پژوهشنامه ادبیات داستانی
سال دوازدهم شماره 2 (تابستان 1402)

In the study of contemporary comparative literature, world literature is recognized as a branch that examines the process of how literary texts are circulated. The term, first coined by Goethe in the early nineteenth century, emphasizes the circulation of literary works beyond the language and culture of origin. Followed by him, many scholars and thinkers challenged his concept addressing world literature and placed it in the realm of acceptance or rejection and doubt. Researchers such as Emily Upter, David Demrash, Pascal Casanova, Franco Morti, etc. Each of their own perspectives sought to draw its conceptual and material boundaries. Hussam Al-Khatib, a complier born in Palestinian, describes the components influencing the literary circulation and globalization of a work at three levels including in-text, linguistic, and external structure. This study intends to use the descriptive-analytical procedure and considering the universal components of the literary work from Al-Khatib's point of view to examine the literary circulation in "Frankenstein in ", a novel by Ahmad Saadawi, beyond the national borders of Iraq. The findings of this study present that the global success of "Frankenstein in Baghdad" is influenced by the socio-political situation in Iraq, the internal and external structure of the novel, the relative advantages of languages, etc.

The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns have been written by The Afghan-American author, "Khaled Hosseini" in 2003 and 2007, respectively. In his work, political, social and cultural situation of Afghanistan are of utmost mportance, and the themes of friendship and family relations, love and betrayal, courage and fear, war and rape and migration are highlighted. In addition to using strong realistic components such as expressing social and historical facts, typical characterization, detailed description of personalities and environments, naturalistic components such as disaster and ugliness, inheritance and environment algebra, sexual issues, and the use of characters Static and passive naturalism have also been noticed. It is also noteworthy that, in both novels, betrayal and rape are the two themes that are initially presented. Concerns such as civil and foreign wars and ethnic strife are a part of Afghanistan's history. The first novel, therefore, is realistic, however, the author’s focus on these issues and ignoring other aspects of life, escaping the problems for which no solution is provided, taking refuge in the safe haven of the West, strengthens the naturalistic aspect of this novel. The most important reason for the presence of naturalistic components in such novels is the unsettled political situation of Afghanistan in the time period of the story. In the second novel, with the war ending and Afghanistan reviving, the element of hope is evident. Considering the historical background of Afghanistan, it is assumed that, despite the naturalistic aspects, a strong realist dimension is still remained in Khaled Hosseini’s work.

The title of the story is the first path through which the writer and the reader communicate with each other. This type of short paratext, directly or indirectly implying the subject of the story, is the first factor that guides the reader to the world of the story, its meaning, and the selection of a specific approach to it. This is more evedent when it coms to the short story because of its shortness, each and every word is used sparingly and functionally from the very beginning. In the current research, the author seeks to examine the functions of the titles in a number of short stories by prominent Iranian fiction writers using a descriptive-analytical procedure. The results show that among the descriptive functions, the titles that are related to the content of the work have a much more significant use compared to the titles that address the form or format of the work. Also, among the thematic titles, metaphorical, thematic, ironic, and descriptive titles have been noticed more by authors. In terms of the evaluation function, referring to the author's moral and worldview, cultural issues such as the Iranians beliefs, political-social issues such as the westernization of Iranians, the domination of foreigners over them, and the failure and disappointment resulting from the August 28th</sup> coup, the issue of Intertextuality and finally, climateism are among the most prominent implicit and hidden values in the titles. They are provided in two opposite categories comprising; unfavorable situation against favorable situation and Westernism against nationalism. With respect to the function of attraction, content strategies such as universality, questioning, and norm-breaking have been worthy of special attention to story writers, and based on their appearance, strategies such as brevity, admonition, and rhetorical issues have been widely used.

In the field of narration, Gerard Genet has innovations that have been distinguished from two categories of language and tone. Emphasizing the aspect and tone of a fictional work reveals new aspects of it and is an indicator for assessing the quality of literary works. In the Persian literary range, many prose narrative works have been created, one of which is the DarabNameh for Beyghami. The author has succeeded in creating a great work by applying various techniques of narrative. This feature is especially featured in the story of "Firoozshah Among the Fairies and jinns". The review of the story based on the opinions of the Genet analytical method shows that in the narrative context, the inspiration in the domain of the narrative is not limited to the total knowledge capacity of the whole and, by interfering with the characters in the narrative process, on the concrete and concrete dimensions of their work It is infected. Also, the establishment of multiple dialogues instead of focusing on the monologue has been made possible by the use of the second narrative focus, which has had a positive effect on the process of communicating the audience with the production text. The use of the subjective mode at a limited level suggests that the characters in the story are more extroverted and dynamic than introverted and passive. In sum, the tone of the narrative in the story, while animating the characters of the story, has created an appropriate context for various readings of narratives..

