A Stylistic Analysis of the Versified Stories by Naser Keshavarz

The versified story is one of the types of children’s narrative poetry which has the characteristics of poem and story simultaneously. Due to having the attractions of both poetry and story at the same time, it can be the most engaging literary type for children. Naser Keshavarz is a prominent poet in the field of children’s poetry; he has achieved a special place among the poets of this literary type by creating over 40 versifies stories during the last three decades. Doing a stylistic analysis on this poet's versified stories at the three levels of language, story and poetry, the present study makes attempts to answer this main question: what characteristics the versified stories of Nasser Keshavarz have in terms of language, story and poetry? To this end, 43 versified stories versified between 1992 and 2016 were analyzed. It was found that Keshavarz tended to use the written language in his primary versified stories, but in his later works, he turned to use spoken language, and slang and childish words and expressions. At the level of poetry, Keshavarz moved from the tendency to use heavy and slow meters towards faster meters and more cheerful music. Concerning the success or failure of Keshavarz’s versified stories, the linguistic and poetic elements were often involved, but the story elements had fewer effects in this regard.