The reasons for changing Nezami’s style from mystical poems to love poems

Abstract

Nezami Ganjavi is one of the greatest poets who lived in the twelfth century A.D. He rose storytelling to its highest apogee, but the thing which is ambiguous and questioning here is that what are the reasons for changing Nezami’s style from the prosaic asceticism in Makhzan al-Asrar (The Treasury of Mysteries) to the love poems in Khosrow o Shirin (Khosrow and Shirin)? In this research, the author attempts to discuss and analyze this matter and give the reasons such as the environmental impacts of the city of Ganje (now present-day Azerbaijan) on Nezami, a sense of frustration of Ganje in him, the possibility of his failure in composing Makhzan al-Asrar, his dissatisfaction with Makhzan al-Asrar, his idealism and utopianism in his first work, his marriage to Afagh, his son’s coming into the world named Mohammad and his psychological point of view to love element in human beings and daily matters. Finally, the author has expressed criticism against Ferdowsi and his Shahname as the main reason for changing Nezami’s style. With respect to evidence, the last reason is more accepted, mainly because there are other signs of the same criticisms in other Nezami’s works especially in Eskandar Nameh (The Book of Alexander).