جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "قصه های پریان" در نشریات گروه "ادبیات و زبان ها"

"Fairy tales" are considered one of the popular narrative and literary genres in the world. The global spread of these stories is such that reaching a convinced and comprehensive theory about the origin of fairy tales has been associated with many challenges and difficulties, as well as the views expressed in this field also face many challenges and problems. The widespread popularity of these stories in Indo-European cultures, and the existence of similar narrative patterns, elements and functions in these stories are other issues that show the necessity of research to explain the narrative and historical origins of fairy tales. In this article, in order to analyze the narrative and historical origins of the formation of fairy tales; the problem of the ancient spread and dissemination of these stories in Indo-European cultures; ritual and epistemic functions of these stories in these cultures and its connection with the cultural and ritual foundations of the Indo-European peoples, relying on the narrative, ritual and mythological evidence, we investigate and analyze the origins of the formation of fairy tales. The results of the research show that the primary origin of the formation of fairy tales goes to "the second millennium BC"; That is, it goes back to the period of confrontation between the Indo-European peoples in Iran, Asia Minor and Europe with the native cultures and rituals of the lands they migrated to, as a common narrative and epistemological system can be seen in these stories, which had an educational function with a political-ideological approach for their audience and in connection with the young or adult audience, they have had their own special narrative and cultural form and function. Also, the long-term and ancient continuation of these stories has been the source of the formation of some narratives such as exogamy.

Structural unity is an essential element in epic narration, as the epic work has a beginning, middle, and end to reach its ultimate goal. This essence has been considered since the time of Aristotle. In Persian epics, despite the dominance of cohesive plot over the narration of each story, in the macro-structure fashioning the collection of stories within a work, in some cases we come across episodic stories lacking a clear causal relation with the stories before and after them. In such cases, we encounter narratives in multiple levels. This particular form of narration is the ground for the core discussion in Ferdowsi's Shahname. While some scholars assert that Shahnameh is episodic and structurally incoherent, others admit to a coherent structure, disregarding the idea that its episodic nature has spawn the structure to break. The episodic nature of such stories as “Rostam and Sohrab” and “Bijan and Manijeh” has long been considered by scholars, but apart from these two, there are other episodic stories in Shahnameh. In addition, in other Persian epics, despite being more integrated in structure (and, of course, more abridged) than Shahnameh, episodic stories could still be unmasked. Unveiling these episodes is possible through carefully distinguishing between the “pattern fashioning the episodes” and the “macro and recurrent pattern fashioning the structure of the work.” These pieces also lose the coherent connection with what comes before and after them in the narrative line of the work; consequently, they are deemed sub-episodic narratives. This can indicate the structural difference between the stories of this ilk and other epic stories. The recurrence of such a characteristic in Persian epic narratives leads us to explore what this feature is and discover why. The questions that arise in this regard could be answered adopting a critical approach: What is the essence of the structure of episodic narratives? What mythological archetypes shape the structure of these pieces? How is the process of embedding them within the macro and integrated structure of epic narratives? And, how do they relate to the macro-structure fashioning epic narratives? In order to achieve reliable results, and of course to keep the paper at a reasonable length, the two important epics of Shahnameh and Bahmannameh have been selected as the excerpt in this study.

