Document Type : Original Article
Author
Associate Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Faculty of Humanities, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan.
Abstract
Abu Torab Khosravi’s novel, The Ravi River (Rood-e Ravi), marks a significant departure from literary realism and formalistic language games, presenting the "word" not merely as a conventional sign but as an independent, corporeal entity. Drawing on a "post-critical" framework and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, this study investigates how language metamorphoses into the primal matter of creation within the text. The core objective is to elucidate the process by which language transcends its role as a representational tool to become the constitutive essence of a self-sufficient world. By synthesizing the mystical cosmology of Ibn Arabi with modern narrative strategies, Khosravi establishes a unique "textual ontology" where the power of genesis transfers from the sacred realm to the author’s pen. Through the analysis of concepts such as "word incarnation" and "linguistic spatiality," this research demonstrates the collapse of ontological boundaries between the human subject and the text; within this system, bodies assume a textual nature, and cities manifest as layered archives. The findings reveal that in The Ravi River, writing is synonymous with living and constitutes the very act of existence. This ontological turn repositions the reader from an external interpreter to an inhabitant of the linguistic realm, offering an unmediated experience of a world where death is simply erasure from the page, and immortality is inscription within the chronicles (Tazkirehs).
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