Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Tohid Teymouri ¹
• Morteza Hoseinzadeh ²

¹ Assistant Professor of English Literature, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Zanan, Zanjan, Iran

² Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Zanjan

Abstract

This article proposes a philosophical theory of narrative time in literature grounded in Mullā Ṣadrā’s temporality. While dominant literary theories approach time primarily as a formal structure or a set of narrative techniques, this study offers an ontological account based on key concepts of al-ḥikma al-mutaʿāliyya, including substantial motion, the fluid now, continuous unity and renewal-based multiplicity, and the tripartite distinction of time–dahr–sarmad. From this perspective, narrative time is not an external framework for events but the gradual mode of existence and identity of the text itself, actualized through the reader’s engagement. Narrative time is defined as the measure of the text’s motion, characterized by organic continuity alongside the uniqueness of each moment. The fluid now clarifies the reader’s temporal experience, emphasizing the reader’s role as an active co-producer of narrative time. Moreover, the distinction between time, dahr, and sarmad provides a model for analyzing textual meaning on three levels: narrative progression, thematic depth, and absolute or transcendental significance. These theoretical principles are applied to “Gīleh-Mard,” demonstrating how narrative time emerges through natural, spatial, and psychological movements, how the protagonist’s transformation unfolds through continuous and intrinsic stages, and how rhythm, repetition, and horizons of expectation shape the reader’s experience of the fluid now. The study concludes that Sadraean temporality offers a powerful interdisciplinary framework for literary criticism.

Keywords

• Sadraean temporality
• narrative time
• substantial motion
• fluid now
• time–dahr–sarmad
• literary theory