Eleven episodic stories have been gleaned through a thorough examination of the two works of Shahnameh and Bahmannameh. The titles are as follows: Rostam and Tahmineh, Akvan Div, Bijan and Manijeh, Shapoor and Mehrak's daughter, Bahram Gur and four sisters, Bahram Gur and Barzin's daughters, Bahram Gur and the daughter of an old jeweler, Bahram Choobin in the palace of the woman of magic, Bahman meets a fairy, Barzin Azar and daughter of Borasp, Rostam of Tur and daughter of khan of China. With an all-inclusive perspective toward the totality of the narrative of these stories, as well as the functions and elements that make up their structure, the recurrent narrative minima in the structure of the stories are extracted as follows: (1) disappearance of a creature, (2) giving reports, (3) receiving reports, (4) prohibition, (5) violation of prohibition, (6) mediation, (7) absence (departure of the hero), (8) deformation, (9) Deception (Evil), (10) Conflict (Battle), (11) Elimination of Evil, (12) Marriage (Wedding), (13) Return. These minima are the recurrent and reduced elements in the structure of such stories that cannot be further broken down with respect to the structure, act as materials and codes in the structure of the mythological narrative, and play a fundamental role in the formation, permutation, and conveyance of the mythological narrative. Such a characteristic, on the one hand, is the tool to convey and articulate myth in various forms, and on the other hand, due to the stability of these codes (despite the variety of superstructures and forms), it is possible to investigate the mythological deep-structures, as well as evolution of structures. In the structure of the episodic stories under study, the chain of narrative minima corresponds to the same sequence of thirteen extracted minima; in other words, certain minima with the same sequence are repeated in the structure of episodic stories. Although the number of these minima is not the same in all stories or all the supposed minima are not included in one story, their sequence has been preserved and each minimum is in its supposed place within the story structure, elucidating the distinct structure of episodic stories in epic narratives. This structure owns its distinctive characteristics that make it significantly different from the macro-structure fashioning epic narratives in terms of the type and structural position of narrative minima. For instance, the initial change in episodic stories that leads to movement in the story world occurs with the “disappearance of a creature (usually a horse and sometimes a bird of prey).” The function of “evil” in these stories is almost identical to that of “deception” and, unlike the function of “evil” in epic stories, it is not grounded on conflict. Moreover, unlike epic narratives, the element of “conflict or battle” in these stories is not based on war and fierce rivalry, and instead issues such as love, affection and female attraction play a significant role. These elements mark the existence of patterns and deep-structures that are not analogous to the macro-structure of epic in episodic stories, therefore leading to a break with the structure of epic narrative. The recurrence of a similar structure in these pieces also signposts the existence of a unique deep-structure in them that could lead our way to narrative origins that are not the same as the narrative origin of “epic”.

The scrutiny of mythological deep-structure of the eleven episodic stories in this paper (based on the extractive structure) shows that all of these episodic pieces hinge on the structure of fairy tales. The remarkable recurrence of episodes based on fairy tales within epic narratives, and their structural and deep-structure incongruity with the macro-structure of epic narratives, reveals the existence of a particular narrative style or tradition for fairy tales dating back to a farther past than Ferdowsi’s and other epic poets of the Islamic era. On the other hand, the remarkable differences between the deep-structure and superstructure of these episodes denote the great antiquity of mythological deep-structures, as in terms of the roles, characteristics, and actions of fairies, they maintain considerable connections with the traditions related to the goddesses of fertility and viridity. Despite the replacement of rituals like Zoroastrianism with these ancient rituals (and even ritual enmity with fairies in Zoroastrianism), the narrative form of fairy tales continued to evolve along with the evolution of epic narratives until the later periods of Iranian epic narration. However, due to the demonic reading of fairies in Zoroastrianism, the visible manifestation of fairy tales turned out to be more latent in the formal literature of the Sassanid era, and this has been effective in disguising the pattern of fairy tales from superstructure to deep-structure of episodic stories. The mythological root, antiquity, global spread, and the attractiveness of fairy tales among the masses, are the reasons these stories have stood the test of time among Persian narrative traditions. Since the main source of fairy tales in epic narratives has been folk tales, they have usually entered epic works through oral and popular narratives generation to generation, far from the direct intrusion of the ruling ideologies and power structures. The reason explaining the episodic nature of fairy tales within the macro-structure of epics is on the one hand the informal current of narration of these stories, and on the other hand the essential difference between the structure and deep-structure of fairy tales and the deep-structure based on heroic familiarization in epic stories. Despite the noticeable dissimilarities between the structure of episodic stories and the macro-structure of epic narratives, but given the importance of structural unity and cohesion in the of epic narratives, epic narrators within oral and generation-to-generation narration, in order to link these stories with the archetypal and conventional structure in epic stories, they have used the connecting elements that act as a link between “episodic stories” and the “macro-structure of the work.” These connecting elements embody some elements of heroic familiarization or elements of the dragon-slaying myth; nonetheless, the inclusion of such elements and the episodic nature of these stories, together with their lack of structural connection with the macro-structure of the epic are evident, all remarking the essential difference between fairy tales and epic stories.

