10 • Brevity, Verbosity and Balance (īǧāz, iṭnāb, musāwāt)
abstract
This chapter, the last in a series of eight, each of which addresses a different topic within the Persian science of meanings (ʿilm-i maʿānī), examines ‘brevity, verbosity, and balance’ (īǧāz, iṭnāb, musāwāt). This chapter considers how utterance length can be manipulated. It also provides a taxonomy of various techniques of shortening or lengthening an utterance in an eloquent manner. Examples, mainly from Persian poetry, are given as illustrations.