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Mythanalysis of “A Profound, Vast, and New Study of the Fossils of the Twenty-Fifth Geological Period” by Abbas Nalbandian
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Mahtab Pouyamanesh   |
| Department of Performing Arts, Faculty of Cinema and Theatre, University of Art, Tehran, Iran |
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Abstract: (13 Views) |
The Theatre Workshop was one of the principal avant-garde groups shaping the dominant intellectual current in the theatre of the pre-Islamic Revolution era. It reflected the psychological instabilities and insecurities, doubts and anxieties, and the atmosphere of despair and fear that gripped Iranian society at the time. Iran, during this period, on the one hand, placed its hope in the forces of empirical rationality and, on the other hand, found itself exposed to the invasion of internal malignant forces and unbridled human greed, rendering the defence of humanity against these forces essential for the preservation of society. Abbas Nalbandian, as a foundational figure of this group, adeptly reflected such dimensions in his works while simultaneously preserving ancient Iranian cultural and mythological themes in his plays. This paper seeks to address two primary questions: First, what do the mythological and myth analytical aspects of Nalbandian’s works reveal about the artist, society, and their interrelation in pre-revolutionary Iran? Second, how can a mythological framework root in Iranian cultural myths prove effective in analysing such works? To address these questions, a myth analytical approach informed by the theories of Carl Gustav
Jung and Gilbert Durand were adopted to examine the mythological themes present in the play A Profound, Vast, and New Study…. The research follows a qualitative methodology employing a descriptive–analytical approach, with data collected through library research and analysed using Mythanalysis. The results indicate that the aforementioned work utilises the framework of Iranian cosmology to demonstrate that a humanity which, in its arrogant rationality, desecrates the Iranian sacred elements) Akhshij (of the world) earth, water, fire, and wind (, inadvertently unleashes the primordial forces of chaos. The method of mythanalysis, when examining Iranian cultural myths and archetypes, can serve as a highly effective tool for explicating and introducing prominent Iranian dramatic works.
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Type of Study: Research |
Subject:
Special
Received: 2026/06/30 | Accepted: 2025/12/31
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