Unadulterated Sweetness: The Case of Shirin from Ferdowsi to Nezami

The character of Shirin is an important figure throughout Persian literature, beginning from the Shahnameh and continuing on to the ghazal tradition. In this talk I discuss the character of Shirin based off of two of the earliest and most substantial Persian literary sources in which she appears: Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (1010 CE) and Nezami's Khosorow o Shirin (1191 CE). I trace the formation and transformations of Shirin from Ferdowsi's epic to Nezami's masterpiece to see if the two manifestations of Shirin are, as some argue, indeed the manifestations of two varying characters, or if they are a continuing presence between the two texts. This presentation will be linked to the panel in that it represents one of the earliest female manifestations in Persian literature, on which the later modern authors draw; authors who will be discussed by my co-panelists.