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This paper studies the concept of metafiction in Charmshir’s play Dastan-e door vaderaz-e safar-e sultan … be diyar-e farang (1998). Metafiction, as a result of an analytical perspective emerged first in modern novels, attempts to challenge the conventional frame of fictional reference to the reality of the external world as it is suggested in literary Realism. In this type of stories, narrative elements such as plot, character, time, and place are no longer representatives of imagined reality, but they in fact reflect a perpetual conflict between art and reality. However, it can be suggested that reality here is subordinated by the referents of the external world. Linguistically, metalanguage and poetic functions of drama would dominate its object language. The story then will be directed toward its narrative elements as well as its own process of creation. Adaptation and meta-historiographyare some of the other features of this style of writing stories which is associated with parody and irony. Charmshir’s play is not really a narrative of the king’s long journey to Europe;rather it is a challenge for the playwright to realize a metafictional probability in form of a postmodern drama. This play is an artwork about the process of building an alternative story and is a new exploration on narrative facts.The elements such as characters, structure, plot, the authority of the narrator, and the style of narrative are no longer the hidden parts of drama in the representation of the story and meaning;in fact, they are the story in itself. The foregrounding of language here is an ironic reference to literary and dramatic texts while it is a fictional device for fabricating history and manipulating data by which the reader expects to receive narrative information. This studyunravels new aspects of narrative structure in Iraniandrama using an analytic-descriptive approach.

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Of all the ritualistic forms of drama in Iran, Shabih-khani is the most sophisticated one. It sums up in many ways the entire dramatic forms and ancient Iranian rituals. It consists of some dimensions of other art forms, such as painting and architecture, and, most significantly, includes aspects of music and poetry. On the other hand, there is little doubt that the most overarching historical trend in Iran pivots around Sufi philosophy and literature. Sufi themes and moods as well as its mystical philosophies have largely characterized the most notable works of poetry and prose in Persian literature. The predominance of Sufi philosophy in literary works notwithstanding, Sufism can be traced in many of the existing art forms in Iran, not to mention in its quotidian culture. In this article, it is aimed to demonstrate some of the impacts of the Sufi and mystical philosophies on Shabih-khani. Our research illustrates that in Shabih-khani, we face much less a representation of historical reality than a popular interpretation of history intertwined with such discourses as Sufism. Having focused on the play which dramatizes Imam Hossein’s martyrdom, we have attempted to lay bare the most important forms of these interpretations.