A Review of the Textual Structure of a Story of Attar and Rumi Focused on Bayazid

Abstract The purpose of this study is to find out how the two patterns of textual structure act in stylistics, and which one is a more suitable choice for this type of research. The textual structure is a pattern for analysis of the story structure, which is presented as a component of narrative stylistics in the book Stylistics (Simpson, 2004). This research is conducted on an anecdote from Manteq ot-Tayr and an anecdote from Masnavi with Bayazid Bastami as the main character. The research methodology includes reviewing 6 stages of Labov's model and reviewing 31 functions and 7 characters of Prop's model on different parts of both anecdotes. The results of the study show that although both mentioned patterns are introduced for reviewing the textual structure of a story, though Labov's pattern for the textual structure is more suitable for analysis of mystical poems, and through its review, various aspects of the context of narrative discourse in an anecdote can be understood, Prop's model is more suitable for analysis of folk tales, and matches more with the structure of those tales. In folk tales, as prop believes, the story starts with wickedness (A), shortcoming or a need (a), and through some actions of the intermediary, it leads to marriage (w) or some other actions that are considered as the ending to the story, which we are not encountered in mystical poems. Hence, the application of the above models, which demonstrates the structure of the story, could be useful in narrative stylistics and Labov’s model is more efficient for mystical poetic anecdotes.