Story-Telling in the Service of Advice Literature

The views of thinkers about the political leaders are discussed perhaps mainly in texts of advice literature and courtier books. In the past stages of the long history of the Iranian kingdoms, the country was often under the reign of a tyrannical king who was having the monopoly of power. So, any attempt for disciplining the king – who stood at the top of the society - would mean disciplining the whole society also. Therefore, the thinkers and writers of advice literature tried to make him familiar with his governing tasks. For doing this, they often attempted to advise him in different ways. One of these ways in the hand of the writers was story-telling of which they took advantage of different forms and methods while they also tried to alleviate the bitter admonition for them. The present paper is an attempt to investigate the advantages and techniques of story-telling in advice literature.