Analytic Investigation of the Narrative Structure in Hojviri's Kashfolmahjoub Based on Greima's Semiotic pattern of Narration

Story narrating has been one of the most important traditions among the Sufis. The mystic writers have always exploited the narratives as a tool for expanding their thoughts. Hojviri is one of those who has been more successful than others in developing and making rich narratives, to the extent that some believe that Hojviri can be known as the best mystic writers of Iran. The major part of the book of Kashfolmahjoub has been devoted to mystic narratives and quasi-narratives. These narratives enjoy high consistency and can be investigated both structurally and semantically. Hojviri has made use of these narratives and quasi-narratives in different part of his book to emphasize his sayings. Likewise, Kashfolmahjoub’s narratives can be investigated according to the new literary theories such as structural narratology. Among various patterns of narratology, Greima’s narrative pattern seems most appropriate for investigating Kashfolmahjoub’s narratives which are very terse and concise. This pattern is remarkably compatible with many folk narratives. After investigating prop’s theory on morphology of narration, A. J. Greimas attempted to achieve a universal grammar for narration. He established the theory of semiotics of narration in his book entitled “Structural semantics”. Accordingly, this proposition that the structure of a narrative is similar to the structure of a sentence has become one of the standard hypotheses in narratology.This study examines the structure of Kashfolmahjoub’s narratives based on Greima’s semiotic pattern of narration. Further, it reveals the flexibility of this pattern in the mystical narratives.