Abstract
This article demonstrates how Iranian classical music and Persian medieval poetry, taken as separate semiotic systems, form together, in certain contexts, a single hybrid semiotic system with overlapping structural features and shared aesthetic principles. Hjelmslev’s description of connotative semiotic systems serves as a theoretical framework to show the modalities of this hybridization. This phenomenon can be observed through comparative analysis of the interdependence of poetry and music in the Persianate World from a semiotic point of view. On the one hand, the quantitative (chronemic) meter of the Persian classical versification, called ‘aruz, as well as its extraordinarily heavy use of rhyme display a formal structure that evokes that of a musical phrase. On the other hand, the dependence of the structure of the Iranian musical system upon the rhythmic structure of classical poetry suggests a unique character of which few examples exist. This interdependence manifests itself particularly in the mystic (Sufi) poetry of the medieval period, specifically in the work of such renowned poets as Rumi, Sa’di Shirāzi, and Hāfez, who are among the best-known in the West. Examples of their lyric works are examined here to demonstrate occurrences of the collusion between the two semiotic systems.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- The role of schemas and scripts in pictorial narration
- The good sense of Umberto Eco and the common sense of the Echian Encyclopaedia
- Elements of language creativity
- A walk through the history of Spanish thought influenced by Uexküll
- A semiotic theory of memory: between movement and form*
- Stylistique et herméneutique des œuvres littéraires : pour une approche intégrative, via la notion de « stylisation »
- Vers une sémiotique sadienne
- Distant time, distant gesture: speech and gesture correlate to express temporal distance
- Splits on Instagram: a case study of young adults’ selfies
- The degree zero of digital interfaces: a semiotics of audiovisual archives online
- Personality and climate change mitigation: a psychological and semiotic exploration of the sustainable choices of optimists
- Semiotic hybridization in Persian poetry and Iranian music