A Thematic and Structural Analysis of Tekhayyulāt: The Prominent Persian Poetry Collection by Naim Frasheri

Abstract

The spread of Islam in the Balkans under Ottoman rule along with the emergence of Sufi sects, including the Bektashi order, paved the way for the expansion of Persian literature as a source of Sufi literature in this region and especially in Albania. Over the centuries, the Persian language and literature have maintained their presence and function in the Balkans, and several Sufi figures and intellectuals have chosen Persian as the medium for the expression of their literary creations. Among them, The most well-known Albanian who wrote Persian poetry in the late 19th century is undoubtedly Naim Frasheri (1846-1900). He published his collections of Persian poems, entitled “Tekhayyulāt” in 1885 in Istanbul. In this paper, after an overview of the spread and development of the Persian language and literature in the Balkans and in Albania, Naim’s poems in “Tekhayyulāt” are presented and analysed. The study is grounded on the theory of formalism in literature and aims to apply structural analysis to Naim’s Persian poems. To this end, employing a qualitative approach as the research methodology, two types of analyses are conducted, thematic analysis which reviews the content and the themes of his poems, and then structural analysis which is based on Leech’s theory of linguistic deviation (1969), focuses on the application of three types of linguistic deviations, namely phonological, lexical and grammatical, to enable a structural analysis of the poems. The results of the analysis show that Naim’s Persian poems have limited ranges of themes, and the main theme in his poems is about ‘nature’ while the structural analysis of linguistic deviations in his poems indicates his mastery of the Persian language to express his thoughts in poetic form.