The Reflection of Femininity in Mahasti Ganjayee’s Quatrains (Rubāʿī)

Mahasti Ganjavi (577-490 AH), renown for her quatrains, was a pioneering poet; her worldview and life condition led her to compose poems that were unprecedented in the poetry of classic female poets in Persian literature. In the past, Mahasti was not welcomed owing to some unsound judgments about her character; in modern time, too, some published studies have done her an injustice. The present study aims at uncovering the feminine features of Mahasti in her quatrains. The research is descriptive and the data are collected by document and library research process, followed by content analysis. The results of the research show that Mahasti's poems express her feminine feeling and experience freely. Her feminine traits include expressing love and affection for the opposite sex, referring to her gender, feminine images and features, silent feminist protest, conservatism, and feminine erotic language, explained in detail in the article.