تحلیل دراماتیک شخصیت شیرین به‌مثابۀ «زنِ واجد عشق آرمانی» در منظومۀ خسرو و شیرین: از کهن‌الگو تا تراژدی

This study aims to conduct a dramatic analysis of the character of Shirin in Nezami’s Khosrow and Shirin, examining her status as a "woman possessing consummate love." Employing a combined approach, the research draws on Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love and Jungian archetypes to explore the fundamental elements shaping Shirin’s character. The findings indicate that Shirin’s love embodies all three components—intimacy, passion, and commitment—while her archetypal traits, including beauty, chastity, dynamism, wisdom, sensitivity, and vengefulness, play a pivotal role in the dramatic structure of the narrative. From a dramatic perspective, Shirin, as the central character, undergoes a complex journey of transformation and transcendence, beginning with a consummate love and ultimately culminating in a tragic choice. Analyzing her relationships with other characters, including Khosrow, Farhad, and Shiruya, reveals that the story predominantly unfolds through their reactions to Shirin’s actions. Ultimately, this study may serve as both an inspiration for contemporary drama and a foundation for further explorations into the portrayal of romantic women in Persian literature as invaluable reflections of the Iranian collective unconscious regarding love.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
This study critically examines the dramatic construction of Shirin in Nezami’s Khosrow and Shirin, proposing that she functions as the paradigmatic “woman of consummate love” and that her figure mediates the nexus of love, feminine identity, and the play of dramatic form. Love in Persian literary tradition has long served as both a life-giving and tragic force, appearing in epic, mystical, and lyric genres and facilitating the representation of psychological and ethical dimensions of human experience. Within this tradition, Shirin stands out not merely for her beauty and chastity but for her moral resolve and dynamic agency; she moves beyond the passive beloved and emerges as a dramatic protagonist who shapes the narrative’s trajectory (Panahi, 2005). By integrating Robert Sternberg’s triangular theory of love with Carl G. Jung’s archetypal psychology, this research advances a combined theoretical frame that explicates the multilayered constitution of Shirin’s character and its implications for literary criticism and contemporary dramaturgy (Sternberg, 1986, 1997; Jung, 1959).
 
Methodology
The research adopts a descriptive–analytic qualitative approach. Primary data consist of the text of Nezami’s Khosrow and Shirin as established in the modern critical edition (Nezami, 1997); data analysis follows directed content analysis procedures (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). The analytical procedure unfolded in three stages: (1) mapping Shirin’s relations with Khosrow and Farhad onto Sternberg’s three components of love (intimacy, passion, commitment); (2) conducting an archetypal (Jungian) reading of Shirin’s personality traits—relating them to the collective unconscious, anima, and archetypal oppositions; and (3) performing an intratextual, dramaturgical reading of Shirin’s actions and their formative effects on narrative structure (Yarshater, 1983). Methodologically, the study combines hermeneutic interpretation and close reading of emblematic passages to reconstruct Shirin’s internal development and her outward tragic destiny.
 
Literature Review
Existing scholarship on Khosrow and Shirin has tended either toward narratological and plot-structural studies (Fatemi & Dorpar, 2009; Mehraki & Hasavi, 2011; Moradkhani & Beiranvand, 2024) or toward psychological readings of erotic relations (Rahmani, 2020; Houshangi, Nikmanesh, & Nazari Zardalouei, 2024). Studies employing Jungian archetypal approaches to feminine images in Persian literature also exist (Ahmadbeigi, Ebrahimi, & Niazi, 2020; Akbarabadi & Monsan, 2016), and several scholars have applied Sternberg’s model to regional or comparative poetic material. However, a systematic synthesis that fuses Jungian archetypal analysis with Sternberg’s triangular theory specifically to interpret Shirin as a dramatic, archetypal figure is lacking. This study addresses that lacuna by offering an interdisciplinary account that reads Shirin as both a product of collective archetypal imagery and as a site of ethically charged dramatic agency (Asadollahi & Ghasemizadeh, 2020).
 
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical apparatus combines two complementary systems. First, Jungian analytical psychology conceives of the collective unconscious as the repository of archetypes—recurring symbolic patterns shaping myth, ritual, and literature (Jung, 1959; Neumann, 1954). In this schema the anima archetype embodies feminine features—sensitivity, beauty, and intuitive intelligence—that may manifest in cultural texts as enduring symbols. Second, Sternberg’s triangular theory conceptualizes love as the dynamic interplay of intimacy, passion, and commitment; balanced conjunction of these facets constitutes a consummate or ideal form of love (Sternberg, 1986). The current study proposes that Sternberg’s conscious-level components operate in the narrative’s interpersonal field, while Jungian archetypal dynamics operate at the level of cultural unconscious and symbolic resonance; together they generate the text’s dramatic logic and its tragic culmination.
 
