Intertextual Comparison of Shahrokhi's Illustrated " Meraj Nameh" and Dore's Paintings of Dante's " Devine Comedy"

Dante’s Devine Comedy, the greatest European literary work of Middle Ages (1300.A.D), and Meraj Nameh (a description of Prophet Muhammad’s Ascension written in prose) are regarded as two examples of a spiritual journey to the hereafter. The creation of such works which resulted from religious and ethnic beliefs in the two Western and Eastern cultures has always inspired artists (poets, authors, and painters) throughout different eras. Gustave Dore’s illustrations of Dante’s Devine Comedy in the West and images of the illustrated version of Shahrokhi’s Meraj Nameh in the East can be considered as comprehensive expressions of Passage phases and description of events in such works. Since the most important references in the mentioned pictures and illustrations are intertextual (narrative – visual) ones - also known as intersemiotic translation- a question raised here is whether it is possible to discover the similarities between the two mentioned works through intertextual reading and comparison of the pictures.With the assumption of the influence of the Eastern literature–especially Resaleh Merajieh– on Dante (as researchers believe) and applying an indirect contrastive– intertextual approach, the present study attempts to introduce and compare the similar pictures from an intertextual– narrative viewpoint.Previous studies indicate the existence of pictures with similar themes and contents in various phases of the journey such as the prologue, the Hell and the Heaven in the two works which, though similar in content and theme, take different imaginary viewpoints in their manifestation due to basic cultural differences.