In the Arab world, moral themes were sometimes presented in the form of poetry and, sometimes prose. However, in the present era, this trend has emerged in an educational context and as a new art called "children's literature". Among the Arab countries, Egypt can be addressed as the pioneer in this respect and the genius of people like Kamel Kilani is a proof to this claim. The present study is an attempt to examine the various aspects of characterization in Kilani's work in a descriptive-analytical procedure via addressing Kilani's collection called; "Ten Stories". As the obtained results indicated, research shows that characterization, as one of the elements targeted in the story, is more direct in Kilani's "Child". For the main characters, more of the narrator element and dialogue is used, and, for the sub-characters, dialogue, description of behavior and face, expression of correct behavior are presentd in a more indirect way. Kilani's work comprises intellectual, educational, and moral goals, lexical and linguistic goals, and themes such as fidelity, honesty, and truthfulness.

Storytelling and allegory are two important and instructive tools for describing issues that are difficult to express in an ordinary language orth ones the audience cannot understand properly. Having that in mind, poets and writers throughout history have used these two tools to achieve their goals. Attar Neyshabouri is a great example in this respect who, as a mystic poet, has used stories and allegories in his work with the aim of presenting mystical concepts to the audience. In the present study, Attar's procedure of using around two thousand stories and allegories in various educational and moral, romantic and historical subjects in expressing his mystical thoughts have been studied, and it has been determined that he, as one of the figures of mystical literature, conveys his message to the audience in a tangible and simple way, and at the end of each story, expresses what he has learnt from the story. This resarch, using the descriptive-analytical procedure, investigates the role of story in explaining mystical issues and, after the typology of allegorical stories, the nine methods in storytelling and narration used by Attar are being explained.

Comparative literature, in its French sense, provides the possibility to understand the similarities or differences between literary works. Gothic literature, as one of the ways of writing stories, is a genre that has emerged in the 18th</sup> century. It mainly focused on creating fear and terror, illusory and melancholic atmospheres based on neurotic characters. Horace Walpole wrote the first Gothic novel, "The Castle of Otranto" in 1764, and many writers followed his lead. Persian Contemporary fiction writing was also influenced by this genre and many works were written in this field. Despite this influence, there is a gap in the comparative study of this genre in the works of European and Iranian authors. This research, using the analytical-comparative procedure, has examined those works that have more affinity and consistency with the characteristics and components of Gothic literature. Furthermore, following the principles of French school of thought, it has examined, analyzed, and compared their commonalities and differences. The findings of the research show that Iranian writers did not emphasize the direct use of the principles of this school of thought. The existence of any similarities between the works of these writers and European Gothic writers is mostly the product of the indirect influence of these writers from Gothic stories in world literature. Based on this, it should be said that Iranian story writers were influenced by this school in three ways comprising imitation, metamorphosis, and innovation.

"Rostam and Esfandiar" is one of the most prominent stories throughout Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. Its semantic depth and richness of content and its great attraction have caused many to prefer it to other prominent stories of Shahnameh such as Rostam, Sohrab, and Siavash. The introduction to this story has been provided even in previous stories. Its depth, richness, and elasticity are not only following the content and plot, but also contain the tricks and techniques that have been used throughout the story. In this research, the techniques used in the story of "Rostam and Esfandiar", which are in complete harmony with its content, are to be discussed and analyzed. The results of the study indicated that the main techniques used in this story are used today in fiction and modern cinema. Furthermore, the story uses not only the classic techniques of storytelling, but also goes beyond these techniques at some point by the provision of some additional elements. Therefore, it is entirely reasonable to use not merely a storytelling technique, but a combination of fiction in Ferdowsi's narrative.

The currnt srudy aims at utilizing Seligman's theory of optimism so as to analyze "Leyli and Majnun" by Nezami in a descriptive-analytical method. The actions and behavioral features of each character in this book of this book and the included concepts provided in the poems are matched with the virtues and components of optimism presented in the mentioned theory. Having collected the data in the ofrm of graphs, the results indicated that Nezami Ganjavi, who is known as a figurehead of sciences back in his time, has paid special attention to nurturing the good human virtues nd spiritual and psychological excellence of the characters (Leyli and Majnun) in his poetry. Also, The results have depicted that the characters are adorned with six virtues that are provided by Seligman's theory of optimism and these evirtues are frequently narrated in this verse as well. The so called virtues comprise Wise love, humanity and compassion for fellow human beings and even beasts, courage in loyalty between the lover and the beloved, the transcendence of existing pure love, justly ethics between the two, and the maintenance of moderation in their thoughts, actions, and behavior of Leyli and Majnun, who are the main characters of this work. It is worth-mentioning that these virtues are also applied to other people in this book.