Daghoughi, the Postmodern Metafiction

Metafiction is one of the modern approaches of story writing in postmodern fiction whose origin is generally assumed to date back to the twentieth century. Iranian philologists also believe that the emergence and presentation of this story writing technique largely date back to the contemporary fictional works of the 70s and afterwards. However, the author claims that metafiction techniques have been deployed in Mathnavi Ma’navi of Rumi. Accordingly, the present study, conducted through descriptive-analytical method, aims at examining the main components and techniques of metafiction in Daghoughi story in Book III of Mathnavi. The questions addressed are whether Rumi could be considered a metafictionist and a postmodern writer and which techniques of this postmodern style are seen in the story of Daghoughi, as a Persian classic text. The findings reveal that Daghoughi story is totally a metafictional and postmodern narrative whose author has applied many components and techniques of metafiction style in its creation including metafictional framing, short circuit, language plays, contradiction, paradox, and adaptation.