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Shahnameh  is the whole mirror of ancient beliefs and Iranian's identity in far past years to the end of Sassanid's times. Most of Iranian ancient beliefs are manifested in each three parts of this epical work especially in mythic and epic periods. Herbages are the phenomena that is the subject of contemplation in mythical and also Totemic and anima beliefs which are some of the first forms of religion. The reflection of these beliefs which are sometimes similar to the other folk's myth, can be found in Shahnameh. Worshiping of herbages and the plant ancestry of mankind, which have often been seen among different tribes, are the core beliefs manifested in Shahnameh. Also, some of the characters in Shahnameh are goddess of herbage that their birth and death are the same as that of their mythical sample. In fact, these characters are the transformed models of mythical goddess of herbages.             

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It generally seems impossible to neglect the role of myths and mythical concepts due to the fact that poets are unconsciously inspred by their ethical and contents. However, in contemporary poetry, especially in those of the poets with special philosophical, social, intellectual and cultural attitudes, the poets have widely tried to adapt mythical elements to modern situations and to create new myths from contemporary concepts or realities. Akhavan sales  is one of the poets who has used a wide range of elements of ancient Iranian myths in his poems and under contemporary historical-social situation, has created myths based on the social concepts and realities.                

This paper attempts to investigate the underlying reasons as well as the quality of the creation of myth of defeat in Gheseh Shahre Sangesstan and the quality of the reproduction of some old elements utilized by the poet to depict 'defeat'. 

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Modernist novel and short story have played a significant role in modern retouching of mythical narratives and in their recreation in the contemporary narrative literature. One of the major reasons for the particular attention of these novels and short stories to mythical roots is the necessity that the recent authors feel due to alterations in social conditions as well as the fundamental transformations in human’s intellect and attitude. The disorder in today’s chaotic world, the discourses of which are full of contradictions, irregularities, and rule aversion has intrigued today’s man in incoherent, nonlinear and discontinuous narratives abundant with temporal disorders, a characteristic which has a rich background in mythical narratives. A prominent writer in contemporary Persian literature is Shahriyar Mandanipour, the works of whom can resemble mythical narratives in terms of both the structure and the processing of some elements of story, specially the element of time. This study attempts to demonstrate that just like in some mythical narratives, in some of the stories by Mandanipour, 1- time is qualitative and mental not quantitative and objective; 2- time takes its validity from the narrated event or phenomenon; and 3- time is circular and cyclic not linear and straight. Of course, confirming these resemblances does not necessarily imply that Shahriar Mandanipour has consciously been influenced by mythical narratives

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Seven ordeals is one of the important topics in Persian myth. The movements in seven ordeals do not have a historical nature so that they cannot be generalized to historical movements. As myths are derived from mankind’s active mind, seven ordeals are also the result of mental needs of people and a society and are derived from the historical challenges of a nation. Seven ordeals can be considered as the outcome of the imagination and fantasy of a nation who are threatened. It can be said that seven ordeals have goals consistent with divine regulation and epic moral values.  In Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, interactions among the heroes and champions have been depicted in a very fascinating way. These heroes face various exams during their adventurous lives. These exams can be referred to as ordeals. Sometimes, these ordeals develop and some other characteristics have been added to them and have been made into a complete story. These stories are referred to as seven ordeals. It is just here that myth enters the realm of story. Our aim is here to investigate the key points and common elements of exams, ordeals, seven ordeals and seven ordeals of Shahnameh’s heroes and other epics. This is carried out on the basis of a structuralist, comparative mythology. 

