Abstract
Romance poetry in classical persian literature attains its distinct maturity in the twelfth century. While, at first glance maintaining a kind of fantastic story-telling appearance, the romance poem is outstanding for its remarkable expression of human will and desire as well as, in the midst of all the mystical poems that dominate classical Persian literature, for its extremely practical manner of description.In an effort to trace images of women described in the romance poems, we meet with the figure of the ideal woman: Shirin in Khusrau u Shirin written by Nizami.Within Shirin, we find a strong human sensitivity, by no means uncommon among women figures in earlier romance poetry before the appearance of Shirin and at the same time, symbolic mysticism seen in the women in romance epics after Shirin. Indeed, Shirin seems to be endowed with both the sacred and secular, and this ideal image of women, possessing both contrasting features, seems to continue to the present day.
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