Mental and Physical Characteristics of Women and Their Role in Romantic Relationships

Many poets have dealt with and referred to the subject of woman. Their attitude towards woman is affected by public perspective and their personal experiences. Having looked at descriptions related to relationship of man and woman in Ahmad Shamloo's and Nezami Ganjavi's poetry, this paper attempts to introduce two different and general views on woman role and characteristics. Although Nezami attempted to free woman from her down graded status in the society of that time, he failed to surpass the common discourse surroundings dominating his time, and despite his pure and glittering descriptions of woman, the woman in his poetry possesses hegemonic qualities which shows her inner weakness. In this poetry Romantic relationship (affairs) is formed on superficial beauties of lover and beloved as well as their affection and infatuation to a unique face and figure. In contrast, although the woman of Shamloo's poetry possesses no salient features, but has a big spirit, which prioritizes her over other women while being in outmost anonymity. She is not the conqueror of the world with her ire and coyness, but she conquers human entity with her humbleness and humanity. Here, romantic relation is not the consequence of a sensational desire to attain a beauty myth, but is a product of empathy and integration of two ordinary humans with big spirits. Nezami's Khosro Shirin and poetry collection of Ahmad Shamloo have also been studied and notion of woman has been analyzed. Other documents which have referred to this subject are used in the research process.