Arash From Mythohistorical Prototype to Beyzai's Recitation

Linda Hutcheon points to the formation of a new genre in postmodern literature which is called "historiographic metafiction". In this writing method, narrative techniques such as introspection, irony, anachronism, and intertextual references are challenged to ensure the history and feasible narrations replace dominant narrations. This writing apparently supports the thought that the existence and nature of realities and not a reality itself should be accepted, and the term "reality from other's point of view" can be used instead of “unreal”. In reading out mythical history of Iran, Bahram Beyzai in the same way attempts to paraphrase and then recreate the text to crash the strong internal foundation of the story. Beyzai believes that myths do not have a solid form. Beyzai's Three Recitations try to readout three mythohistorical stories. The second recitation is related to Arash. Although the exact historical origin of Arash the Archer is not clear, he has been presented in a two-thousand year period of myth/history of Iranian beliefs and writings. The purpose of this comparative study is to find special literary techniques of historiographic metafiction in Arash recitation. Findings obtained from analysis show that Beyzai has removed mythical aspects of this story by critical political-class point of view and by utilizing postmodern literary tricks and then has given new roles to them through a new narrative arrangement. In this study, the mythical and historical importance of Arash in pre- Islamic writings and its effect on the Islamic era literature is studied after investigating the historical identity of myth in Barthes' semiotic system and postmodern literary features from Hutcheon's point of view, and, after that, Arash's recitation is analyzed by relying on intertextual references, differences in versions of historical resources and utilizing historiographic metafiction narrative techniques.