Homer’s the Odyssey and Taskin-e-Shirazi’s Falaknaz Nameh: A Comparative Study of the Role of Women

Abstract

The book Falak Naz Nameh is among the love-epic couplets and one of the lyrical works of the Persian Literature in the thirteenth century AH which shares some similar epical features with European romance and was said by a poet of Arab descent named Yaqub ibn Masud with the pen name of Taskin-e-Shirazi. The present inquiry has a comparative look at the aforementioned book and the epic written by Homer (the blind Greek poet) and compares and contrasts women in both epic books. Through a profound view, the similarities and differences of the two foregoing poets with regard to women were investigated and scrutinized. In both stories, the presence and participation of women are among the main focuses and some or all part of the epics are based on their roles and activities; moreover, the logical and reasonable procedure of the story are taken by them. Therefore, the topic of woman and the part she plays are among significant features in both epopees, for women are the causes of the establishment and continuation of what happens in the two stories.