Examining the transformation of the lyrical genre of romantic poetry under the impact of modernity

The purpose of this article is to study the transformation and evolution of contemporary Persian romantic poetry under the influence of modernity. This study is a documentary one conducted through a qualitative content analysis to answer a fundamental research question. First, the social effects of modernity on love and romantic relationships are explored from the viewpoints of thinkers and sociologists such as Bowman, Giddens, Thompson, and Berman. Then, the romantic transformations of the Persian poetry under the influence of this thinking are studied and explained in the form of ten ideas. The research question is ‘how can the popular genre of love in the realm of the Persian literature be transformed in concordance with social phenomena and evolutions?’ The findings show that ideas such as relativism, assertive self-presence, two-way dialogue, equality and freedom, scientism, and empiricism proposed by modernity have profoundly transformed the lyrical and romantic genre in the contemporary Persian poetry and have presented a different mode of thinking by offering courtship and pure love. The society has affected the realm of love in the Persian literature with its ongoing potentials and changed men’s attitudes, which has, in turn, changed the nature of their personalities. This has ultimately altered the position of love as a legendary and internal sensation into a real and sometimes social state.