Analysis and Comparative Study of Attar’s “Manteqo-Teir” and Hugo’s “Centuries Legend”

The Iranian and French nations found their intimacies towards each other since the seventieth century. The reaction of both the writers and the critics towards the attraction they felt for Iran, was peculiar and multi-dimensioned. At first they praised the old heroes such as Cyrus. Later on they became familiar with the “A Thousand and One Nights” story and also Saa’di’s Golestan through the religious promoters, tourists and other travelers. They used the Iranian works as a guideline for social, political, religious and self criticism. They were interested in Zoroastrian as the “oldest religion”. Once they got familiar with the other works of the Iranian poets, the French authors were inspired by them in creating new literary works. In addition to these, they praised Iran as the country of justice, truth and innocence; whereas they considered a group of the Iranian poets as the holders of mere morality. Some of the French were quite keen on the Iranian mysticism. Victor Hugo is the first French author to use such concepts regarding the Iranian mysticism in writing his epical masterpiece; “La Legende des Siecles”. In this work man’s destiny is combined and intermingled with the destiny of the stones, the Gods and stars. “La Legende des Siecles” is the expression of man’s condition. This work covers many different writing forms simultaneously; history, story, philosophy, religion and science. The poetry published based on Hugo’s handwritings ( Book 2 & 3),imply that Hugo was consciously, or unconsciously, influenced by his past studies; and therefore inspired by Attar’s book; “Manteqo--Teir. This essay intends to compare these two works