A Study of Fantasy in Joneidnameh (Prologue to the Long Story of Abu Moslemnameh)

Joneidnameh (the prologue of Abu Moslemnameh) is an imaginary and fantastic biography of life of the grandfather of Abu Moslem Khorasani in which some elements of the real world are interwoven with fantastic fictional elements by ancient story tellers to create a world in which the process of growth of heroes of epic and history are shown. In this paper first fantasy is introduced and the fantastic elements of Joneidnameh are classified and analyzed. They consist of contradictory structure, binary characterization and themes of epic and religion. The results show that due to the harmony of children’s irregular mind with the structure of fantastic tales, they are the best device to organize the inner turmoil of childhood leading toward adolescence.