The Narrative Structure of Attar's Manteghotteir and some Considerations on its Dramatic Adaptation

Attar Neyshaburi is one of the greatest mystics in 6th and 7th A.D. he is also known as the pioneers of Persian storytelling. Furthermore, he has profoundly affected both the mystics and storytellers after him. He has used anecdotes and stories in his works as an instrument to explain and confirm the mystic concepts and elucidate the stages to the righteous way. In this regard, any research should consider attar both as a mystic and storyteller. The present research has scrutinized the content and the narrative structure of Mantiq-ol-Tayr as one of the samples of fictional works of Attar. Mantiq-ol-Tayr is the most widely recognized work of Attar. Some adaptions have been extracted from some parts or the whole of his work. This research aims to explicate the dramatic aspects and alternatives for dramatic adaptation from it. Analyzing some of the present adaptations indicate that most of the adaptions have been faithful, whereas a successful adaptation should consider the background, time, and other related considerations related to the addressee and the targeted one.Using library resources and a descriptive-analytical method, the intellectual content and narrative structure of Attar's works have been analyzed in this paper. Then, some of the narrative considerations related to the adaptation of this work have been dissected for the stage through concentering on the content and theme of Manteghotteir. Eventually, some of the dramatic adaptations have been interpreted and some suggestions have been provided for dramatic adaptation. These suggestions will be probably able to mull over similar works.