| Abstrakt: |
Contemporary narrative theory came to being with Russian Formalism and developed through the work of authors and critics such as Sheklovsky, Todorov, and Strauss. Relying on Saussure's linguistic theories, literary structuralism flourished in the 60s. Structural narratology started in 1928 with the publication of Vladimir Propp's Morphology of Fairy Tales. Propp, a Russian anthropologist, claimed that despite apparent differences, all stories follow similar actions and share similar characters. He believes there are fixed and changing elements in the stories. Names and traits may change, but the actions remain the same. Propp categorizes his findings in four formulas: fixed elements, 31 functions, and 7 spheres of action. This paper tries to reread Shahnameh's Bizhan and Manizheh from Propp's perspective to see if it complies with it or not. Finally, it concludes that it is compatible with the 31 functions, though Propp does not go beyond the surface structure and ignores key components such as motives, starting points, ethics, and religious considerations. Also some of the functions are not found in the story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
