O. Slepukhina, M. Suvorov. Woman as a Conceptual Metaphor in Male Arab Poetry: Examples from Yemen

Olga Slepukhina

Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera) RAS,
St. Petersburg, Russia
E-mail: olya2s2s@mail.ru 

Mikhail Suvorov

Freelance scholar, St. Petersburg, Russia
E-mail: soumike@mail.ru 

Woman as a Conceptual Metaphor
in Male Arab Poetry: Examples from Yemen 

Abstract. The paper examines how male Yemeni poets use metaphors of the feminine to express political disillusionment and discuss honour, power and identity. Through the lens of Conceptual Metaphor Theory the article analyses images of womanhood in the works of two prominent South Yemeni poets. In poems composed in the 1970s—1980s, Sha’if al-Khalidi (1932—1998) depicts the homeland as a betrayed and suffering bride, a metaphor that conveys both patriotic longing and patriarchal authority. Thabit Awad al‑Yahari uses the metaphor of womanhood satirically to ridicule foreign powers, portraying the US warship USS Cole as the “daughter of Congress” after it was attacked in Aden in 2000. The study shows how poets adapt gendered metaphors to different political contexts and how metaphors such as nation-as-woman and foreign power-as-woman reflect and reproduce social norms and values of Yemeni society. 

Keywords: Yemen, poetry, womanhood, conceptual metaphor theory 

DOI: 10.31250/1238-5018-2025-31-2-84-89 

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Received by the Editorial Board: 10.03.2025