Islamic Art Studies

Islamic Art Studies

A Formalist Analysis of Amir Khusrow Dehlavi's Ghazals in the Illustrated Manuscript of 966 AH

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Zahra Labbafiyan yazd 1
Mahmoud Sadeghzadeh 2
Seyed Hossein Shahab Razavi 2
1 Department of Persian Language and Literature, Yazd Branch, Islamic Azad University, Yazd, Iran
2 Department of Persian Language and Literature, Yazd Branch, Islamic Azad University, Yazd, Iran.
10.22034/ias.2021.271731.1531
Abstract
Formalist criticism is among the dynamic critical approaches that, by distancing itself from extratextual perspectives and focusing on intratextual mechanisms and the analysis of literary creations, liberates literary poetics from dependence on other branches of human knowledge. It directs the attention of researchers and critics toward literariness—the artistic essence—or, in other words, the explication of the aesthetic dimensions of literary works. Given the prevalence of formalist studies in literary criticism in recent decades, this article aims to examine a ghazal by Amir Khusrau Dehlavi through library research and a descriptive-analytical method within a formalist framework, addressing its linguistic, phonetic, thematic, metrical, and aesthetic features.
In this study, the form and structure of a ghazal by Amir Khusrau Dehlavi—with the following opening verse—are reinterpreted through intratextual markers:
The cloud rains, and I am parted from my beloved—
How can I bear, on such a day, to be severed from my heart’s companion?
The foundational motif of this ghazal, in its vertical structure, is "separation from the beloved," wherein themes of movement, passage, transition, transformation, and departure unfold and flow across all couplets from beginning to end. The interconnectedness of these verses creates an organic structure. Traces of formalism can also be observed in the illustrations of Amir Khusrau Dehlavi’s illuminated manuscript.
Research Objectives:
1.     A formalist analysis of Amir Khusrau Dehlavi’s ghazals.
2.     A formalist analysis of the illustrations in Amir Khusrau Dehlavi’s illuminated manuscript.
Research Questions:
1.     What are the defining characteristics of Amir Khusrau Dehlavi’s ghazals?
2.     What aesthetic features are present in the illustrations of Amir Khusrau Dehlavi’s illuminated manuscript?
Keywords
Formalism
Language
Music
Amir Khusrau Dehlavi
Structuralism
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