تاریخ ادبیات (Feb 2013)
The importance of epic-heroic prose stories in the history of Persian literature
Abstract
Have epic-heroic prose stories been an independent and powerful literary movement in the history of Persian literature? Do all the works of this domain have a common pattern of themes that have been imitated by narrators and writers for centuries? Has Ferdowsi's Shahnameh been influential in the historical course and development of this literary genre? In order to answer these questions, the authors have gone through the following steps: A) First, they have re-read several examples of four works from this literary movement (Samak Ayyar, Darab-nama, Junayd-nama and Amir Arslan) and then, by introducing a model consisting of four sections on epic, transcendental, romantic and dignitic themes prove the claim that the collection of works in this movement always follow a common theme framework that has been imitated by narrators and writers for centuries. This is while the important criteria for selecting these sources are their frequency and arousal. These propositions and their examples are presented in descriptive and analytical form. B) In the last part, the direct and visible influence that the turning point of Iran's national epic - Ferdowsi's Shahnameh - has left in the formation of this literary genre was examined. The important feature of this effectiveness is the presence of different types of allusions in the Shahnameh, which are shown in four sections with frequent evidence. So far, no research has revealed the value and importance of epic-heroic prose stories and the place of this literary movement, and considering that no such research has been done before, the authors, realizing this necessity and lack of research, have tried to examine the importance of this movement as much as possible.
