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Жанр «ученого трактата» в персидской классической прозе (к постановке вопроса)
The textualization of knowledge has produced numerous texts in
Persian. These scholarly treatises (on astronomy and algebra, pharmacology and
plant science, Sufi teachings and art of poetry, and so on) are undoubtedly
among the most revealing testimonies to 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 in the modern Western perspective) can be only considered as nonliterature.
In the 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 technique 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 become
a part of classical Adabīyyāt and form the very basis of refined education
(adab). The topics exposed in treatises provided “educated” Persian poetry withclusteres 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 under discussion. The popular calligraphic
imagery serves as a good example here, as many poetic circumlocutions
find their explanation in the treatises on calligraphy. The expository texts are by
no means detached from the high literature; and what is more they prove important
for our better understanding of “presentational” genres of poetry and
prose. Attachment to the article includes a translation of a small textbook on
calligraphy by Halil Tabrizi (16th cent.).