Discourse in “The Guest-Killing Mosque” Story in Masnavi Based on Michel Foucault’s Ideas
Subject Areas : Research in Iranian classical literatureAli Dehghan 1 , nazila yakhdansaz 2
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Keywords: Masnavi of Molavi the Guest-Killing Mosque Michel Foucault Discourse Power,
Abstract :
Language and discourse are the two important elements of life that sometimes generate other elements. One of these elements is the category of “power” which itself is the cause of the creation of other processes like “threat”, “resistance”, “blame”, and “terror”. Molana Jalal Adin Mohammad Balkhi, the great poet of seventh century (AH), has been able to state the cultural, political and ideological discourses of that time in an artistic and implicit way through the characters of Masnavi stories. The main goal and domain of this research is to analyze one of the stories in Masnavi from the recent historicism point of view to shed light on its features and functions within the new definition that Michel Foucault, the French philosopher, has proposed. The discourses discussed in this research indicate the plurality of power in texts of the stories under study, and consequently in Molavi’s era. Language as a power tool is considered to be a power factor in the relationship between story characters and the society. Believe in superstition and encouraging it is considered to be the main discourse and the main code in “The Guest- Killing Mosque”. According to the discourse under studied, Molavi lives in a society which is covered by the dust of darkness. This mysterious fable reveals Molavi’s concern for such atmosphere.
