Volume 11, Issue 6 (2021)                   LRR 2021, 11(6): 635-663 | Back to browse issues page

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Kaffash H, Fotoohi M. The Personal Credibility of the Historian as a Rhetorical Factor (Case study: Futuḥāt-i shāhī). LRR 2021; 11 (6) :635-663
URL: http://lrr.modares.ac.ir/article-14-37614-en.html
1- PhD Candidate in Persian Language and Literature, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran;
2- Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran , fotoohirud@um.ac.ir
Abstract:   (2154 Views)
The personal credibility and authority of the historian are one of the major subjects in Historiography. It's important since the greater the personal credit of historians, the greater would be the degree of persuasion of the audience. In this article, we analyze the degree of historian influence on audience persuasion and rhetorical methods and verbal devices used for historiography credit which makes the text more believable to the audience. In this article, applying the Neo- Aristotelian criticism method, we want to demonstrate the historian Ethos and strategies used by him to increase his credit. For this purpose, we choose Futuḥāt-i shāhī Cornicle by Amīnī Haravī, since it was one of the first and impressive histories of Safavi's government formation and its ideology because the role and personal credibility of historian and his persuasive of methods are very important.
 
 1. Introduction
the  historian personality is one of the main factors in the validity of historical narrative. The character of the historian is a rhetorical function here. Because in addition to validation of historical narrative, it is accompanied by the persuasion of audience. Historians, consciously in history, have sought to validate their historical events. They used objective eyewitnesses, predecessors, contemporaries, and so on. However, it should not be mentioned that the most important and fundamental factor in historical authenticity is the character of the historian. From this view point, historical authenticity is closely linked to the historian's authority and credibility. The historian's credit for the historian is that what method would the historian produce the right documents? Thus, the degree of content of the historian's discourse increases in the presentation of historical evidence. The authors seek to show how the historian achieves this personal credit in his historical context.
 
2. Methodology
Among rhetorical criticism, neo - Aristotle criticism has long term history. This approach, although criticized and reviewed, continues to be one of the most important approaches to its life. First, in 1391, Herbert Wichelns propounded the main tools of neo - Aristotle criticism as "  The Literary Criticism of Oratory " in his article. He made a distinction between literary criticism and rhetorical criticism there. Aristotle had already begun to write in the On Rhetoric and other like Cicero and Quintilian. These elements were the speaker’s personality, the public character of the speaker or the public’s perception of the speaker, the major ideas presented in the speech, the motives to which the speaker appealed, the nature of the speaker’s proofs, the speaker’s judgment of human nature in the audience, the arrangement of the speech, the speaker’s mode of expression, the speaker's method of speech preparation, the manner of delivery, and the effect of discourse on the immediate audience and its long-term effects (Foss, 2009, P. 22).
Since he did not deal with the analysis of these subjects, literary critics applied to the sources of classical rhetoric and benefited from the underpinnings of the rhetoric that Aristotle discussed in On Rhetoric, literary critics turned to classical rhetoric and took advantage of the rhetoric pillars that Aristotle had discussed in oratory: innovation, arrangement, style, memory and delivery (ibid, p. 22). Therefore, the application of the three elements of Aristotle s artificial arguments for review and critique of literary texts was first proposed in the neo - Aristotle criticism approach.
In this paper, the authors mention the difference between Aristotle and Cicero Ethos. This difference is, first, that one of the characteristics of the orator was based on common sense. This feature is necessary for the rational type because if a speaker wishes to express the truth, he must be wise enough about what he is talking about. The second is the difference between the client and the plaintiff which has very little relation with Aristotle's rational Ethos. This concept entails two categories: content and influence. It is, therefore, a good representation of the character of an orator and the principal (content ), for the audience . In other words, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between self - efficacy and Pathos. The difference between Cicero’s Ethos and Pathos is that he has some kind of gentleness with him, but it is equal to arousing strong feelings. While Aristotle's Ethos is a logical concept and does not have a goal in arousing emotions, and unlike Aristotle, it includes all types of feelings.
According to the above explanation, in this paper, the authors have put the Aristotelian Ethos for text analysis. For Aristotelian ethos, in addition to being text, Aristotelian Ethos is more logical than Ciceronian one. On the other hand, because in the new - Aristotelian approach, Aristotle's theory has been used. It is necessary to mention that the authors have mentioned the above explanations to understand the addressee about Aristotle and his critique of neo - Aristotle and have extracted the text analysis unique to Aristotle's theory and those cases which have been used to obtain the authenticity of the historian.
3. Conclusion
In the tradition of historiography, some of the essential elements are common and are not special to Futuḥāt-i shāhī, such as the fame of the historian and writing and composition. But some of these elements, especially those of Futuḥāt-i shāhī  which belong to the historiography of Safavid era, are the means of distinguishing it with pre - Safavid historiography.Using the current discourses of their time Amīnī Haravī seeks to link past discourses with the new discourse of Safavid establishment in the direction of legitimacy.
It should be divided into two categories: general elements and discursive elements. Those elements which serve to strengthen and promote the values of Safavid's political and ideological system will be credited to the historian and his work. However,  for audiences outside the discourse or the rival discourses can reduce the authenticity of the text and reduce it to a sectarian text. In this paper, we used the rhetorical criticism techniques to investigate the functions of the ethos for the historian in the whole text of the Futuḥāt-i shāhī and showed how intratextual and extratextual elements could add to the historian's credit.
 
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Article Type: مقالات علمی پژوهشی | Subject: Arts and Humanities (General)
Published: 2021/01/29

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