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Персидские ученые трактаты и герменевтика классической поэзии
The textualization of knowledge has produced numerous
texts in Persian. These scholarly treatises (on astronomy and
algebra, pharmacology and plant science, Sufi teachings and the
art of poetry, etc.) are undoubtedly among the most revealing
testimonies regarding the medieval culture of Iran. The problem
of their inclusion in the domain of literature is under discussion
in the first part of the article. From the point of view of their main
function those works mostly fall into the category of informational
and directive texts and thus (when viewed from the modern
Western perspective) can be only considered as non-literature.
In authoritative “histories of Persian literature” some treatises
are discussed in the “Prose of the period” sections, with a focus
on the content of the given book and its status, and without any
special mention of its generic features. However, the tradition of
composing treatises eventually developed a set of characteristics and
conventions of textualization which could be considered as literary
(elaborate and in some cases embellished language; narrative
interpolations, stories, anecdotes, poems; rhetorical techniques of
discourse; compositional structure in relation to a certain topic).
When seen in the pre-modern Iranian perspective, the “expository”
treatises, regardless of their literary merits. are a part of classical
Adabīyāt and form the very basis of refined education (adab). The
topics exposed in treatises provided “educated” Persian poetry
with clusters of “technical” imagery, and the patterns of scholarly
reasoning found their counterpart in the poetic argumentation. In
the second part of the article the hermeneutical use of the treatises
is discussed. Popular calligraphic imagery serves as a good example
here, as many poetic circumlocutions find their explanation in
treatises on calligraphy. The expository texts are by no means
detached from the high literature; moreover, they prove important
for a better understanding of “presentational” genres of poetry and
prose. An appendix to the article includes a translation of a small
textbook on calligraphy by Halil Tabrizi (16th century).