Discourse Analysis of the Verse Narrative Heydar Beyg and Samanbar in the Persian and Hawrami Literary Traditions

Heydar Beyg and Samanbar is a romantic verse narrative known under various titles—such as Heydar Beyg-nameh, Heydar Beyg and the Qadi of Kashmir’s Daughter, The Book of Heydar Beg, and The Story of Heydar Beyg and Sanobar. The poem’s probable author is a poet referred to as Ibn Ṣafāʾī. Alongside the Persian rendition, a versified Hawrami version titled Heydar Beyg and Sanobar was composed by Mirza Kokab Gorani in a syllabic meter. The differences between the two renditions are primarily confined to details and secondary elements and do not entail fundamental alteration of the work’s core theme or plot. In this research, based on Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory, we have analyzed the Persian and Hawrami versions of this story in a descriptive-analytical manner. The findings indicate that three major discourses—those of love, tradition, and monarchy (royal authority)— are interwoven throughout the narratives and exert influence across different layers of storytelling and characterization. The discourses of love and tradition, through semantic articulations, function to strengthen and reproduce the discourse of monarchy. In the Hawrami rendition, the Safavid period is represented as a “desirable Other” or “possible alternative,” thereby providing a discursive means for indirect critique of the Qajar era.