Findings
Textual analysis reveals that Shirin’s love exhibits all three Sternbergian components:
1.         Intimacy. The narrative’s opening passages signal an emotional closeness between Shirin and Khosrow that is sustained throughout the poem; Shirin functions not merely as an object of desire but as a reciprocal affective partner and spiritual confidante (Nezami, 1997, p. 47).
2.         Passion. Shirin’s passionate responsiveness is prominent, yet it is decisively circumscribed by ethical self-awareness—unlike Farhad’s ecstatic, unregulated ardor. Passion in Shirin’s case is integrated with moral self-command, producing an elevated form of erotic experience (Sternberg, 1997).
3.         Commitment. Shirin repeatedly manifests steadfast adherence to moral and relational principles; her refusal of illicit or non-binding unions and her insistence on principled attachment are exemplified in the poem’s famous formulation— “it was not fitting to pray at two altars”—a formulation that indexes the narrative’s emphasis on fidelity as ontological integrity (Nezami, 1997, p. 89).
From an archetypal perspective, Shirin embodies a constellation of features—beauty (both corporeal and spiritual), chastity as sign of inner authenticity, practical intelligence, energetic agency, affective vulnerability, and vindictive resentment—that together instantiate an anima figure in the cultural unconscious (Edinger, 1992; Scruton, 2009). Her beauty is not merely physical ornament but signification of a transcendent value, linking her to archetypal imagery of the moon and the divine beloved. Chastity functions as a symbol of preserved spiritual authenticity and individuation (Jung, 1959). Shirin’s activity and resourcefulness move her beyond the passive beloved-role into the position of narrative protagonist who drives events, while her emotional depth and capacity for rancor furnish the psycho-dramatic tensions culminating in tragedy (Neumann, 1954).
 
Discussion
Dramaturgically, Shirin is both the focal node and the engine of the poem’s action: the motives and responses of Khosrow, Farhad, Maryam, Mahin-Banu, and Shiruya are structured around her decisions. In relation to Khosrow she catalyzes ethical reflection and moral change; vis-à-vis Farhad she mediates the contrast between ecstatic passion and disciplined commitment; and confronted with Shiruya she embodies resistance to coerced submission. Such actions articulate a dramatic logic in which inner tensions between opposing psychic forces fail to reach equipoise, precipitating a tragic outcome—precisely the condition Jung links to psychological rupture at the collective-symbolic level (Jung, 1959).
Shirin’s character arc—from aspirational romantic subject to volitional tragic agent—maps a sequence of individuative moves. Initially propelled by archetypal impulses toward union, she faces escalating conflicts between affective longing and ethical conviction; ultimately, her deliberate self-sacrifice secures a mode of existential integrity, functioning as a cathartic culmination for the audience (Garavand & Vahedi-Talab, 2020). At the symbolic level her death transposes personal desire into a form of transcendent, communal meaning: she actualizes the anima’s potential to turn individual love into an archetypal exemplar of fidelity and moral autonomy.
Thus, Shirin may be read as a classic instance of a self-conscious female figure in Persian tradition—a woman who, while emotionally attached, simultaneously sustains an autonomous ethical subjectivity. Her tragic choice asserts the primacy of self-determination over externally imposed destiny and, in doing so, reframes the poem’s ethical horizon.
 
Conclusion
This study demonstrates that Shirin in Nezami’s Khosrow and Shirin epitomizes an archetypal, consummate form of love in Persian literary culture: a love comprised of intimacy, passion, and commitment in a dynamically balanced configuration (Sternberg, 1986). From a Jungian vantage, Shirin functions as an elevated anima that operates on both individual and collective levels (Jung, 1959; Edinger, 1992). Her combination of beauty, chastity, intelligence, agency, affective sensitivity, and vindictiveness renders her a complex, multilayered character who transitions from beloved to tragic hero. Her decisive actions—pursuit of love, principled resistance to compromise, and conscious death—constitute the dramatic spine of the poem.
Interdisciplinarily, the analysis yields two principal contributions: first, it enriches literary criticism by linking a psychological model of love to archetypal hermeneutics; second, it proposes a dramaturgical template for contemporary creators aiming to portray women as active moral agents rather than passive symbols. Consequently, Nezami’s poem offers a foundational model for narratives in which love functions as a process of self-realization and ethical elevation. Such a model promises fertile avenues for future scholarship in literary criticism, gender studies, and performance practice in modern Iranian art and letters.
 
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