Foreign Languages
Mostafa Hosseini
Abstract
Johnson and Sa’di: Two Intimate Strangers, written by Helen Ouliaeinia, is a very useful work in the realm of Persian-English comparative literature. It deals with the unorthodox structural and thematic similarities (and somehow differences) between Johnson’s The History of Rasselas, Prince ...
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Johnson and Sa’di: Two Intimate Strangers, written by Helen Ouliaeinia, is a very useful work in the realm of Persian-English comparative literature. It deals with the unorthodox structural and thematic similarities (and somehow differences) between Johnson’s The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia and S’adi's Golestan. She tries to show documentarily that Johnson’s Rasselas has been probably influenced both structurally and thematically by the great Persian poet and writer Sa’di of Shiraz. The present book falls within the realm of the French school of comparative literature, especially “influence studies”. The present paper is composed of three major sections. The first section introduces the author and his seminal book. The second part tries to discuss the book in terms of formal features. Here, typographical errors and some stylistic shortcomings are highlighted. The last section deals with the content of the book. At the end of this part, some points are suggested to enrich the text. To sum up, it is too difficult to accept the author’s claims about Johnsons’ influences.
Persian Language and Literature
Roohollah Hadi
Abstract
Doing studies about the king of speech “Sa’di” is highly respected and the greater they are the greater happiness they make. Atash-e-Parsi is one of these studies on Sa’di`s life and poems. Seeing Sa’di’s name in the first step, makes the reader smile but reading the ...
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Doing studies about the king of speech “Sa’di” is highly respected and the greater they are the greater happiness they make. Atash-e-Parsi is one of these studies on Sa’di`s life and poems. Seeing Sa’di’s name in the first step, makes the reader smile but reading the book more seriously and thinking twice about its content, changes this early feeling little by little, besides revealing new points and facts. A fair reader will understand that the writer of the book, as a Shiite Muslim, has used the SA’DI Collected Works as well as a collection of other historic, religious, mystical, literary, and other references to show a personality of Sa’di based on his own personal thoughts and beliefs. He has also tried to reconstruct the real life of the poet using his romantic Ghazals, which are a product of a unique moment. As a result, reading this book makes hundreds of questions in the readers’ mind and totally confuses them. They mainly have complaints about the periphrasis, incorrect inference, repetition, and the irregular references and wonder why the writer and the publisher did not care about their reader’s mind. considering the fact that a professional publishing institute like Ettela’at is rightly expected to pay much more attention to judging books before publishing them.
