Cognitive poetics as a literary theory for analyzing Khayyam's poetry

According to Freeman (1998), conceptual mapping in literary texts can operate at three levels including “attribute”, “relational” and “system” mapping. In this paper, the study of Khayyam's poetry demonstrates that how system mapping of his text world could illustrate the unique aspects of his thoughts as well as showing the reason for his preferred patterns. Additionally, there are several controversies over the originality of some poems attributed to him. In conclusion, the function of different system mappings could differentiate the quatrains belong to different authors as well as offering a close systematic reading.