Love, One Concept with Three Metaphorical Perceptions: An Analysis of the System of Conceptual Metaphors in Sawanih al-Ushaq

As metaphors are cognitively originated, examining a text’s conceptual metaphors yields a new understanding of its author’s cognition. Therefore, an analysis of the relationship between the conceptual metaphors in a text and the structure arising from those metaphors leads to a more precise understanding and a better explanation of the text, and facilitates the analysis of its semantic structure and its author’s worldview. Thus, the present article attempts to answer three key questions: What are the most important conceptual metaphors in Sawanih al-Ushaq? What relationships do exist between these metaphors? What are the characteristics of the structure arising from these metaphors? In an effort to answer these questions inductively, the conceptual metaphors in each chapter are separately examined and the most important metaphors in the text are identified based on the two criteria of ‘frequency’ and ‘position in the structure of metaphors’. The analysis shows that the conceptual domain of ‘love’ is the most important abstract conceptual domain which is comprehended with the aid of the conceptual domains of ‘bird’, ‘mirror’, ‘plant’, ‘derivation’, ‘sun’, ‘king’, and ‘destruction’. Among them, destruction has a special place as it can be used in order to comprehend the ultimate stage of love: annihilation. Destruction, as a megametaphor, is embodied by the conceptual domains of ‘intoxication’, ‘fire’, ‘war’, and ‘devouring’. Finally, the most significant conceptual metaphors in Sawanih al-Ushaq are: ‘love is the eternal part of human existence’; ‘love is a mirror’; and ‘love is destruction’.
 
Extended Abstract

Introduction

A study of conceptual metaphors in Persian literature from the early centuries can contribute to a better understanding of the complexities of modern literature. Conceptual metaphors integrate concepts into texts and, over time, transfer them from one text to another. Love is one of the most important metaphorical concepts in Persian mystical literature and Sawanih al-Ushaq is the first mystical text in Persian about love. This work had a great influence on Nagouri’s Lawayih, Araqi’s Lama’at and Jami’s Lawayih.
 

Theoretical Framework

In traditional rhetoric, metaphor is not related to the essence of language and thus has a secondary role. However, in the 1980s, Lakoff and Johnson developed the idea of conceptual metaphor and challenged the traditional attitude toward metaphors. In the present study, the idea of conceptual metaphor is examined in Sawanih al-Ushaq.
 

Methodology

The present study seeks to examine the main conceptual metaphors in Sawanih al-Ushaq. For this purpose, all the conceptual metaphors are identified using the inductive method. Then, the relationship between these metaphors is analyzed in order to disclose the conceptual metaphors in the text.
 

Discussion and Analysis

Love is the main objective conceptual field in Sawanih al-Ushaq, which has been used to contribute to the understanding of the pre-eternity of being. This metaphorical understanding revolves around three main issues: 1. The entry of the concept of love into Islamic mysticism, under the influence of Neo-Platonism, 2. Love poems that Muslim mystics used in their sermons, and 3. The concept of “union”, as an important component of the pre-eternity of human beings. In Sawanih al-Ushaq, love is sometimes a subjective issue and is understood through more concrete concepts, such as “king”, “desire”, “bird”, “mirror”, and “fire”. 
 

Conclusion

The conceptual metaphors in Sawanih al-Ushaq have a multi-layered relationship with one another. This relationship is either cognitive or a relationship between mega-metaphors and micro-metaphors. The cognitive relationship includes the connection between love and other metaphors of the text and the relationship between the king and war. The conceptual field of desolation is a mega-metaphor. The most important metaphors of the texts are “union is love”, “love is destruction” and “love is a mirror”. Understanding union as love paves the way for all the conceptual metaphors of the text. “Effacement is desolation” is another major conceptual metaphor and has brought about a kind of coherence for the metaphorical structure, and, eventually, all metaphors of the text, in a transcendental process, turn into “love is a mirror”.
 
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