Comparing the Concept of Love and Its Functions in Poetries of Monzavi and Nâzim Hikmet

The concept of love with all its semantic realm and all its capacity to create and evoke emotions has always been present in the poetry and literature of various nations and cultures, especially in Persian literature. Love has permeated our literature in an aura from myths and legends to mystical secrets and everyday affections. This study focused on finding out whether there is a relationship between the concept of love and its multiple functions, in the poems of the contemporary Persian language poet Hossein Monzavi and Nâzım Hikmet, the great Turkish poet. If we find such an affinity, then we can contrast, assess and classify the prominent functions and elements of the concept of love in the works of the two poets. Following the American school of comparative literature, this contrastive study sought to find similar experiences and commonalities of the two poets in facing the reality and concept of love, and then its linguistic, emotional, social, aesthetic, etc. functions in the language and world of their poetry.

First, an overview of the concept of love and its reflection in the poetry of two poets (Hossein Monzavi and Nâzım Hikmet) was presented, and then the elements and functions of the concept of love in their works were compared, analyzed and classified.

A contrastive analysis of different functions of the concept of love in the poetry of Monzavi and Nâzım Hikmet does not seek to prove the historical connection and directive interactions between the two poets’ works but aims to specify the similarities and differences of these functions in the poetry of the two poets. Although chronologically, Monzavi could have been influenced by Nâzım Hikmet, whose works have been translated into Persian and known in Iran for years, upon further contemplation we find the poetic style, genre, world and language of Monzavi have no direct relationship with Nâzım Hikmet’s poetry. Among the contemporary poets of Iran, Ahmad Shamlou, who developed modernism after Nima, by presenting prose poetry and creating important and successful works in this field, was influenced by the language, form and even the content of Nâzım’s poetry. In an interview, Shamlou confirmed this influence: “One of those who strongly influenced my poetry, that is, instantly revolutionized my poetic style, is Nâzım Hikmet (Mojabi, 2009: 751).
The emotional and lyrical function in the poetry of the two poets is one of the most powerful and prominent elements of their poetry, which has been analyzed by referring to examples of their poetic expressions and their roots.
Emotions in Hossein Monzavi’s poetry represent one of the important elements of the artistic geometry of his poetry. Emotional expressions never subside in different stages of his life and the course of his poetry. His poetry is replete with representations of emotions such as joy, sadness, longing, fear, hope, expectations, the pain of separation, and lover’s suffering: “The most important thing that has added to the prominence and impact of Monzavi’s sonnets is the spirit of pure lyricism and the central role of love in his sonnets” (Hosseinkhani, 2005: 106). An analysis of the lived experiences of Monzavi and Nâzım Hikmet about love and being loved reflects a type of love in their works, which is the outcome of a kind of emotional behavior of the poets themselves and their romantic lives. In the book Philosophy of Love, the author refers to two important barriers to love in the contemporary world; One is the promotion of safe love in the sense that in the modern capital-oriented world, the riskiness of love, which is the natural recompense of love, is negated and safe love is promoted and thus love is diminished to the level of a safe relationship, and the other flaw in our time is its denial and suppression.
Highlighting the dangerous nature of love is one of the bold functions of the concept of love in the poetry of Hossein Monzavi and Nâzım Hikmet. This common and continuous function is predicted in the poetry of these poets; Because, in addition to a kind of cultural and collective belief in the reciprocity of suffering and love, Monzavi and Hikmet were victims of partings and heartbreaks, and part of their lived experiences has been formed in pain and suffering caused by love. Thus, they have numerous poems that have focused on this theme. In some of his poems, sometimes directly and sometimes with a symbolic expression, Nâzım Hikmet considers the suffering lover to be the victim of the beloved. In the following poem, he points to the male bee as a symbol of love: “The male bees are trying to reach her. Finally, the strongest of them embraces her. Their connection did not last a second. He shook himself and the female bee separated from him. The male bee fell to the ground with his body torn to pieces”.
The important point is that Hossein Monzavi and Nâzım Hikmet are both the most capable poets of their era in creating the aesthetic functions of poetry. The aesthetics of the poetry of the two poets has a lot of power and attraction, and for this reason, each of them is considered an important and influential poet in their own culture and language. All the themes, concepts and contents of the poetry of the two poets are expressed with aesthetic function and artistic methods focusing on social and protest themes to the deepest human emotions and universal concepts. The concept of love in their poetry is based on their belief in love and their deep personal experiences of love and its representation in various linguistic and formal beauties.  Using harmonized rhetorical techniques and effective image creation including similes and metaphors, Monzavi’s poetry contains new compositions and optimally uses linguistic and musical capacities to turn romantic themes into powerful aesthetic elements of his poetry. That is, the most artistic language behaviors have appeared in his lyrical poems. His dynamic and creative images representing the beauty and heart-wining effects of the beloved are some of his most successful poetic techniques.

The present study showed that the concept of love is one of the main and most comprehensive thematic aspects and layers of meaning in the poetry of Hossein Monzavi and Nâzım Hikmet, with the difference that the world of Monzavi’s poetry is based on the concept of love. However, due to metatextual issues, his lyric poems have also other functions. In contrast, the essence of Nâzım’s poetry is the wisdom of struggle and protest. Moreover, due to his belief in the concept of love and his deep emotional experiences, the concept of love has found a special place in his poetry. Besides, the two poets’ focus on love in their poetry based on their intellectual backgrounds and personal experiences has caused similar and close perceptions of the concept of love and has had similar manifestations in the layers and elements of their poetry.
Furthermore, the expressions of the concept of love in the poetry of these poets have led to multiple elements and functions, including the emotional and lyrical function, the social and protest function, the earthly and individual function, the aesthetic and lyrical function as reflected in the poetry of both poets. However, there are differences in linguistic representation of these themes in their poetry. Overall, the findings from this study indicated that the common functions of the concept of love in the poetry of two poets in two different countries, two languages and two different cultures confirm that a great and comprehensive human concept, such as love, can overcome many linguistic, social, climatic and artistic differences, become a common ground for literary and artistic works, and bring them closer together from different aspects. Thus, with comparative research, we can discover and reveal these common grounds and expand the cultural interactions between different nations through literature.