نشریه فرهنگ و ادبیات عامه
پیاپی 33 (امرداد و شهریور 1399)

In the traditional masculine culture and its gender-oriented divisions, logic had always been considered as a masculine concept. Thinking strategies, in this respect, as well as the ability to make decisions and find solutionsare considered as masculine features, marking women as passive, marginal, and observing agents. If only they were given any active role in the social, cultural and political context, it was mostly regarded as a role coupled with treachery and deceitfulness. Yet, in the Persian public cultural domain, from the crux of which legends have emerged as the most notable literary forms, this very patriarchal cliché fails, and the women come to the scene to address problems by relying on their utmost level of rationality and logic. Such a pragmatic logicism in addressing problems as presented by women in the legends can be considered as a feminine rationality. Borrowing from the Jungian theories and forming an analytical-descriptive approach, this study explores howfeminine rationality is materialized in the Iranian legends. The findings indicated that unlike global clichés and Jung’s reading of the archetypal legends, women exhibit an essentially feminine rationality that enables them to not only help the main heroof the narrative but also play an all positive role. Considering the depth and breadth as well as the appearance of the wise women in the Iranian legends, this study shows the formation of an archetype, called a ‘wise woman’, which can be further appreciated by exploring the legends from other nations

Folk literature is an important tool for discovering the mechanisms of different nations' traditions, rituals, and customs in a social system that seeks to obtain sociological and anthropological data, and examine the elements of cultural identity throughout history. Hence, many folk themes can be studied in local literature, especially in the novel of fig tree temples. Therefore, the present study, borrowing a descriptive-analytical method, has investigated the elements and components of folk literature in this novel. Theresults indicate that Ahmad Mahmood sought to link the mythical roots with the popular beliefs in this novel, portraying the functions of novel's personalities versus nature. On another level, he has depicted the beliefs and superstitions of the southern people

The Shahanshahnameh is the most famous historical epic of the Qajar period, which was written by Fath Ali Khan Saba Kashani in an imitation of Shahnameh. The final part of this poem is about the Iran-Russia war and the heroic efforts of Abbas Mirza. The report of war and the heroic description are the main themes of this epic, and the myths are crystallized in various ways. Myth, on the other hand, is inextricably linked to popular belief. The present study examines the following mythological and popular themes in the Shahanshahnameh: prediction through sleep, magic, Haft Khan, Royantani, divinity, Ferdowsi, Deceptive Cover, Izad Soroush. The main purpose of the study is to explain the function of myth and popular beliefs in Shahanshahnameh as the historical systems. Hence, it was revealed that the themes used in Shahanshahnameh were influenced by Shahnameh or created to mythologize history. Considering the reflection of these themes in Shahnameh, Saba's method of using them and, in fact, the quality of these themes in Shahanshahnameh were also examined to clarify whether Saba had resorted to repetition and mere imitation or had actually intervened in them. The findings showed that Saba has used these foundations to mythologize history because of its predominant pragmatic approach. He derives from Shahnameh, which is sometimes rooted in popular culture; but he also has developed some elements and reduced some others. This research has been done in a descriptive-analytical method and was based on library studies.

Metamorphosisis one of the key issues in myth and mythological stories in which a creature physically changes and temporally or permanently losses its formal shape, as well as its recognized and natural formation to reach perfection or suffer a deficiency; thus, gaining a new shape. Metamorphosis sometimes constructs a part of the creature, becomes eternal, young or vulnerable, or finds a synthetic structure comprised of the human and animal features, and lives contrary to its basic nature. In this study, with regards to the significance of the issue under consideration and the status of culture and folk literature, different types of metamorphosis in the popular culture and literature of the Bakhtiary and Kohkiloye-and-Boyer-Ahmad people are investigated. Going throughvarious kinds of human metamorphosis to an animal, a tree, a bird, heavenly bodies, and vice versa, we shall be concerned with analyzing their literary representations and mythological aspects of different types of metamorphosis among the Bakhtiaries and Kohkiloye-and-Boyer-Ahmad people. This study is conducted fundamentally based on the library and field study using qualitative content analysis. Upon investigating various sources and analyzing literary and mythological representations of different kinds of metamorphosis, it may be indicated that the most important types of metamorphosis in the cultural and belief system of these people subsume the metamorphosis of human to animals such as bear, wolf, iger, and turtle. As a result of committing sinful actions, humans are metamorphosized into a tree

The present study examines the women's functions in the Kohkiluyeh-and-Boyer-Ahmad's folk tales. Myths have long played a significant role in the preservation of ancient cultural heritage among all nations and societies, so the legends of the people of Kohkiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad are not exception. In the structure of these stories, women, like the driving force of the events, have had a significant role in the ups and downs, and protagonist and antagonist characters.

