Stylistic Analysis of Ancient Iranian Biographers

• Main Authors: Hassan Haidary, Reza Taghizadeh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lasting Impressions Press 2019-03-01
• Series: International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies
• Subjects: Stylistics; Biographies; Linguistic Level; Intellectual Level; Literary Level
• Online Access: http://www.eltsjournal.org/archive/value7%20issue1/3-7-1-19.pdf

Studying the stylistic aspects of literary works in fact began since the Safavid dynasty, when many biographers in Iran and in India attempted to study and criticize the poems of Iranian and Indian poets. Although biographers were more or less studying the stylistic issues from earlier periods, they were not deeply involved and mainly attempted to criticize the works. This study concerns to determine to what extent the biographers in the past have addressed and studied stylistics in its current meaning. The study has employed the stylistic approach to literary works proposed by Cyrus Shamisa in his book General Stylistics including linguistic (at phonological, lexical, and syntactic levels), intellectual, and literary levels. Each biography is analyzed according to the linguistic levels. The study primarily aimed to address and study the stylistic aspects of selected biographies, from Lubab ul-Albab to Sokhan Va Sokhanvaran. These biographies were compared in terms of the three linguistic, intellectual, and literary levels. The results showed that before the contemporary period, most of these biographies had many similarities in addressing these three levels and only the contemporary biographies have paid more attention to stylistics issues. In addition, the literary level of the poems has been studied more than their intellectual level. It indicates that the figures of speech used in poems have been more important to biographies than their intellectual context.