A Structural and Semiotic Analysis of Nezami's  Haft Peykar', from a Dramatic Point of View

Nezami Ganjavi has always been recognized as one of the greatest creators of fictional masterpieces of Persian literature. However, the studies on his method of narration and characterization are so few in number. On the other hand, most of the works available have dealt with Nezami's life, his literary innovations, and explanations about the difficult verses of him. This shows that there is a lot to be done about his method of storytelling, as well as the patterns of his fictional narrations.This study has chosen Haft Peykar from Nezami's five "treasures", since the dramatic patterns in this work seem to be more vivid, and on the basis of the methods available in structuralism and semiotics, it has been tried to present the reader the dramatic aspects of this work. In order to achieve this aim, issues such as characterization, dramatic situation, action and results, suspense and the active characters have been taken into account so that the proper framework may be provided for further adaptations or rewritings of Haft Peykar.