A Comparative Analysis of Simin Behbahani and Souad al-Sabah's Poetry from the Perspective of Feminist Criticism

In the early twentieth century, with the rise of women's issues in the continuation of the world's feminist movements, women's literature was formed in Iran and the Arab world. Women's issues in Persian and Arabic poetry first appeared in the poems of Forough Farrokhzad and Ghada al-Samman. Later, Simin Behbahani in Persian literature and Souad al-Sabah in Arabic became famous poets in the framework of liberal feminism and gave a new interpretation of women's desires and problems. Challenging gender discrimination, they have raised the issue of human equality in a reformist and principled manner. This article has analyzed and compared the components of feminist criticism in the poetry of two poets with a descriptive-analytical method and a comparative approach. Discrimination due to misconceptions about love, marriage, and the emphasis on awareness, freedom, individual and identity independence, and changing attitudes are among the most important themes of two poets. Because of their social commonalities, beliefs, lived experiences, traditions, and similar circumstances, they have described the status and position of women with highly realistic conceptions of common themes. The critical point of view and the style of expression of both poets are non-iconoclastic and in accordance with liberal feminism.