A Comparative Study of Anima Archetype in Badr Shakir al- Sayyab's and Qeysar Aminpour's Poetry

According to Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist, the collective unconscious is a heritage left by early generations of human ancestors, which is present within the minds of every individual. In this collective unconscious, there are some eternal images and common universal concepts, called ''archetype'' by Jung. He considers the main archetypes as shadow, mask, anima, and animus, the most important of which is probably anima, referring to the feminine inner personality in the unconscious of a man. This archetype is observable in all literary works of the world, and it has been an inspiration for poets and writers to enrich their works. Badr Shakir al-Sayyab and Qeysar Aminpour are among those poets who have revealed their inner feelings being inspired by this archetype. This article aims at studying and comparing this archetype in their poetry using the comparative approach of the American school. The findings of this study reveal that the presence of anima is one of the most important emotional bases for the two poets, which has appeared in different forms based on the different cultural and geographical conditions they lived in.