Rhetorical Analysis of Semantic Fields of Metaphor in Va'iz Kashifei's prose (Badiye' al Afkar & Anwar i Soheili)

Introduction

One of the most prominent rhetorical techniques is metaphor, which is used not only in literary poetry and prose, but also in everyday speech, knowingly and unknowingly, and helps the elegance and beauty of speech. This technique, along with other rhetorical techniques, reached its peak in the 9th century A.H, the period of popularization of the Herat style, followed by the Hindi style. One of the authors and writers whose works have stylistic characteristics of this period is Molla Hossain Va'ez Kashifi. Badai' al-Afkar and 'Anwar-e Sohaili are among his most important works which are going to be analyzed in this article.
 

Methodology

This study is based on the descriptive analysis method by using library research and studying Bada'i al-Afkar and Anwar Sohaili by Va'ez i Kashifi for analyzing different types of metaphors in these prominent works. Through this study, different definitions of metaphor are presented. Then the author and his works are introduced and a brief description of their content and features is given. This research attempts to answer the following questions:  What is Va'ez i Kashifi's innovation in metaphors? How has Va'ez i Kashifi combined different semantic areas in the form of his metaphors? The examples in this study are from these books: Bada'i al-Afkar and Anwar Sohaili.

Discussion

Bada'i al-Afkar fi Sanyaye' al-Ashaar, written by the famous 9th century scholar Kamaluddin Hossein Vaez Kashifi Sabzevari, is the most extensive and informative rhetorical book in Persian rhetoric; The value of Bada'i al-Afkar lies in the fact that the author has extensively studied the figures of speech in Persian literature and has explored more what was briefly mentioned in the previous books and has obtained new uses and examples in many of the figures. Also, in this book, we come across the figures of speech that are not mentioned in other rhetoric books, even the books at the same time. However, in writing these books, Va'ez Kashifi benefited from the previous works, especially from Shams Qais Razi's Al-Mu'ajm, and according to Zabihullah Safa, it is a re-writing of Shams Qais Razi's Al-Mu'ajm, except for the science of prosody.
Anwar Sohaili is one of Kashifi's most famous works and a new writing of Kalila and Damna, which he composed in the name of Sheikh Ahmad Sohaili, one of the rulers of the reign of Sultan Hossein Mirzai Baiqara, in fourteen chapters and an introduction, and although Kashifi wanted to simplify its composition,but he couldn't. Kashifi's writing style, wherever is not under the influence of another text or translation or citation of Arabic language, is simple and fluent and is among the good works of the 9^th century and the beginning of the 10^th century A.H. In this rewriting, he made many changes in the content and even the title of Kalileh and Demaneh.
By studying Badai' al-Afkar and Anwar Sohaili of Va'ez Kashifi, it is understood that Kashfi wanted to show something innovative and beyond the writings of his predecessors, and he was able to do so to some extent with the influence of the works he considered.
This article aims to answer the following questions: What is Va'ez Kashifi's innovation in metaphors? How has Va'ez Kashefi combined different semantic fields in the form of his metaphors? Hypotheses are that Kashefi's innovation is the combination of multiple and different semantic fields; Kashefi has expanded different semantic fields in metaphors with hindsight towards metaphor and innovation in examples.

Conclusion

The findings show that Kashefi, despite modeling the writings of his predecessors, has made innovations in the use of metaphor by combining multiple and distant semantic fields, this means that the abstract noun is combined with a verb related to the concrete noun in order to make a subordinate metaphor to express "the passing of youth" and by simile and genitive metaphor, it mixes the distant meanings with the subordinate metaphor, personification, appositive and metaphorical genitives; On the other hand, by mixing metaphorical attribution genitive, metonymy, implied metaphor, personification, subordinate metaphor and semantic paradox, a complex network of metaphors and other figures of speech are interwoven with these semantic fields.