Shu'ayyah Biography and the Need for its Correction

• Main Author: Mokhtar Komaily
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: University of Isfahan 2020-03-01
• Series: Textual Criticism of Persian Literature
• Subjects: criticism; correction; correction method; shu'ayyah biography; shua'a al-mulk
• Online Access: http://rpll.ui.ac.ir/article_24000_9b9071579c860433178c5cb571d65c21.pdf

<strong>Abstract</strong> <br />One of the most important Persian biographical works is Shu'ayyah Biography of Mohammad Hossein Sha'a Shirazi (Shua'a al-Mulk) which is written in Qajar dynasty in Shiraz in 1942. Shuayyah Biography includes biography and sample poems of 150 poets that the author has seen or heard them from 1941 to 1951. This biographical work was edited and revised by Mahmoud Tavousi, and was published by the Persian Foundation in 2001. The question of the present article is to what extent the correction of this biographical work is scientific, critical, and valid? Investigations show that the edited and revised text of Shu'ayyah Biography is full of errors. Three major reasons can be made to correct the mistakes in the revised text: choosing a wrong method, ethical correction, and bad reading. Contrary to the general correction principle, the editor is confined to a handwritten version of the Faculty of Literature of University of Tehran, which is late, and ignored the handwritten version of the Malek National Library, which is a more appropriate measure. Due to the fact that Shu'ayyah Biography is the most important work of Shua'a al-Mulk and has significant historical, social, and linguistic advantages, criticism needs to be made and its edited text should be available to the scholars and enthusiasts of the ancient Persian language. <br /><strong>Introduction</strong> <br />There are several notes written in the Qajar era in Shiraz, the most important of which are Mir’at al-Fasahah, Dar al-Alam of Shiraz Ontology, and the multiple ontology of Muhammad Hossein Shua’ (Shua'a al-Mulk). Mohammad Hossein Shua'i (1250-1322 AH) is one of the most famous poets of this era who authored biographies including Shakaristan Parsi, Ash’a al-Shua’ie, and Shua’ia Ontology which are historically and socially important. From a literary point of view, the significance of this ontology is to include biographies and examples of poets not mentioned elsewhere. Its linguistic significance is that some of the local words of Shirazi dialect or other dialects in Fars province have been recorded, such as the word ‘Khin’, meaning "blood" in the present Luri dialect in Fars. It also reflects the social situation of Shiraz in the Qajar era more or less. <br />To date, the Shu'ayyah Ontology has been edited and published only once. Mahmoud Tavousi edited this work and published it in 2001 by the Persian Studies Foundation. There are slips in Tavousi’s edition, so that in some cases it is not possible to understand the meaning of many of the verses. In this study, we examined the reasons for the errors and misunderstandings of this text and some of its verses. <br /><strong>Material & Methods</strong> <br />In recovering the correct face of some incorrect words in the text of Shu'ayyah Ontology edited by Tavousi, another manuscript of this work, kept at the National Library of Tehran with No. 3839, has been overlooked. Therefore, our research method in this paper was to compare the printed texts of Shu'ayyah Ontology edited by Tavousi with the same manuscripts in the existing manuscripts of this work, preserved in the Library of the Faculty of Literature of Tehran University with No. 305 and National Library of Tehran with No. 3839. <br /><strong>Discussion of Result & Conclusion</strong> <br />From the comparison of the printed text of Shu'ayyah Ontology to Tavousi’s edition with the manuscript, we conclude that the three factors caused much lucidity in the printed text. The first factor is related to the methodology of the text correction technique. <br />In contrast to the general rule of thumb, only one manuscript, the manuscript of the Faculty of Literature of the University of Tehran, was available. He has recorded them correctly. Another contributor to the misalignment of the printed text was the misinterpretation of the listener, many words in the manuscript used by the editor were properly recorded but the editor misread them. The third unintelligible factor in some of the texts of the printed text was the editor’s moral editions. <br />The editor deliberately has altered some of the vulgar words without any reference, for example, in the personal parody of Christ, but the correction has changed the word to ‘Soul’ without a hint. Data and bits make sense. The result of the argument is that, due to the inaccuracy of many of the passages, it is necessary this biography to be re-edited and published using the manuscript of the Malek National Library.