Structural Analysis of Nizami's The King in Black

“The king in black” is the most beautiful story in Nizami’s “haft peikar”. Because of the characteristics of this story, the basis is prepared for rereading of it based on contemporary literary theories which structuralism is one them. Structuralism in literature pursuing a paradigm as a external reference of works which investigates, uses system of literature and because of this reason has a precious place in literary studies. This paper investigates the story “the king in black” by drawing upon Barthes’s idea of cods. The codes are “proairetic code”, “connotative code”, “cultural code”, “hermeneutic code”, “Symbolic code”, and “credit code”. In the discussion on proairetic code we have made use of the theories of Gramas. This article tries to offer tangible example in the story based on three theories for instance on the level of the connotative code human greed has been depicted, but from the metaphorical aspect the forbidden fruit or the idea of ascension etc. have been discussed. “The king in black” is the most wonderful story in Nizami’s “haft gunbad”, and it has the potentials for new literary readings more than any others. And among the Iranian classical stories this story is matchless or, at least, rare.