Intertextual study of the notion of Simorgh in The conference of the birds by Jean-Claude Carrière

The conference of the birds of Jean-Claude Carrière is one of the great theater plays inspired from Mantiq- ut-Tair. Carrière has tried to maintain the principal form of Attar’s work and by considering the constraints of theater, he has made some changes in the source text. One of the main changes is the transformation of Simorgh’s notion. In fact, by relying on the criterias of his worldview, which tends to be like a quasi-mysticism terrestrial, he has supposed another meaning for Simorgh, being in contrast with Attar’s celestial mysticism. In this analysis, we try to verify the notion of Simorgh, by profiting from the analytical theories of Genette in intertextuality. In addition, we attempt to answer the questions about how the mystical character of Simorgh was presented, from an intertextual viewpoint, and by which changes? And how a non- Persian contemporary text, like The conference of the birds, has succeded to transfer the message of Attar in a different form?