Mustazad from a Literary Device to a Form

The general opinion is that Mustazad entered the field of literature as a form of poetry from the beginning, a form that did not receive much attention until the constitutional period. Today, this causes some difficulties in defining and classifying its types. A review of literature shows that the name of Mustazad was not mentioned in any of the literary texts until the 9th century. But after this date, the term Mustazad was introduced only in books related to rhetoric and other literary arrays, and some writers started dividing it. It is placed as a poetic array in the book Dorra Najafi (1330 AH) for the first time next to forms such as ode, sonnet, etc. After this book, the term Mustazad enters the realm of poetic forms. Most of the writers who started writing rhetorical books after Najafgholi Mirza followed the path, which has continued until today. In the present study, we intend to prove the truth of the claim that Mustazad has been transformed from a literary array to a poetic form by examining ancient and contemporary sources as much as possible. We also try to show the course of this evolution. Keywords: Persian Poetry, Constitutional Era Poetry, Poetic Forms, Literary Devices, Mustazad. Introduction In rhetorical texts, we sometimes come across terms that we have carelessly passed by many times, without having the correct image and definition of that term in mind. "By examining rhetorical books, we can clearly understand that for many categories and essays in the realm of rhetoric, it is not possible to give a comprehensive definition" (Rukhshandehmand & Fouladi, 2023, p. 60). One of these terms is mustazad, which is mentioned as a poetic form in all literary books after the Constitutional Era. Even though Mustazad has been one of the most popular poetic forms since the Constitutional Era and considerable works have been written about it, little attention has been paid to it in contemporary rhetorical books. Even great professors like Allameh Homaei end the topic with a short and general definition. This has caused the initial form of Mustazad and its origin to be neglected. The subject of Mustazad can be the subject of research in two ways: 1) in terms of defining and dividing its types, which few studies in this field have taken such an approach; 2) from the point of view of the origin of Mustazad and finding a reason for its diversity and multiplicity. In the current research, we have followed the second view to address the origin of Mustazad.