متن شناسی ادب فارسی (May 2015)
Persian storyteller's scrolls and the need for indexing their motifs with a look on the motifs of Fereydun's tale, a story from Meshkin nameh
Abstract
Storytellers' scrolls are one of the most important parts of the folk narratives of this land. These narratives may clarify some of the ambiguous parts of Persian epic tradition. Volume of these scrolls makes their studies rather difficult. One of the ways which helps us in studying these folk narratives systematically is indexing their motifs. This index will analyze the inside narrative elements of these texts. Stith Thompson in his six-volume motif-index has classified motifs of folk literature in different narrative traditions of different nations and cultures. Thompson's method has given folk literature a kind of pattern or framework that would facilitate the access to the motifs of any narrative and their counterparts in other similar narratives. On the other hand, the international motif classifying system makes it possible to study the similar motifs in different nations' folk literature and will lead us to the comparative studies. Hence, classifying motifs of the scrolls provides a clear list of motifs that can be a basis for easier access to each motif in different versions of scrolls, finding the roots of these motifs, studying the evolution, development and survival of a motif in different periods and also paving a way for comparatives researches in the future. Finally, cataloging motifs of a part of folk literature can be a model for making a complete motif-index for Persian folk or even formal literature. With extracting the motifs of Fereydun's tale in Meshkinnameh, this paper attempts to show that Thompson's method can be entirely consistent with Persian folklore and reveals the richness of Persian folk literature in adding new motifs to the international motif-index.
