| Persian proverbs and idioms, while much collected, have been little studied in the contexts in which they are actually used, and a modern dictionary of Persian proverbs with in-context citations has yet to be written. This dissertation takes a step in this direction by examining the proverbial and idiomatic language in a modern Persian literary work, Iraj Pezeshkzad's Da'i Jan Napel'on (Dear Uncle Napoleon), possibly the most popular Persian novel of all time. An index was created of each instance noted of 490 proverbial or idiomatic items identified in the novel. For each item, the index includes: (1) a reference number, (2) a list of references under which the item is attested, (3) a literalistic translation of the item, followed by a more interpretive one in cases where the meaning may not be readily apparent, (4) the page number of the citation(s), (5) the character uttering the item, (6) the character to whom the item is addressed, (7) in-context citation(s), and (8) any additional comments. Items in the index are arranged in alphabetical order by keyword. A contextual analysis is provided for 52 of the most frequently occurring items. For some of these, a range of contexts and applications was revealed that goes beyond the simple definitions found in existing Persian proverb dictionaries. |
