Critical Realism in the Feminist Poems of Forough Farrokhzad and Souad Al-Sabah Mehdi Shahrokh 1 | Hassan Goudarzi Lemraski 2 | Mojde PakSeresht 3 1. Corresponding Author, Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Language, University of Mazandaran, Iran. E-mail: m.shahrokh@umz.ac.ir 2. Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Language, University of Mazandaran, Iran. E-mail: h.goodarzi@umz.ac.ir 3. Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Islamic Azad University of Babol, Iran. E-mail: amf1346@yahoo.com Article Info ABSTRACT Article type: Research Article Contemporary poets have used realism to express their feelings and thoughts that arise from unfavorable social conditions, in order to reflect those flaws in their poems. Forough Farrokhzad and Souad al- Sabah are two great Iranian and Kuwaiti female poets, who have frequently made use of the features of critical realism in their feminist poems. This article seeks to examine the feminist poems of these two poets from the perspective of critical realism, by relying on the descriptive-analytical methodology. The results of this study show that the feminist poetry by the two poets reflect their unapologetic and critical views about women, as well as the views of Arab and Iranian peoples of women. Both poets have employed features of realism in order to criticize dominant patriarchal attitudes, inattention to the role of women, lack of efforts to reclaim lost rights, and the current role and position of women in the family. In addition, their poetry contains expressions of feminine approaches to poetry, such as unreserved talk of love and sympathy for the beloved, and women’s conversations with mirrors about love. Moreover, the intensity of a misandrist attitude is much more pronounced in Forough’s poetry than in Souad’s, because the latter was a princess who enjoyed a life of fortune and privilege at the home of a Kuwaiti prince. In contrast, Forough lived in a poor family with a domineering father and went through a failed marriage, which all consequently contributed to a more pessimistic and darker attitude toward the society. Article history: Received: 22 September 2020 Received in revised form: 11February2021 Accepted: 07 March 2021 Keywords: feminist literature, Critical Realism, Forough Farrokhzad, Souad al-Sabah, Feminist Poems. Cite this article: Shahrakh, M., Goudarzi Lemraski, H., PakSeresht, M. (2022). Critical Realism in the Feminist Poems of Forough Farrokhzad and Souad Al-Sabah. Research in Comparative Literature, 12 (1), 49-79. © The Author(s). Publisher: Razi University DOI: 10.22126/JCCL.2021.5735.2181