A Comparative Study of the Archetype of Hero's Journey and Return in Shahnameh and Odyssey

The objective of the American school of comparative literature is to study the cultural relations between nations and find out the similarities and differences in human thoughts. Jung uses the notion of “cultural unconscious” when talking about the common literary and cultural heritage of man. The similar narratives of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and Homer's Odyssey can be explained via the commonality of the hero’s voyage and return archetype embedded in both works. Archetypal or Jungian criticism is interdisciplinary in nature and is considered one of the approaches in contemporary literary criticism. The researchers use a descriptive-comparative method to show how archetypal criticism within the general framework of American school of comparative literature can shed light on the potentials of archetypal criticism to reveal the similarities in Indo-European epics which share common myths and archetypes.