Application of Symbol in Three Parts of the Structure of a Narrative from Haft Peykar

One of the different kinds of literary criticism is mythological criticism which is a method born out of Yung’s theories on collective unconscious. A mythological critic’s task is to analyze the archetypes of a literary work as representations of the collective unconscious of the writer or the poet’s mind; archetypes which are prevalent in that society or people’s mind or above that, in all humanity. Human’s mind often turns such archetypal beliefs and behaviors into symbolic ways, and one manifestation of the appearance of such archetypes as symbols alongside dreams and sleep, etc. is literary creations.Nizami’s Haft Peykar is a work full of mythical symbols and archetypal applications. In this essay, it is tried to offer an analysis of a verse narrative of this work using the tools that Yung’s psychological model in relation to collective unconscious and also Northrop Frye’s theories on mythos give us in order to shed light on the symbolic applications of this narrative.