Public Literature Components in Haft Peykar Tales

Prominent and outstanding literary works are among official literature of all nations. In contrast to the official literature, stands the public literature which is considered as a treasury of culture, traditions, beliefs and ambitions of the general public. Public tales possess characteristics that are quite distinct from the official literature. Nezami’s Haft Peykar is as one of the poetic tales of the official literature; however, its middle stories are of public literature characteristics. This study has been done to investigate public literature components in Haft Peykar tales. It has been done as a library research through a descriptive-analytical approach and the statistical population is the tales of Haft Peykar. The results show that in these tales, there exists characteristics of public stories such as: characters’ stability, generalism, weak plot, indistinctive time and place, identical viewpoint, superiority of ethics and the bold role of destiny. Therefore, it can be concluded that tales in Haft Peykar belong to public literature in Nezami’s era or prior to that. Nezami has recreated these tales through his exceptional imagination and his mastery over description.