network of associations related to the green color is accompanied by plants (/growing), sky, poison, rust, Khat (round hair on the face), Khezr the Prophet, and wax protecting the mirror. Although the basis for choosing them is color similarity, sometimes other similarities, including shape, have also been involved in these choices. Among the poets who have dealt with the image of the parrot with more frequency and have made the network of associations more complicated, is Saeb-e Tabrizi, who spent years of his life in India. However, we can see other poets were also well acquainted with the parrot's characteristics because it was not only popular in its native habitat, but also in other countries.
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