| ID | 157835 |
| Title Proper | Rhetoric, Narrative, and the Remembrance of Death in ʿAttār's Mosibat-nāmeh |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | O’Malley, Austin Michael |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | This paper examines the anecdotes of ʿAttār’s Mosibat-nāmeh as temporal phenomena from the perspective of a reader moving progressively through the text; it is argued that that these anecdotes do not function primarily as carriers of dogmatic information, but as dynamic rhetorical performances designed to prod their audiences into recommitting to a pious mode of life. First, the article shows how the poem’s frame-tale influences a reader’s experience of the embedded anecdotes by encouraging a sequential mode of consumption and contextualizing the work’s pedagogical aims. Next, it is demonstrated that these anecdotes are bound together through formulae and lexical triggers, producing a paratactic structure reminiscent of oral homiletics. Individual anecdotes aim to unsettle readers’ ossified religious understandings, and together they offer a flexible set of heuristics for pious living. Finally, it is argued that ʿAttār’s intended readers were likely familiar with the mystical principles that underlie his poems; he therefore did not use narratives to provide completely new teachings, but rather to persuade his audience to more fully embody those pious principles to which they were already committed. |
| `In' analytical Note | Iranian Studies Vol. 51, No.1; Jan 2018: p.23-46 |
| Journal Source | Iranian Studies Vol: 51 No 1 |
| Key Words | Rhetoric ; Narrative ; Remembrance of Death ; Attār's Mosibat-nāmeh |