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Abstract: Focusing on the linguistic and national diversities, the French school of comparative literature has mainly attempted to trace the footprints of the literature of one country in that of another mostly in a historical context. The rival American school, on the other hand, has raised new questions in this field and extended the scope of research to subsume other domains of scholarly endeavors. The present paper first intends to briefly examine the limitations of the French school. It then proceeds to show how the archetypal approach of literary criticism and the American school of comparative literature can be employed to bear fruitful results in the field of comparative studies. Such interdisciplinary approaches can make up for the possible shortcomings of the individual modes of study and make much of the potentials that the concept of archetype can offer for this purpose. The study then singles out the Shadow archetype and makes a comparative study of the concept in two epic works, i.e. Beowulf and Gilgamesh. It finally picks out a structural archetype—hero’s journey-- as an example, to briefly discuss and evaluate such models.

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Whereas recognition of world epic works causes cultural relation and manifests cultural bases similarities and differences in comparison between our epic works with other nations, and conclusions to worldwide peace, in this essay exert by analysis statistical –content – qualitative method till in addition to critic some pundits concerning on epic characters and comparison the nine epic elements and thirteen motifs in Boezuname and Beowulf to answer this question: are alike or vary in source Borzuname and Beowulf that are from two various Iranian and Anglo – Saxon nations?
Studies reason that epic elements and motifs are alike but in valuation on them and custom of demonstration in stories are different.