Persian poetry

The relation between geographic knowledge (particularly geographic names) and Persian poetry is one of the important literary categories which is studied in this article. This category has been talked about less up to now and has been rarely under research and evaluation. There is no doubt that a noticeable part of the poetry themes and Persian poets' witticism is about the names which are mentioned. The familiar appendices which are regulated and published under the title of "list of places" on the final pages of most of the Persian poetry Diwans are briefly clear confirmation of this claim. In this article, there will be an endeavor to familiarize and introduce different forms of reflection of "geographic names" in Persian poetry including a various spectrum of poetic themes, figurative speech, inspiring symbolic and mystical meanings, melodious compounds, proverbial quotations, and wisdom, description, praise, expressing erudition, and developing geographic knowledge. Keywords: Persian poetry, geographical names, poetic theme, literary geography, collocation

In “Ākhar-e Shāhnāmeh” by Mehdi Akhavān Sāles (1929-1990), one of the foremost representatives of “New Poetry” in Iran, a fictive orality is staged: The poem becomes decipherable only to a reader attuned to the tradition of epic storytelling. This paper examines the relationship between language, perception, self, time, and world created through the fiction of storytelling. Drawing on theories of perception, narrative time, and epic performance, our discussion touches upon the nature of “I” and “we”, the shifting narrative grounds and identities enacted by the narration, the imbrication of past and present in the figure of the storyteller, and the memory spaces that are created both in and through the text. The imaginary speech act of the storyteller casts the reader as audience, while at the same time, the epic past is overlayed by a tumble-down present. Language itself becomes incommensurable with what it describes. Rather than a nostalgic invocation of a lost age of epic heroes, as has often been claimed, ĀKHAR-E SHĀHNĀMEH emerges as the profoundly modern diagnosis of a split consciousness that affects the individual in a society that can no longer return to epic naïveté.

Adopting a hermeneutic approach and horizontal and vertical interpretation methods, this study primarily explores the metaphysical concept of love-induced mystic intoxication in the Iranian polymath Mullā Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī’s mystic poetry. Secondarily, it discusses the implications of mystic intoxication in the meaning of life. Furthermore, the paper briefly positions Fayḍ Kāshānī’s account in the contemporary categories of the meaning of life: supernaturalism, naturalism, and nihilism. Additionally, elucidating the perspectives of the contemporary philosopher John Cottingham, the paper examines Kāshānī’s view through Cottingham’s philosophy. Central to Kāshānī’s poetry, ignited by divine love, the spiritual seeker transcendends their self, getting absorbed into the Divine to the point where they become unaware of their self. This epistemic unawareness is mastī (intoxication) or bīkhudī (selflessness)—which, for Kāshānī, has profound implications on life’s meaning. Unlike the “extreme God-centric” view—which situates the purpose of life solely in fulfilling God’s purpose—Kāshānī’s “moderate God-soul-centric supernaturalist” view recognizes that while divine love, intoxication, and knowledge infuse more profound depth to the meaning of life, other aspects also add to the meaning in life—like the simpler forms of piety and everyday existence. A framework in which morality is instrumental. Similarly, for Cottingham, life has value and meaning beyond solely fulfilling God’s purpose. Nevertheless, while basic pleasures and desires might independently exist and have meaning, higher elements like moral virtue, crucial to life’s meaning, are contingent on God’s purpose.