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One of the themes of romances is the fighting of the beloved. In Iran's mythical and legendary history names of women and mistresses like Golshah, Sarvkharaman, Gordafarid, Azra, and Sanambar are found who used to come to the battle field with their lover sand defend them like a male warrior. Such actions are extant in the greate pics or their reproduction and they have been so frequently repeated in romances that they have been turned in to regular themes. In this article the researcher attempts to introduce these poems and their beloveds and show the actions of the female warriors. Ten Stories are studied in this article, including Bano Goshasb Nameh, Rabe’e and Baktash, Sohrab and Gordafarid, The Iranian Princess in Thousand and One Nights, Heydarbeyk and Samanbar, The Killer Hero, Gordiehand Khosrow Parviz, Varghe and ​Golshah, Vamegh and Azra, Homay and Homayoun. 

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Narratologists often make a distinction between classical and modern narratives and contend that classical fiction mainly focuses on characteristics such as the intention of the author, the single and fixed meaning of the narrative, and its closure. In contrast, in modern fiction certain other elements are emphasized like the centrality of the reader, lack of closure, plurality of meaning, and intertextuality. However, with a glance at some classical texts like Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh this distinction can be challenged. For example, Ferdowsi employs certain mythological and symbolic narratives in his epic which had no place in classical literature and at the same time he warns the reader not to restrict himself to the surface meaning of the story. Thus he lifts the addressee to narrative addressee and makes his stories open-ended and open to interpretation

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This paper is an analysis of archetypal elements in Mahan story in Haft Paykar (“The Seven Beauties”) based on Joseph Campbell's Monomyth Theory. Greed is the reason why Mahan starts his journey and duly leaves heaven where he lived without being aware of its value. His journey starts from a palm grove, which is a sign of his spiritual ascension. Since he does not have insight yet, he sees the leaders on his journey as monsters thatmake him suffer during the night but when the night endsthey changeinto light as a manifestation of God’s face.  Mahan meets Anima after passing the thousand step well (the whale’s belly) which brings himawareness, and after gaining awareness he meets his guide who is the Khidr. Their meeting is a rebirth for him and a return to heaven, and the reward and bless he acquiresthrough his journey is an eternal life in heaven.

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One of the most important aspects of analyzing literary texts is the consideration of the reflection of the author's thoughts, wishes, griefs and regrets as defense mechanisms. In reviewing the reflection of an author's unconscious in his or her work, psychoanalytic or psychological criticism is often used, in which the critic tries to reveal the influence of the author's mental constraints on hidden layers of the work or to open textual ambiguities using psychoanalytical or psychological principles. The authors of this article have tried to investigate in a short story collection, Be Ki Salaam Konam?, one of Simin Daneshvar’s most important psychological anxieties, that is, "infertility pain"; a pain which though is not traced in Jalal al-Ahmad's independent works, it is present in Daneshvar's stories and appears in different ways. Be Ki Salaam Konam? has become a feminine narrative of Jalal’s Sangi Bar Goori. The subject of most of the stories of the former is "infertility", which is presented using child, adopted child, and grandson in the form of free or affiliated motifs. Daneshvar uses unconscious symbols such as the old women to suggest infertility. The reactions of characters in the stories to infertility can be described through defense mechanisms such as displacement, sublimation and projection. Nonetheless, throughout the discussion, when necessary, the paper will benefit from approaches such as archetypal criticism as well.

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Firdowsi's Shahnameh, the poetic mythological epic of Iran, is created on the base of opposite forces of the world, namely Iran and Aniran and the battles of their people, because the design of the mythological history of Iran is also basically created on the intercourse of opposites .One of the most comprehensive philosophical views on history is  Friedrich Hegel's attitude. In this view, the nature and purpose of history is the same as nature of the human, and the nature of the human is the attainment of consciousness and freedom. This freedom can only be realized gradually and dialectically; hence, in the Hegelian philosophy the war is a way to dialectical furtherance of history and the inception of the struggle between human beings, as gods and servants, has been introduced as the basis for achieving self-consciousness. The battle between human beings in Firdowsi's Shahnameh resembles the dialectical relation of "Gods and Servants" in Hegel's philosophy. In the mythological part of Shahnameh, the achievement of self-consciousness is only through the battle of the two sides of the opposition, as gods and servants in the battles between Jamshid and Zahak, Zahak and Kaveh (and then Fereydoun), the sons of Fereydoun, and the subsequent martyrdom of Iraj and his reprisal by Manuchehr. This essay, with an analytical-descriptive approach, will analyze the philosophy of the history of Firdowsi's Shahnameh, emphasizing  the relation between "gods and servants", and concludes that in this work all conflicts will achieve a resolution that can be identified as the moments of Hegelian dialectic, and in fact, the path to self-awareness and freedom, and this is the same as the possibility of reading  philosophy of mythical history of Iran in Firdowsi's Shahnameh based on Hegelian philosophy of history.
 