The mystical texts and fairy tales are often in the field of educational and allegorical literature, and the role of symbols is very significant in the study and analysis of the rhetorical function and contemplation of these works. Symbolism is not only an effective technique in making literary texts but also an accurate device in the evaluation of the contents of these works as well as the most important method to express coded texts. The main purpose of the present research is to examine the function of symbols in explicit concepts and hidden contents of Hediqah's tales, Masnavi's stories, and fairy tales. The quality of using symbolic methods to infer the meanings of these works can lead to a better understanding of the significance of symbolism for the interpretation and paraphrasing of the speech in Iranian mystical stories and fairy tales in western literature. This article first examines the significance of the symbol in interpreting and paraphrasing the concepts of these works using an analytical descriptive method. Then through comparing and contrasting some samples, it attempts to show to what extent knowing features and functions of the symbol is effective in discovering hidden layers of their themes. The conclusion is that the use of the function of the symbol in Islamic, mystical texts is to clarify the inner concepts in the reader's mind, while in fairy tales the ultimate goal in creating ambiguity in meaning is to mature the audience’s mind. With the reader's correct interpretations, these works retain their originality, and such quality turns them into an open-ended text with a variety of interpretative capabilities.

Psychoanalysts and psychologists of different schools have analyzed fairy tales for psychoanalytic purposes. Bruno Bettelheim, a Freudian thinker, seeks to show how fairy tales, using imaginary faces, shape the process of healthy human development and make the process of development interesting and acceptable for the child. The Limped Deer tale helps children figuratively to learn how to manage the two conflicting feelings of love and hatred toward their parents and to preserve the image of the loving parents. In the story, when children leave home, it means that self-care and individualism require leaving home. Running away from the demon is a symbol of the child's conceptualization of the dangers of adolescence as imaginatively disturbing creatures. Siblings are symbols of the need to assimilate conflicting human and animal tendencies within themselves to achieve real development. The whale swallowing the sister represents an unreal death to reach a higher existence. "Replacement", "adjustment and modernization of deep psychological conflicts", "individuality and identity independence", "psychological extraversion", "personality integration", "mental, psychological and social order", "the cultivation of the imagination" are all the most important functions which are extracted from the Limped Deer. Therefore, it is concluded that fairy tales can address the fundamental problems of the child's maturity process figuratively and resolve them in an imaginative and indirect way.

Ruslan and Ludmila is an epic-romantic poem, written by Russia’s prominent poet, Alexander Pushkin. This poem brought Pushkin fame, as it was inspired by Russian folklore fairy tales and revealed his impeccable ability to combine a serious theme with humor. His writing style was remarkably different from the eighteenth-century Russian literature. This narrative poem has not been completely translated into Persian so far; however, there are some occasional references to its general ideas and events in Persian sources. Therefore, Persian readers find it hard to trace the genealogy of the poem. Some scholars believe it is inspired by Shahnameh or One Thousand and One Nights. This study aims to challenge these patriotic but unscientific approaches towards Pushkin’s masterpiece. The research proposed two questions: is Ruslan and Ludmila rooted in Eastern literary trends? If yes, to which (Persian or Arabic) story is it related? To answer the aforesaid questions, a comparative-analytic study was carried out on this narrative poem and four Persian romantic poems (Bahram o Golandam, Jamshid o Khorshid, Gol o Norouz, and Sam o Paridokht). The paper provides the similarities between these poems have to be justified by the literary essence of the fairytale genre and does not indicate their influence on each other.

Vladimir Propp, the Russian folklore expert, suggested that natural sciences study styles should be used in ordinary stories. He believed that classification of stories is the result of many researches at the end of studies but, most of the scholars traditionally classify the subjects and include the working materials in the form of such imposed classification.  Propp himself studied the morphology of one hundred of the Russian tales collected by Afanasyof. He discovered that all the available works in tales are limited to 31 functions. He thought that type of the tale, which should be discovered, is covered under the disordered appearance of the standards ruling on the tales. It is regarded as the first founding of narratives. He determined a symbol for each of these functions and by putting them together, finalized them and reached the wonder tales. Use of modern methodology criticism in classic literature always faces difficulties. This research is an attempt to examine this model in comparative literature. The material used for this study includes a tales of the ” Arabian Nights ” covering the main story and also three other ones. In analyzing this anecdote not only the Propp’s methodological symbols are used but, other symbols have been used as required and finally morphology model of the story are presented. Applying this method which is regarded as a test for morphology, can separate the annexed tales from the main ones based on the reached structural model.