Design and Examination of a Semantic Pattern in the Interpretation of Poetry (Case Study: Verses Containing the Keyword “Jān” in the Ghazals of ʿAṭṭār)

Poetry interpretation is one of the most important literary studies that facilitates the audience’s familiarity with poetic texts. This method of text analysis, introduced as one of the approaches to annotation, is usually conducted at the content level and follows the general trajectory of the interpreter within the poem. Although the general trajectory in literary texts-especially poetry-is beneficial for students and general audiences of Persian language and literature, it appears less effective in the comprehensive and precise understanding of the features of extensive literary texts and the explicit and implicit dimensions of the creator’s thought.
The present study proposes and examines a combined (quantitative-qualitative) model for text interpretation, through which a more detailed analysis of the text becomes possible. In this study, Which is based on the keyword “Jan” in Attar’s Ghazals, first, the verses containing this keyword are extracted from across Attar’s entire ghazal corpus, and their themes are classified. Then, some verses related to the theme of "janbazi" one of the poet’s key themes-are explained and interpreted. The results of classification of verses indicate that five themes-concern for having/not having the soul, light and transcendence of the soul, self-sacrifice of the soul, existence and non-existence of the soul, and the lover’s soul-constitute the key themes of Attar’s ghazals are numbered.
The interpretation of verses related to "janbazi" also reveals that Attar pays special attention to the semantic capacity of words and expresses some of his most important poetic themes in his ghazals and other works through a consistent semantic network. This semantic chain reflects the organized unity of Attar’s poetry and allows his various works to serve as commentaries on one another.