Studying Fictional Motifs in Samname

Studying Persian heroic epic verses affected by narrative tradition and Shahname is one of the areas that can be analyzed from different perspectives. Samname which is considered as the last national epic in Persian Literature and apparently is written in late 7th century and early 8th century – if we accept to be written by Khajooye Kermani- is among these works which is similar to Shahname for it is influenced by epic tradition and existence of a romance element on the one hand and a hero who escapes using his own ways to reach his beloved on the other hand and these features make this work a heroic romance. The present study deals with recognition and analysis of fictional motifs of the work in order to compare it to other fictional and narrative works and therefore to determine better role for Samnameh in evolution of different literary genres in Persian literature. In this study, supernatural motifs including heroic- crafty, romantic and dignity motifs are among most famous motifs applied in this literary genre. Main characteristic of choosing and investigating the motifs in this work is existence of two factors i.e. repetition and motivation which are suitable criteria for offering frequency chart to be compared to other Persian epic or romantic verses.