Contemporary Poetry

In the early twentieth century, with the rise of women's issues in the continuation of the world's feminist movements, women's literature was formed in Iran and the Arab world. Women's issues in Persian and Arabic poetry first appeared in the poems of Forough Farrokhzad and Ghada al-Samman. Later, Simin Behbahani in Persian literature and Souad al-Sabah in Arabic became famous poets in the framework of liberal feminism and gave a new interpretation of women's desires and problems. Challenging gender discrimination, they have raised the issue of human equality in a reformist and principled manner. This article has analyzed and compared the components of feminist criticism in the poetry of two poets with a descriptive-analytical method and a comparative approach. Discrimination due to misconceptions about love, marriage, and the emphasis on awareness, freedom, individual and identity independence, and changing attitudes are among the most important themes of two poets. Because of their social commonalities, beliefs, lived experiences, traditions, and similar circumstances, they have described the status and position of women with highly realistic conceptions of common themes. The critical point of view and the style of expression of both poets are non-iconoclastic and in accordance with liberal feminism.

One of the types of myths, alongside those of creation, resurrection, salvation, rebirth, renewal, and the savior, is the myth of memory and forgetfulness, which has also featured prominently in Iranian mystical allegorical tales. This myth has Indian and Greek foundations and has manifested in poetry that is deeply intertwined with mythology. Mircea Eliade has referred to this myth, and Ahmad Shamlu, as one of the contemporary Persian poets, repeatedly evokes it throughout his collected works. The purpose of this research is to analyze the myth of memory and forgetting in contemporary poetry. For this purpose, using a library-based and descriptive methodology, we examine instances of the emergence and manifestation of this myth in Shamlu’s poetry. The results indicate that, in Shamlu’s work, the myth of memory and forgetfulness is interwoven with the myth of the Fall. In some instances, the Anima archetype evokes this myth. In others, this myth is linked to the concept of ‘Alam al-Dharr’ (the World of Particles or the Primordial Covenant) in Islamic and mystical thought, representing the anguish and sorrow resulting from a mystical separation from the Divine Truth. In some cases, it intentionally or unintentionally recalls Indian and Gnostic narratives and shares similarities with the concept of reincarnation in Hindu thought.