Entertainment is one of the most well-known purposes of a story. In this article, it will be shown that in addition to entertainment, stories played an important role in the political and social goals and conditions of the Safavid era. To this end, the proverbial tales of the Safavid era have been content analyzed. The first major goal in the story of this period is to "propagate the ideological foundations"; the critics of this period aim to promote religious discourse among the masses by propagating the prevailing political ideology. Another purpose of the stories is related to the "political and social" issues in two areas: "Naql, in the role of stabilizing / shaping Iranian identity" and "Naql, in the role of socio-political preacher". It could also be mentioned that the stories have "psychoanalytic" themes, full of fantasies to raise people's health through the imagination or forgetfulness. Another aim of the proverbial tale of the Safavid era is "fun and entertainment." Based on the statistics extracted from the stories, it is revealed which of the purposes of the story in this period were more important than the other goals and why.

Binary opposition is one of the fundamental concepts in the critique of structuralism, and post-structuralism as well as the theories of linguistics and semiotics which are rooted in the mythological and cultural beliefs. Binary opposition shifted from linguistics to cultural studies and was challenged in the postmodern condition eventually. Claude Levi-Strauss espouses a bipolar-oppositional structure to the logic of myth, including proverbs. In his view, the structure of the human mind to understand phenomena puts each continuum in a binary reciprocal polarity. This pervasive mental action will eventually lead to the binary opposition, such as nature and culture. The purpose of the present study, however, is to represent the value binaries in the proverbs of the Ilami people. Due to the reconstructural nature of the case study, the research paradigm was qualitative and the method used was qualitative content analysis. The data is the published books about the proverbs of the Ilami people and some key informants were asked to supplement the information. These people were selected through purposeful sampling and were questioned through semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated that the binary value of the Ilami proverbs includes the following general binary oppositions: rational/irrational; collective/individual; dynamism / stagnation; universalism / particularism; order/ disorder; social capital development/ social capital erosion; moderation/ extremism; and justice/ oppression. These binaries consist of more detailed subcategories that represent a society saturated with opposition. The binary oppositions derived from the findings are largely consistent with the Talcot Parsons model variables.

Archetypal criticism is one of the approaches of contemporary literary criticism that explores and explains the influence of myths and archetypes as well as their role in literature. Individualization is one of the most prominent archetypes of Jung's archetypal theory. In the story of Khorshid-Va-Mahpareh, Khorshid, as the hero of the story, encounters a lot of hardships and sequels to reach his beloved, including magical Arghaván, crafty Aín-balay, cannibal Negros, rival Marzbán, stormy sea, etc. In addition to the archetypal phenomena in the collection such as magic, witches, supernatural actions, and archetypal symbols, archetypes such as journey, individuality, dream, mother, hero, and so on have been used to investigate and analyze individualization from the perspective of Jung's archetypal theory. Accordingly, Khorshid, the protagonist of the story, reached out to his beloved after going through a heroic journey, overcoming shadows and negative anima, and achieved self-individuality through the help of the Old Wise Man and the essence of love, and then had a rebirthed.

Folk beliefs, which are an integral element of the culture of a society, have an inextricable link with myth. To analyze such beliefs, it is imperative to investigate the mythological era and understand the ideas of the ancient time about the phenomena in the universe. It can be said that many of the rituals that are prevalent in people's daily lives today, are actually the mythical beliefs that have changed over time. Shifting from myth to ritual, preserving their mythological underpinnings, they have become folk beliefs, though they might have had major or minor changes. Among folk beliefs that have significant mythical representations, three rituals stand out: "marriage with a fountain", "breaking an egg to ward off a wound", and "passing a patient through a wall hole" that have been common among various Iranian ethnic groups for a long time. The present article, using a descriptive-analytic method, has rooted the three beliefs and explained their connection with myths. The findings show that all three of these rituals have a mythical origin; that is to say, the marriage with the springs is a remnant of the myth of sacrificing for the springs in order to please the owner of the water. After the shift from myth to ritual, it has turned into marriage with the spring. The egg-breaking ritual is also associated with the myth of the Seed of the Universe and it can be interpreted as the regeneration of the first creation. Finally, passing the patient through the wall hole is a reminiscent of returning to the womb and repeating the idea of birth. From the mythological perspective, this is a pure and ideal moment for the sake of its divinity.

The similarity between myth and story has brought about theories based on which recurring elements between myths and stories can be explored and analyzed. This research, borrowing a descriptive-analytical method and following the theoretical framework of Carol S. Pearson and Hugh K. Marr Psychological -archetypal analysis in "Awakening of the hero within", and Joseph Campbell's The “Hero's Journey” theory, tries to examine the process of the "hero within" journey in the story of Bahram and Golandam. The study tries to analyze the manifestation quality of archetypes throughout the journey to show that the hero of the folk stories, like the sages, can step into the process of individualism and starts the heroic journey via the manifestation of these archetypes. Analyzing the mythical structure of this story, it turned out that the story consists of three stages of “departure”, “initiation” and “returning” which pave the way for the advent of the archetypes. The hero starts the journey by leaving home, and then the explorer archetype begins. Throughout the journey, according to fictional situations, the inner hero archetype faces metamorphosis and other archetypes arise consequently. The most vivid archetypes of Bahram are “lover”, “explorer” and “warrior” when the end comes by forming a family which shows the "returning" stage to the home environment where the “ruler” archetype occurs. The results of this study show that the story of Bahram and Golandam has a mythical structure, and can be analyzed on the basis of the archetypes theories, due to its psychological approach.