A Comparative Study of Religious Themes in Persian and Kurdish Children and Adolescents Poetry

Children and adolescents poetry, as a literary genre, has a wide educational dimension. One of the most important educational aspects of this genre is dealing with religious concepts and themes. Persian and Kurdish language poets have taught these notions in accordance with the child’s understanding. The main purpose of the present study is to address this issue through a comparative study and analysis of religious themes in Persian and Kurdish children and adolescents poetry. To this end, using a descriptive-analytical method and a content analysis approach, the religious themes in 40 collections of Persian poetry and in 40 collections of Kurdish poetry were investigated to provide answers to research questions. The main questions were as follows: 1) What are the similarities and differences in religious themes of the two languages poetry? 2) What is the frequency of religious themes in the two languages poetry? One of the most important findings of the present study is that Persian poetry for children and adolescents focuses on the concepts related to the infallibles and the Holy Imams (65%), and next on the concepts related to the divine essence, the prophets and the Quran, respectively. In Kurdish poetry, however, the most frequent themes are the concepts related to God (72%) and then the themes pertinent to the prophets and the Quran. Neither of Kurdish and Persian poetry covers the concept of resurrection.