Classification of Initial Lovers’ Encounters in Persian Lyrical Poetry

One of the most significant forms of lyrical poetry in the Persian literary tradition is the love story. These love stories, whether in prose or verse, typically follow similar narrative structures and share common motifs and elements. A central element in these romantic tales is the initial encounter and acquaintance between the lovers. Since every love story involves both the lover and the beloved, their meeting and mutual recognition are pivotal moments that initiate the romantic narrative. The initial encounter between lovers, as the foundational beginning of romantic narratives, holds significant importance in critically analyzing the complex development of these narratives' structure. This research aims to employ structuralism, specifically morphology, to analyze fifty selected romantic tales from Persian literature. The goal is to develop a new classification of lovers' first encounters, thereby opening a novel avenue for morphological analysis of romantic stories based on indigenous works. 
Introduction:
Love stories have been a cornerstone of Persian literature, often told in verse and celebrated for their lyrical qualities. Traditionally, these poems are categorized as lyric poetry due to their emotional and personal expression, similar to the ghazal form. However, Persian romantic epics distinguish themselves by their narrative quality, emphasizing the development of love stories through characters, events, and plotlines, rather than expressing the poet's personal emotions. This distinction highlights their dual role as both emotive expressions and storytelling devices. Renowned scholar Hassan Zolfaghari emphasizes that Persian romantic epics expand upon the themes of lyric poetry, offering a broader and more detailed narrative of love compared to the brief, metaphorical expressions found in ghazals. Parallel to Persian literature, the genre of "romance" in Western literature encompasses a wide array of narrative forms, ranging from medieval tales to contemporary romantic novels, characterized by their imaginative and emotional content. Historically, the term "romance" referred to vernacular languages derived from Latin and later evolved to denote stories filled with adventure and love. In modern usage, romances focus on narratives driven by romantic relationships, exploring the challenges and dynamics within these bonds.
This paper aims to examine Initial Lovers Encounters as one of the most important structural elements of romantic relationships in Persian epics through a structuralist lens. By applying morphological analysis, initially pioneered by Russian formalist Vladimir Propp, this study seeks to identify common patterns and functions within these narratives. This research intends to lay the groundwork for a native morphological theory based on Persian literary traditions, offering new insights into the genre's unique narrative structures.
Materials and Methods:
This research employs a structuralist approach to analyze the motifs and types of romantic relationships in Persian literature, focusing on the initial encounters between lovers in fifty selected Persian romantic narratives. The study employs morphological analysis, a method rooted in structuralism. A total of 50 Persian romantic narratives were selected for this research. These texts span various periods of Persian literary history, offering a comprehensive overview of romantic encounters across different eras. The selection criteria included the significance of the texts within the Persian literary canon and their accessibility for analysis. Building on the results of the categorization, this study aims to propose a native morphological theory tailored to Persian romantic narratives. This theory aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the structural elements unique to Persian literature, offering a foundation for further research in this field.
Results and Discussion:
In this study, we aimed to categorize and analyze the initial encounters between lovers in Persian romantic poetry, which serve as pivotal moments influencing their emotions. We examined fifty Persian romantic poems and estimated their approximate dates of composition. Using our classification framework, we evaluated these encounters based on four dimensions: the nature of the encounter, reciprocity of inclination, reciprocity of the encounter, and its form.
This study introduces a new classification of these encounters. Before examining existing classification types in Persian romantic poetry, it is important to highlight a few key points. Primarily, in most Persian romantic poems involving both genders, it is usually the male who experiences the initial encounter with the beloved. Although there are instances where the female encounters the male first, we did not find significant differences between these encounters that would warrant separate categorization.
Another important consideration is that the notion of in this context does not merely refer to a direct meeting with the beloved; rather, it encompasses any scenario in which the lover faces the beloved, whether directly, indirectly, through intermediaries, or even in dreams or illusions. Thus, the term "encounter" signifies the first significant acknowledgment in which both parties in the romantic relationship become aware of each other's presence and begin to incline toward one another.
The initial encounters between lovers can be categorized and evaluated in several ways, with the primary classification being based on the nature of the encounter:
- Single Encounter: In this type of encounter, one side of the story suddenly meets the beloved without any gradual progression, and instantly falls in love. The lover often becomes so enamored that they quickly desire union with the beloved and suffer in their absence. This type of encounter can be further divided into:
- Real Single Encounter: Where the lover directly and physically meets the beloved without any intermediaries or illusions, experiencing an immediate attraction. For example, in the story of Siavash and Sudabeh from Shahnameh, Sudabeh, who had not seen Siavash, her stepson, until that moment, falls deeply in love with him upon their first sight.
- Virtual Single Encounter: When a lover encounters the beloved indirectly or through virtual means—such as dreams, descriptions, or fleeting glimpses of their image—and falls in love without seeing them directly. For example, in Khaju Kermani's poem "Gol-o-Norouz," Norouz sees Gol, the daughter of the Roman Emperor, and falls in love with her beauty as described by others. Norouz falls in love with Gol through the descriptions he hears, forming a virtual image of her in his mind.
- Multiple Encounter: In this type of encounter, the development of feelings between the lovers occurs gradually through continuous and repeated encounters, rather than instantaneously. This pattern is more prevalent in modern stories and novels than in classical Persian romantic poems, but some instances can be found in Persian romantic poems as well. For example, in Nizami Ganjavi's "Layla and Majnun," Majnun gradually falls in love with Layli through repeated encounters over time.
- Without Encounter: In this type of encounter, one side of the story becomes obsessed with a person that has no real encounter or illusionary illusion.
Conclusion:
This study aims to provide a new framework for analyzing the narrative structure of Persian romantic stories, with a particular focus on the initial encounters between lovers. By categorizing these encounters into four distinct types based on their narrative functions and structural forms, namely, single encounters (both real and metaphorical), multiple encounters, and non-encounters, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of how Persian romantic literature constructs and conveys the dynamics between lovers. Each category serves not only as a narrative tool but also reflects broader thematic and structural elements within the genre. Future research could further explore individual narratives to examine the nuances and variations within these categories, thereby enriching our understanding of Persian literary traditions and their narrative techniques.