Persian and Arabic Origins of Elements in Folk Bakhtiari Poetry

The present article is a comparative study between folk Bakhtiari poetry and classical Persian literature which attempts to trace a number of Bakhtiari poetical items to classical Persian poetry by adopting a historical approach. These common items can be divided as follows: images and depictions, literary collocations, historio-literary allusions, and customs used to create imagery. Although in some cases these are mere accidental similarities, they seem to originate in the shared past of these people, especially due to the isolation of the Lurs from the written tradition of Persian literature that questions the possibility of direct borrowing. However, a number of elements of Luri poetry are undoubtedly taken from Persian literature. The influence of Persian literature is seen more clearly in Bakhtiari allusions to Iranian legends, particularly those of the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. Finally, considering the deep and old relationship of Persian and Arabic literature, a comparison has been carried out between Bakhtiari poetry and the Muʻallaqāt - as an example of the earliest Arabic poems.

Introduction

Research Background

V. A. Zhukovsky (1922, translated into Farsi by Shafaghi and Dadras, 2017) was the first scholar to prepare the collection of Bakhtiari folk poems. At the same time, Zhukovsky has refrained from deliberation on the literary value of these materials.

Lorimer (1954) marked the major literary devices of Bakhtiari poetry in an article and criticized its literariness, but did not address the relevance between the Bakhtiari and Persian poetic contents.

Among Iranian scholars, the late Hossein Pejman Bakhtiari has referred to the meter of Bakhtiari poetry (see Davari, 1965, p. 28).

Dadras and Shafaghi (see Zhukovsky, 1922, translated into Farsi by Shafaghi and Dadras, 2017, pp. 179-213) have provided the Persian origins for the poetic expressions and contents seen in the Bakhtiari poems within the “Elaboration on Verses” section.

“The Images and Description of Beloved in Bakhtiariʼs Folk Poems” (Zaheri Abdeh Vand & Karimi Nouraldin Vand, 2019) is a remarkable paper among the recent studies, as it renders a comparative study of Persian poetry and Bakhtiari in a distinct subject of interest.

Goals, questions, and assumptions

Conversance with Bakhtiari literature may serve in the study of Persian literature by the virtue of two features. First, the Bakhtiari dialect is deemed one of the closest relatives of the Persian language. Given its geographical proximity to southwestern Iran as the lands of origins for Middle Persian, the historical study of the Bakhtiari dialect is crucial in unearthing the roots of New Persian (Dari) and its literature. Secondly, the nomadic life of these natives, their isolation from the urban societies, and the prevailing illiteracy among the earlier generations all have highlighted the relevance of conversance with the dialect. In essence, if a common literary element, for instance, is simultaneously observed in Lori and Persian literature in that case, the element could both serve as a testament to its long history, denoting the element's inheritance from a sole origin in these two languages. Conversely, the presence of element in both languages could be regarded as evidence of the Dari literature's hold on the remotest and most formidable lands of the nation.

Discussion

The common elements between the Bakhtiari and Persian poetries could be classified into the following categories.

1. Images and Depictions

The images and depictions imply imagery techniques that include similes, metaphors, metonymies, allusions, among others. For example, “likening a horse's ear to a dagger”, “bloody beard”, “partridge and hawk”, “caravan of sorrow”, “spear of sun”, “likening snow to a warrior”, “leopard's coloration”, “green dagger”, and so forth.

2. Collocations

The term “collocation” is regarded beyond its linguistic and literary meanings (see Shafiei Kadkani, 1998, "The Magic of Proximity"), within this study’s context. Accordingly, the term is used to signify the mere affiliation or synchronicity of particular words that have gained idiomatic status, the recurrences of which deemed striking in both Persian and Bakhtiari literature. One could argue that the following cases, except for one case (Baghdad and Tabriz), have been introduced into the Persian and Bakhtiari poetries from common origins, and Persian poetry acting as the origin of its Bakhtiari counterpart is far-fetched: čārpāy-i kōsa “thin-bearded beast of burden,” rastigārī az dard “salvation from pain,” gōr-i tang u tār “narrow and dark grave,” “Baghdad and Tabriz,” and tīr u taqdīr “arrow and destiny.”



3. Historical and literary references and allusions

These few cases designate that Iranian myths, particularly Ferdowsiʼs Shahnameh, have gained the most widespread recognition among the Iranian nationals and ethnic groups. In contrast, official and court literature were not much favored or familiar to this class. Among these allusions are “Rostam”, “Shirin and Farhad”, “Khosrow and Shirin”, “Bijan and Manijeh”, and “the Qizilbash.”

4. Customs

Inherently, cultural and indigenous customs and traditions cannot be contained within poetic contents, but here three ancient customs are referred to by anonymous Bakhtiari poets in the conception, listed as “hauling provisions for an army with a buffalo”, “beaver pelts”, and “lock of hair as a token”.

There is an extensive historical association between Persian and Arab literature and some Arabic elements pervade in Bakhtiari literature through Persian. The final part of the paper is devoted to themes common in Arabic and Bakhtiari literature. The Arabic evidence of this section is all taken from the Muʽallaqat (2011), the oldest selection of Arabic poetry.

Conclusion

These similarities between Persian literature and Bakhtiari poetry, despite mere coincidence at times, appear to be often rooted in the shared past of these nations. Given the isolation and remoteness of the Lur tribes, borrowing and adapting from Persian written literature are not much common in Bakhtiari literature. Nevertheless, some themes in Lori poetry are indeed taken from Persian literature. The impact of Persian literature is more evident in the allusions of Bakhtiari poems to Iranian myths, particularly Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, all of which presumably arising from oral origins.



References



Ayati, A. (trans) (2011). Muʽallaqat (The Suspended Poems). Soroush.

Davari, B. (1965). Bakhtyari proverbs (in Farsi). Tahoori Bookshop.

Lorimer, D. L. R. (1954). The popular verse of the Bakhtiāri of S. W. Persia – І. BSOAS, 16(3), 542-555.

Shafiei Kadkani, M. (1998). The magic of proximity (in Farsi). Bukhara, 2, 16-26.

Zaheri Abdeh Vand, I., & Karimi Nouraldin Vand, R. (2019). The images and description of beloved in Bakhtiariʼs folk poems (in Farsi). Culture and Folk Literature, 7(26), 101-128.


Zhukovsky, V. A. (2017). Materials for the study of Bakhtiari dialect (translated into Farsi and edited by Mehdi Dadras and Maryam Shafaghi). Allameh Tabatabaʼi University Press.