Rhetorical Replica (Badal Bilaqi) and Its Variants in Hafez’s Sonnets

One of the stylistic features of Hafez’s sonnets is the repetition of a part of the meaning of the first line in the second line. His knowledge of the rhetorical and semantic relations of vocabularies enabled him to repeat the meaning with the least verbal repetition. One of the ways that has helped him to achieve this goal is replicating the concepts in two parts of the couplet based on rhetorical relations between them. The replicated concept, in addition to referring to the first concept or a part of the meaning of that, retains its original meaning. We call this method "Rhetorical Replica" (Badal Bilaqi). In this research, based on the three traditional offices of rhetoric, we have categorized different relations existing between the two sides of the replica. In Hafez’s poetry, methods of arranging the “rhetorical replica” vary. Sometimes Hafez substitutes a few concepts for each other in a verse and creates several rhetorical replicas. Sometimes he creates several rhetorical relations between two concepts, and extents the domain of significance. Also, occasionally he replaces a concept with multiple references which generate numerous significance and ambiguity in the poem. In what follows, through examples from Hafez, the authors of this paper categorize and explain the multiplicity and diversity of rhetorical replicas in his poetry. The frequency of rhetorical relations on the two sides of the rhetorical replica in the three different offices of rhetoric is as follows: invention, 3%; arrangement, 69%; and style 28%. About one third of Hafez’s poetry contains rhetorical replica. And, the high frequency indicates that this is a stylistic feature in Hafez’s poetry.