Manoochehr Tashakori; Mokhtar Ebrahimi; Payam Nikbayan
Abstract
Before the development of scientific prosody (ʿarūż), teaching the metrical system of classical Persian poetry was considered one of the most challenging areas in Persian literature. ...
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Before the development of scientific prosody (ʿarūż), teaching the metrical system of classical Persian poetry was considered one of the most challenging areas in Persian literature. Prosodists consistently attempted to resolve this challenge by inventing new instructional methods. According to the literary tradition, one of the most effective strategies for simplifying the teaching of prosody was the use of verse itself. Keeping this in mind, the authors of the present study examined various poetic collections, extracted relevant examples, and analyzed the function of prosodic compositions as well as the use of metrical terms and vocabulary. Through this process, they identified two distinct approaches taken by poets toward prosody and Persian poetry:Using poetry as a tool to facilitate the teaching of prosody, and Employing metrical terminology within poetry to create artistic and aesthetic effects on the reader.in the first approach, poets attempted to present prosodic concepts in metrical and rhymed form to improve instruction—works of this type are often labeled as “metrical prosody” (ʿarūż-e manẓūm) in manuscript sources. However, many of these works are considered tedious to read, and their authors have been criticized for prioritizing instruction over poetic beauty. As a response to this criticism, some poets incorporated rhetorical and prosodic devices into their poems, laying the foundation for what later became known as artificial poetry (shiʿr-e maṣnūʿ). Thus, “metrical prosody texts” and “artificial odes” constitute two major categories of poetic works that employ prosodic material—both of which are examined and evaluated in this research.In the second part of the article, the aesthetic use of prosodic terminology in poetry is analyzed. Various examples from Persian poetry are compared with similar cases in Arabic poetry, and the poets’ purposes in using metrical terminology are categorized and presented in statistical tables