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The two ancient civilizations of Iran and India, due to their long-standing cultural, political and economic relations, have had a relative cognition of each other's identity, which has, over time, become more logical, complete, and at times symbolic. Undoubtedly, in order to understand the history of Iran and India in ancient times and how these two nations interacted, we must inevitably find the historical image of India in Iranian culture. The study of myth, epic literature and versifications helps us to reach historical realities. Shahnameh can represent Iranian and Indian history and culture. In this research, we seek to answer the main question by using descriptive-analytical method and library resources. To a large extent, Firdowsi has remained faithful to historical sources and Pahlavi texts in Shahnameh. The text shows that Firdowsi has followed the sources that have been used and there is no significant difference between them especially those of the Sassanid era, such as Karnameh Ardeshir Babakan, A Relic from Zariran and Kodaynamak and Shahnameh. 
 

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Knowledge of myths and epics is important and necessary to get acquainted with the past culture and civilization of nations. Therefore, it is worth considering the developments that occur in a society’s myths and epics due to political and social reasons and the passage of time. So far, no research has been done aimed at identifying the causes and the changes occurred in the mythological and epical images of Iran in the most important Persian history books from the third century up to the end of the Safavid rule. The results of this study, which was done using the descriptive-analytical method, are: the removal of many ideas of Zoroastrianism from the face of Iranian mythology as a result of Arab domination and the influence of Islam, changes in some of the actions and deeds of Iranian mythological characters and the influence of Islamic teachings on them and their mixing with the Israelites (foreign narratives from Jewish sources), the transformations that took place in the form of characters, stories, and mythological geography, and the mixtures that influenced the Iranian mythology due to the spread of Israelites in the form of contemporaneity, fake lineage, uniformity, and geographical affiliation. Other findings of this study show the influence of the thoughts of the Semitic people on Iranian mythology and the logic of the credibility of the historian’s era on the Iranian narratives, which led to various myths about them.
 

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Kalila and Dimnah is one of the common literary and cultural works of India and Iran and many of its contents were written based on the Aryan thought of these two peoples. In the present article, the issue of social stratification in the chapters “The Lion and the Bull” and “Investigation of the Conduct of Dimnah” has been analyzed with a mytho-sociological approach and with a descriptive-analytical method. The mytho-sociological analysis is a method that can reveal the mythological roots of some sociological concepts. The ideas of Georges Dumézil show that classification among Indo-European peoples was one of the main structures of creating social order. Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore also hold such beliefs in their sociological studies. The analysis of the aforementioned chapters of Kalila and Dimnah with these two mythological and sociological theories shows that the structure of the story of “The Lion and the Bull” is consistent with the class structure of Indo-European societies; a class structure that does not tolerate class mobility in any way and as it is clear in the “Investigation of the Conduct of Dimnah” chapter, those who engage in class mobility will have no end but destitution and destruction. In the studied chapters, Dimnah is the agent of failed class mobility, Kalila is the defender and acceptor of stratification as an undeniable reality; and the lion, lion’s mother, and the panther, who belong to the elite class, are the protectors and maintainers of stratification as a regulatory structure. The stratification in these chapters is another form of the mythical tripartite functions of Indo-European societies, which itself has become the cause of the formation of social classes in these societies.