A Morphological Study of the Tale of " Zal and Rudabeh" in the Shahnameh

Shahnameh is undoubtedly one of the greatest and most influential epic works in the world. While being epic in nature, it also includes lyric, historical and love tales. The most interesting tale of Shahnameh, which is tinged with a love theme, is the tale of “Zal and Rudabeh”. Through a morphological approach, the present paper seeks to give an account of this tale and analyze its fictional elements such as characters, settings, contrasts, oppositions, narrative structure, and plot. Finally, the methodology developed here will be briefly compared with Vladimir Propp’s morphological methodology.