شخصیت¬سازی و شخصیت¬پردازی در آثار اقتباسی از مثنوی مولوی برای کودکان و نوجوانان

characterization and personification are two important components in the fictional works for children and young adults and due to their prime importance, writers pay much attention to the selection and performance of fictional characters of their works. they are also of great importance in the adaptation of ancient literary texts so that the characters are the means of expressing the writers’ thoughts and messages. the characters of adapted works of molavi best represent this subject. in this paper different types of characters in 35 adapted works of masnavi for children and young adults, namely the self-willed aunt, the secret of the talking bird, are introduced and categorized. the most important characteristics of these works are presented and it is argued how the writers have made changes in characterization. the works are selected from among 128 adaptations due to several reasons; the first one is that these works are often single- narrative works; collections of stories were not considered because of their length. this research is dedicated just to the investigation of recreated and rewritten adaptation works. the aim of studying characters in the adaptation works of masnavi is that all types of characters can be clarified and categorized and also their symbolic aspects discussed. key words: children’s and young adults’ literature, description, character, personification, conversation, masnavi of molavi