A Study and Comparison of Persian Romantic Poems of Iran and the Subcontinent in the Safavid era (With Emphasis on the Works in the Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi)

 
1.         Introduction
Romantic -poem is one of the most prevalent types of Persian lyric poetry. This literary field's development in the Safavid era is very significant, especially in the subcontinent. Lyric poetry's increasing popularity in this era led to numerous romantic stories by diverse poets (whether innovative or imitative) in various forms. Mughal court's great interest and encouragement in Persian poetry, poetic stories, and the translation of Indian stories and legends into Persian attracted numerous poets from all over Iran. Furthermore, many Indian poets turned to Persian poetic stories at the behest of Mughal kings and courtiers. In this way, poem writing became a tradition during this period. In other words, each poet achieved their mission with a romantic poetic story. Although many of these works' manuscripts have been lost over time, a considerable share of these poems is preserved in the form of manuscripts, lithographs, and movable type printing in the Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi.,  The author has collected  several romantic poems from the Safavid era of Iran and the subcontinent through visiting this library. In this research, twenty  poems have been studied and analyzed and then compared with each other.
1-1-      Research Method
This research has been done by the descriptive-analytical method (text research) .  Moreover, the data collection method is the use of library tools.
1-2-      Literature Review
Among the essential studies that have been done in this field, the following studies can be mentioned:
Seddighi (1998) has classified and introduced the  subcontinent's poetic stories’s types in the Timurid era.
Babasafari (2013) has introduced 1389 romantic stories, including Persian poetry and prose from pre-Islamic to the contemporary period, which holds  considerable storied poems relating to the Safavid era.
Zolfaghari (2013) has addressed the classification, typology, morphology, and introduction of romantic  poems and their themes. Notwithstanding the significance of these studies in lyrical literature, the Safavid era's romantic  poems, especially the works related to the subcontinent, have not been comprehensively analyzed compared  to any of the introduced works.  Through avoiding repetition, this paper has reviewed works that have not been analyzed and reviewed so far or those of which only little details have been mentioned in catalogs and bibliographies.
1-3-      Research Objectives
Introducing and reviewing the Safavid era's romantic poems.
Understanding the causes and factors of the wide acceptance of Iran and the subcontinent's Persian poets of this literary genre.
Study and comparison of stylistic and linguistic features of poems written in Iran and the Indian subcontinent.
2-         Discussion
2-1-      The Differences between the Poems
2-1-1-  Differences in Volume and Size (Number of Verses)
The number of verses of Iran's poems is more than the number of verses of poems written in the subcontinent. Out of a total of six poems written in Iran, Shirin and Farhad by Mir Aghil Kowsari (1331) includes 3770 verses, Naz and Niaz by Vahid Qazvini includes 3200 verses, Sam and Bahram by Fayyaz Lahiji includes 3048 verses, Majnoon and Leily by Navidi Shirazi includes 3000 verses, Mehr and Vafa by Shouri Kashani includes 1432 verses and Salaman and Absal Navidi Shirazi  contains 860 verses. However, the most extended  poem out of fourteen works in the subcontinent is Candles and Butterflies (Padmavat and Ratan), with 2333 verses. The number of verses in other poems differs from 156 to 1500 verses.
2-1-2-  Differences in  Poems’ Preface or Introductions
Regardless of the independent poem of Kamdi and Madan and the incomplete poem of Khosrow and Shirin by Shahpour Tehrani, fifteen of the other eighteen works have started with monotheism, praise, prayers, and the Prophet's admiration. However, among the fourteen compositions of the subcontinent, only the preface of one poem (Nahid and Akhtar) is adorned with the praises, supplications, and Holy Prophet's (PBUH) admiration as well as Imams' (AS) admiration.  The preface of one poem (The Passion of Imagination) is also adorned with Ascension. Meanwhile, the openings of four poems out of the six works in the geographical area of Iran are adorned with praise, monotheism, prayers, Holy Prophet's (PBUH) admiration, Ascension, and Imam Ali's (AS) and Imams' (AS) admiration. This indicates the type of society's religious beliefs in the Safavid era of Iran.
2-1-3-  Differences in the Story's Final Elements
" A woman’s self-immolation," " lovers’s resurrection," and "attaining eternal life" are common themes of Indian and subcontinental stories which do not exist in Iranian stories. In  Kamdi and Madan, lovers die due to the news of a false death out of experiments and come back to life after death or unconsciousness. Moreover, Hir and Ranjha come to life by drinking the elixir of life from the hands of the old man in green (Khidr prophet) and attain eternal life.
2-2-      The Commonalities of the Poems
2-2-1-  Common Motifs
Common motifs of this era's most romantic poems are the commonality in the commencement of love or the beginning elements (falling in love by seeing face image, hearing the beloved's description, seeing the beloved's face), lovers' royal lineage, king's death, helper, mediator (nanny/parrot), travel, sea crossing, hunting, desert wandering, intrigue, lovers' secret meetings, lovers' prayers, the tact of those around, love letters, experiments, love parties, wars, lovers' sudden death, failed love, and death after joining.
2-2-2-  Application of Simile
Several types of imagination forms, including simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy, and irony, have been utilized in the studied poems with variable proportions. However, simile (according to its frequency) is the most significant literary element of this era's romantic poems. The similes' roots are in nature and the world around the poet and are often of the sensory simile type.
Conclusion
 The Safavid era's romantic poem study and analysis indicate that most romantic poetical stories (about seventy percent) were written in the subcontinent.  Due to the shared cultural backgrounds and motifs of Iran and the subcontinent, these two regions’ poems are alike in general structure, lexical features, type of similes, and some narrative motifs. However, there are significant differences in volume and size, preface and introductions, cultural roots, and selection of characters in the story. Iranian poets have created their stories or poems with a complete structure, broader development, stress on the type of characters, and places beyond the realm of authorship. However, in choosing the heroes and describing the story's scenes, most of the subcontinental storytellers (according to Indian traditions) have depended on characters and places limited to the subcontinent and have acted with the utmost brevity and conciseness. Furthermore, many Indian poems are different from Iranian poems in terms of the final elements of the story. " A woman’s self-immolation," " lovers’ resurrection," and "attaining eternal life" are common motifs of Indian and subcontinental stories that do not exist in Iranian poems.
Keywords: Iran, subcontinent, Safavid era, Astan Quds Razavi Central Library, Persian romantic  poems
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