The long poems of Nima Yooshij occupy a liminal position in modern Persian literature, often described as “dramatic poetry” for their pronounced use of dialogue, characterization, and scenic construction. This hybrid quality has prompted a substantial body of scholarship that examines Nima’s work through the lens of drama theory, with the aim of measuring the extent to which his poetic texts conform to, or deviate from, established dramaturgical paradigms. Among these paradigms, Manfred Pfister’s model in The Theory and Analysis of Drama remains one of the most systematic and influential frameworks for distinguishing normative dramatic texts from other narrative or poetic forms. Yet the question of whether Nima’s long poems genuinely satisfy the structural criteria set forth by Pfister has not been subjected to sustained, text-centered scrutiny. Addressing this gap, the present article investigates the architecture of speech in The House of Serioville, one of Nima’s most theatrically charged works, to test its compatibility with Pfister’s core assumptions about dramatic discourse.



The analysis proceeds from Pfister’s foundational distinction between diegesis and mimesis, his stipulation of narrator absence as a defining feature of drama, and his classification of stage directions as non-verbal sign systems exclusive to the dramatic medium. Against this theoretical backdrop, a close reading of The House of Serioville reveals three systematic ruptures that cannot be reconciled with Pfister’s normative model. The first rupture concerns the structural role of the narrator. Contrary to Pfister’s claim that normative drama eliminates the mediating narrative voice, Nima’s poem opens and closes with an overt, self-reflexive narrator who frames the action, comments on characters, and regulates the reader’s affective distance. This narratorial presence is not incidental or ornamental; it governs the poem’s temporal and spatial logic and reintroduces a diegetic layer that Pfister reserves for epic or narrative texts.



Taken together, these three ruptures do not signify a failure of Pfister’s model to account for drama as such. Rather, they illuminate Nima’s deliberate formal experimentation at the threshold of poetry and theater. The House of Serioville constructs a borderline genre in which diegesis and mimesis, narration and enactment, lyricism and performativity remain in productive tension rather than hierarchical opposition. The article therefore argues that the poem should be read not as an imperfect drama, but as a self-conscious aesthetic project that expands the expressive possibilities of both modern Persian poetry and dramatic form. In light of these findings, future research would benefit from comparative studies that place Pfister’s model alongside alternative frameworks — such as postdramatic theory, Brechtian epic dramaturgy, or performance studies approaches — to better capture the generic innovations of Nima’s long poems and their afterlives in contemporary Iranian literature.