The Love Poems of Ahmad Shamlu

Poetry. Middle Eastern Studies. Translated from the Persian by Arthur Lane and Firoozeh Papan-Matin, and including an introduction and critical work by Papan-Matin. Ahmad Shamlu (1925-2000) is among the most celebrated literary figures ofcontemporary Iranian literature. The poems presented here, capture Shamlu’s unique depictions of love. The narrator in these poems is a man intoxicated by the love of a woman; a woman whom we meet in the body of his love poetry; a female presentation whose characteristics are not fixed. Due to Shamlu’s widely recognized prominence within the intellectual opposition, the mainstream approach to his poetry has largely evaluated it in terms of the socio-political background of the poet’s era. Taking issue with this limiting approach, the present work emphasizes an alternative reading of Shamlu, based on a primarily aesthetic analysis of the theme of aphrodisiac love in his poetry. Firoozeh Papan-Matin is Assistant Professor of Persian literature at the Universit