A Comparative Study of the Effect of Dialogue on Action in Nizami’s Khosrow & Shirin and Leily & Majnun

The central questions in this study are as follows, what type of dialogues does Nizami employ in Khosrow o Shirin and Leily o Majnun? What is the purpose and function of dialogues in these stories, and what can be achieved by comparing the frequency and type of dialogues in these stories? The dialogues in the story make action and we can see the function of the dialogue in the position and space of a text. This research studies the element of dialogue in two Nizamis‟ poems: “Khosrow & Shirin” and “Leily & Majnoon”, and shows the position of dialogues in the context of the story. In the study, it was observed that about 51% of the story of Khosrow and Shirin and about 28% of the story of „Leily & Majnoon‟ is dialogue. The dialogues in both stories are fit with its content, because the Nizami has created a different way of speaking and different functions for the dialogue that it is due to spaces and contents of story. Dialogue in „Khosrow & Shirin‟ has more abundance and diverse functions because of dynamism of the characters. Lower variation of the types of conversation in „Leily & Majnoon‟ is related to factors such as storytelling style, insolent character of Majnoon and in general, static characters.