‘Beauty of the beginning’ in Persian ghazal of 11–14 cen.: the stages of formation of genre clichés

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of one of the specific aspects of the development of the Persian classical ghazal as a structural and thematic unity with pronounced signs of poetic form. Compositional factors played a key role in the transformation of the ghazal. The techniques of decorating the beginning and ending of a poetic work were regulated by the norms of Arabic poetics borrowed by the Iranians. They were respectively designated by the terms ‘beauty of the beginning’ (husn al-matla‘) and ‘beauty of the ending’ (husn al-makta‘). Their use in Persian poetic practice had notable specificity in comparison with Arabic. The use of repetitive figurative and syntactic clichés to implement these techniques in the ghazal gradually turned into a generally accepted norm. Along with the principle of uniform design of the ending, there is also a basic fund of standard figurative-syntactic models and clichés that served as markers of the beginning of the ghazal. At each stage of its evolution, the ghazal interacted with various components of the genre system, gradually expanding the thematic range and the repertoire of standard beginnings. As a result of these changes, which are often not fixed by theoretical poetic treatises, but fixed in practice, the canonical appearance of the Persian ghazal arises. It was fundamentally different from the original prototype. After going through several stages of transformation, the ghazal turns into a genre form with a set of permanent structural features.

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