Abstract

Iskandar is one of the historical personalities whose life has been applied both by Ferdowsi – in Shahname – and Nezami – in Sharafname and Ighbalname – for planning narrative. Narrations are countless, however, in spite of varieties in narrative forms, all narrations requires a requisite; i.e. a narrator. This is the narrator who is the major source of distinction in almost every narration. In this paper, narrative techniques which are applied by Ferdowsi and Nezami in “Iskandar tale” are analyzed. To achieve this purpose, after a brief definition of narrative, some differences between historical narrative and story narrative are mentioned. Afterwards, both texts are analyzed and interpreted according to the way in which viewpoints and verisimilitude methods are dealt with. The range of success to which verisimilitude is obtained is estimated on the basis of such factors as speech techniques, descriptions, transition strategies, and correspondence to genre restrictions.