Review of rewriting and re-creation of old verses of Persian literature for children in the 80s and 90s with an emphasis on Bostan Saadi

Jafari Rad, Akram; Ghafuri Mehdiabad, Fatemeh; Yosefipour Kermani, Pooran

doi:10.22034/naes.2025.495021.1624

Review of rewriting and re-creation of old verses of Persian literature for children in the 80s and 90s with an emphasis on Bostan Saadi

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Akram Jafari Rad ¹

Fatemeh Ghafuri Mehdiabad ²

Pooran Yosefipour Kermani ²

¹ Ph.D. student of Persian language and literature, Anar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Anar, Iran

² Assistant Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Anar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Anar, Iran

10.22034/naes.2025.495021.1624

Abstract

With the growth of children's and adolescent literature in recent decades, in addition to creating new works, rewriting and recreating old works for this age group also began, and these stories created a new form of children's and adolescent literature in Iran. It is clear that connecting Iranian children and teenagers with their proud past and reacting to the wave of translation from Western children's literature was the reason and motivation to turn to ancient literature. The purpose of this research was to examine the rewriting and re-creation of ancient Persian literary verse texts for children in the 80s and 90s with an emphasis on Bostan and Golestan Saadi. Fatemeh Nederi recreates the lessons and important moral and human points in Saadi's works using a beautiful and meticulous language. This book not only allows the reader to get acquainted with beautiful stories, but also reflects on important life issues through attractive lessons. In the parts of the book that he sees necessary, the author first gives a brief explanation about the characters in the story and then explains about their behavioral characteristics in order to familiarize his teenage audience with his character, then he begins his story with a pleasant language.
It seems that the author has tried in this book not to limit himself to rewriting and actually simplifying the anecdotes, and instead of the anecdotes, according to the needs of his teenage audience, he has entered and given explanations to inform his audience more. Despite the hindsight in this story, this story cannot be considered out of chronological order, and in this sense, this book includes the interests of contemporary children.

Highlights

Aghanoori, F., Raisi, E., Mir Bagheri Fard, Ali Asghar; Heydari, M. H. (2022). presenting a model of rewriting Mawlawi Masnavi stories for children, Interdisciplinary Literary Research, 3(6), 1-36. [Persian].

Akhovat, F. (2009). A look at the rewritings of the spiritual Masnawi for children and teenagers, Adab Hamasi Research Journal, 5(9), 396-417. [Persian].

Chapman, S., & Chapman, S. (2020). Literary Rewriting. The Pragmatics of Revision: George Moore’s Acts of Rewriting, 15-30.

Dastranj, M., & Riahizamin, Z. (2024). A review and an analysis of story elements in rewriting several Golestan's stories for children. Iranian Children's Literature Studies, 14(2), 117-144. doi: 10.22099/jcls.2023.46824.1977. [Persian].Deh Bozorghi, J. (2017), rewriting stories with the support of religious story texts for storytelling, Poeish Publication in Human Sciences Education, 3(12), 66-72. [Persian].

Destranj, M., Riahi Zemin, Z. (2023). Structural analysis of Mojgan Sheikhi's rewritings of Golestan Saadi's stories for children. Children's literature studies. [Persian].

Fazeli, M., & Nasre Esfahani, R. (2019). A Study of Principles and Criteria of Rewriting in Children and Young Adult Literature (Case Study: Rewritings of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh). Iranian Children's Literature Studies, 10(1), 149-172. doi: 10.22099/jcls.2018.21849.1410. [Persian].

Najafi Behzadi, S. (2020). Creative or simple rewrite? (Review of Revisited Stories by Weiss & Ramin, Khosrow & Shirin, Lily & Majnoon). Journal of Kavoshnameh in Persian Language and Literature, 21(46), 161-190. doi: 10.29252/kavosh.2020.12932.2664. [Persian].

Najafi Behzadi, S., Mehri qahfarokhi, M., & Alikhani, Z. (2019). Criticism and Review of some rewritten tales of Attar for teens. Critique, Analysis and Aesthetics of Texts, 2(1), 33-54. [Persian].

Payor, J. (2007). "Rewriting and re-creation in literature", by Forough Al-Zaman Jamali, librarian. [Persian].

Saadi Bostan (2014). with the revised edition of the late Mohammad Ali Foroughi, Tehran: Scientific Publications. [Persian].

Sattari, F., Pashaei Fakhri, K., Adelzadeh, P. (2022). Pathology of Mawlawi's Masnavi rewritings in the books of the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents at the linguistic and intellectual level, Journal of Stylology and Analysis of Persian Poetry and Prose Texts, 15(5), 199-214. [Persian].

Yousefi, Gh .(2019). Bostan Saadi, Tehran, Andishe Kharazmi Publishing House. [Persian].

Keywords

rewriting

teenagers

children

Saadi

Subjects