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Tabibzadeh Ghamsari O. The Origin of Rubayi Meters in Folk and Oral Poetries of Iran. CFL 2020; 8 (35) :251-266
URL: http://cfl.modares.ac.ir/article-11-42342-en.html

It is generally believed that the origin of the Rubayi meter should be found in the meters of the pre-Islamic poetry, particularly the folk and oral poetries. Gilbert Lazard is the only person who has done a detailed analysis of the peculiarities and similarities of the Rubayi prosody with the non-prosodic features of the folk and oral poetries. This study argues that there are many stressed or semi-prosodic poems in the folk and oral poetries of Iran, the rhythm of which is very similar to the rhythm of Rubayi, but they are not related to the meter of Rubayi so far as the prosody distinction is concerned. Lazard believes that the Rubayi meter has fundamentally the same meter of the stressed and semi-prosodic local poems, but his method is rather flawed. This study, however, argues that the stressed and non-stressed syllables in the stressed poems turn into short and long quantities in prosodic poems. Moreover, the isochronism and the consonants which come after the stressed syllable or sometimes at the end of the verse, are omitted in the prosodic poems. Therefore, the isochronic meters in the stress position are firstly turned into the semi-prosodic meters and then to the fixed linguistic and quantitative meters.
Introduction
Poetic meters are of two types: isochronic and prosodic. The child and oral poetries in most of the languages of the world follow the isochronic meters. Linguistic meters employ prosodic features in their structure such as syllable, stress, intonation, and tone. Time does not affect their metric structure. The Persian prosodic poems, or the English stressed poems and all the learned ones, are all considered as linguistic poems around the world (Arooyi, 2009, pp. 1-35). Almost all the researchers who have done a study on Rubayi meters are in line with Shams Gheys (1981, pp. 111-113) believing that the Iranian poets of the 3^rd century AH have borrowed this meter from the oral and folk poetries of the pre-Islamic period. This study shows that there are many stressed poems from the oral and folk poetries that have a similar rhythm to that of the Rubayi, but their meters is not much related to the prosodic meter of Rubayi.
 
Research background
Most of the researchers believe that the origin of Rubayi meters should be found in the pre-Islamic period, particularly in the oral and folk poetries of Iran. Gilbert Lazard is the only person who has done a detailed analysis of the peculiarities and similarities of the Rubayi prosody with the non-prosodic features of the folk and oral poetries (Lazard, 1969; for a critical review see Tabibzadeh, 2016). Lazard believes that the meters of Rubayi is fundamentally same with the meters of the stressed poems and the semi-prosodic local poems, but his method is flawed.
Discussion
Rubayi has two major meters, each of which has many variations[1]. One meter is "Mostafal Mostafal Mostafal Fa" which is part of the "Mostafala" category (type A, see Najafi, 2017, pp.140-144). The other meter is "Mostafal Faelat Mostafal Fa" which is part of the "Mostafal Faelat" category (type B, see Najafi, 2017, pp. 395-397).
In teaching the rhythm of the poetry to the readers, the poems were broken down to their Atanin components instead of distinguishing the verses through their Afayil components. This meant turning the linguistic and quantitative meters into the older isochronic and stressed meters. It should be noted that breaking down the verses into the Atanin components, "t" is the short non-stressed sound, and "tan" is the long stressed sound. Therefore, the two major meters of Rubayi are (Tabibizadeh, 2020):
Type A: tn tn tttn tn tttn tn tttn
       Mostafal Mostafal Mostafal Fa
Type B: tn tn tttn ttn ttn tn tttn
       Mostafal Faelat Mostafal Fa
The linguistic meter of Rubayi or perhaps the meters of all longer and shorter verses could be included in "Mostafal" and "Mostafal Faelat", which are all copied from the old folk and oral poetries of Iran. In this process, firstly the role of the stressed meter is omitted and the short non-stressed sounds and the long stressed sounds are turned into the short and long sounds respectively, which do not have the stressed meter any more. Moreover, all the rests are omitted as well.
       Tanha tu kooche naria (Do not go to the alley alone)
       tn tn tttn tttn
       Mostafalo Mostafal
       Aknoon ke chenin zaram // bar man nakoni rahmat (now that I am crying // do not have mercy on me) (Najafi, 2017, p. 400).
If in those oral poems in which the rhythm is similar to the rhythm of Rubayi, the non-stressed sound (t in Atanin) is replaced with the short quantity, and instead of stressed sounds (tn in Atanin), the long quantity is used, the results are either of the two meters in Rubayi. This is actually one of the techniques the poets of the 3^rd and 4^th centuries AH employed to have a meter unlike that of the Arabic ones for the sake of having more pleasant poem for the Persian readers. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Rubayi meter is extracted from the oral and folk poetries of Iran.
References
Aroui, J., & Arleo, A. (eds.) (2009). Towards a typology of poetic forms; from language to metrics and beyond. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Lazard, G. (1969). Ahu-ye kuhi...: le chamois d’Abu Hafs Soghdiane et les origins du robai, Dans: W. B. Henning Memorial Volume. London, pp. 238 - 244.
Shams Gheys Razi (1981). on the wat to Arabic poetry (edited by Mohammad Taghi Modares Razavi). Zavar.
Tabibzadeh, A. (2016). Meter of "Ahooye Koohi" attributed to Abolhafz Saghdi. Today's Iranshahr, 3, 70-79.
Tabibzadeh, A. (2020). An analysis of the poetic meter in folk Persian literature (2^nd ed.). Bahar.

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