What do you mean by “dialogue”?
Here, a discussion takes place in the form of a lyrical dialogue between Goethe and Hafez, but it later expands to encompass East and West. (1988, 366). When we consider the work’s title and its content, the ambiguity becomes more obvious. Hafez provides the German poet with the incentive to prompt him to make a fictitious journey to the East, where the competition between poetry and religion, a favorite theme of both poets, leads to instructive discussions. The eastward journey marks the beginning of a new phase in life and his stay in the east also characterize this lyrical work as poetry based on personal experience. It shows his wealth of imagination which is nourished by Hafez.
How is the structure of the Divan?
The twelve books of the Divan can be interpreted as a reflection of Goethe’s Oriental studies. To begin with, the reader’s attention is drawn to its structure. Each book has a double title: a Persian title, followed by a German one, with the word nāme/Buch as the first element. This is similar to Sa’di’s method in the Golestan. The Divan opens with the Moghani Nameh/Buch des Dichters (which was later changed to Buch des Sängers). The main theme of the book is his journey or Hegira to the East and his acquaintance with Oriental culture. The second book is Hafis Nameh/Das Buch Hafis, which is devoted to the characterization and admiration of the Persian poet, and in which Hafez assumes the central role of interlocutor or the main participant in conversation. The third book, Uschk Name/Buch der Liebe, discusses love and passion; there is a thematic relationship between this book and the Buch Suleika, but the name Suleika is not mentioned in the Book of Love. The Tefkir Nameh/Buch der Betrachtungen has a didactic and moral character. Rendsch [ranj] Nameh/ Buch des Unmuts contains political and social criticism. Hikmat Nameh/Buch der Sprüche closely resembles the Buch der Betrachtungen and Buch des Unmuts, centering on Oriental adages or sayings and the art of poetry. Timur Nameh/Buch des Timur is devoted to the conqueror Timur (771-807/1307-1405), the Persian poet’s contemporary, whom Goethe considered as resembling his own contemporary Napoleon. It is linked with the Suleika Nameh/Buch Suleika by the poem “An Suleika.” It takes the form of a dialogue between the Arab Hātam and the Persian Suleika, who figure the poet and his beloved. Monologues and dialogues of a quite different kind are found in the Saki Nameh/Das Schenkenbuch, with its simple lyrical tone, which Goethe had already used in his youth and which he now imitates in the style of Hafez. Mathal Nameh/Buch die Parabeln contains fables and parables; Parsi Nameh/buch des Parsen deals with the old Persian adoration of fire and the sun. The final book, Chuld [xold] Nameh/Buch des Paradieses, blends Islamic conceptions of paradise with those of the poet himself.
Was Goethe impressed by other Persian poets?
In his Notes and Annotations (Noten und Abhandlungen), he praised other Persian poets: Ferdowsi, Anwari, Nezami, Rumi, Sa’di, and Jami (pp. 153-160). But Hafez was the only poet to whom he devoted a book. In his Zwillingsbruder (twin brother), he had discovered a poet whose inspiration awakened in him a feeling of rejuvenation. Though a great distance can be felt in Goethe’s approach to the form of Hafez’s poetry, he felt inspired to write ghazals. In many poems he uses a signature verse, i.e. takhallos, typical of the ghazal. Goethe’s attempts at writing ghazals came up against his own criticism, which he expressed in the poem Nachbildung (imitation) by criticizing the formal constraint of using monorhyme (pp. 64-65). Goethe preferred a unified and logical whole, but he followed closely the themes and imagery of Hafez. In Moghani Nameh and Hafis Nameh, where the Persian poet’s name is most often mentioned, motifs and characters from the latter’s poetry form the Persian masks of the Divan.
The Persian poet’s inspiration was so strong that in some of his poems, Goethe called him heiligen Hafiz or Meister, i.e. the sacred Hafez or master. In other books, his proximity can be felt through allusions and hints. A theme shared by both poets was that of poetic madness, already well-known in European literature. As in Hafez’s work, panegyrics, anacreontics, mysticism, and eroticism formed the motifs of Goethe’s Divan, in which passion and intellect, mysticism and irony, love and common sense were equally present. Through Hafez, Goethe was able to express his own moral and political criticism of his time.
It is to be mentioned that Goethe’s encounter with Hafez was very important for the history of German poetry, his Divan is generally considered as an east-western work containing both foreign and native elements. Goethe’s poetic art consists of mixing foreign and indigenous elements by creating a dialogue between two poets: the German poet of Weimar and the Persian Poet of Shiraz. The last great collection of poems by the classicist Goethe marks a major stage in the development of lyric poetry in general. (J. C. Bürgel, Drei Hafis-Studien)
As you know, only two other major Western authors have contributed as much to the cultivation of Persian poetry as Goethe: Emerson and FitzGerald. Mention was made of Edward FitzGerald. Now, let us resume our discussion with Emerson, the distinguished nineteenth century American transcendentalist, emphasized intuition as a means of knowing a spiritual reality and believed that divinity pervades nature and humanity. Which Persian poets did impress him?
The names of Hafez and Sa’di appear on Emerson’s reading list and frequently in his journals and notebooks. Emerson’s first volume of poems included two translations from Hafez, one of them excerpted from his longest poem, the “Sāqī-name.” His lengthy essay on Persian poetry for the periodical, Atlantic Monthly (in mid-19th century) surveyed the entire range of Persian poetry. Altogether, he translated about 700 lines of Persian poetry, not including prose paraphrases scattered throughout his Journals and Works. As he did not have a good knowledge of German, he occasionally mistranslated his sources: Hammer-Purgstall’s Der Diwan von Mohammed Schemseddin Hafiz and Geschichte der schönen Redekünste Persiens (History of the Persian literary works). His translations were at first word for word, but later on he turned to freer adaptations that modified the meter, added rhyme, stanzaic pattern, or blended lines from two different ghazals. Apparently, his attention was directed to these two books by Goethe’s use of them to produce his West-östlicher Diwan.
Early commentators on Emerson as poet believed he had learned his art from his Persian readings, but later on, it was revealed that his translations followed the German word and sentence structure. He emphasized the “lusters”, i.e. the pregnant individual lines, the expressiveness which is the essence of the poetic element. Once he illustrated this quality by a verse by Hafez: Let us be crowned with roses, let us drink wine, and break up the tiresome old roof of heaven into new forms (Works V, 258).
Did he accept the Sufistic view of the Persian poet’s wine?
Well, he rejected such view and said that he would not “strew sugar on bottled spiders,” that is, “make mystical divinity out of … the erotic and bacchanalian songs of hafiz” (VIII, 249). But he insisted that “the love of wine is not to be confounded with vulgar debauch.” The verses of Hafez denoted a spiritual carpe diem (seize the day). Wine stands for a mind-expanding power that replaces despair with ecstasy. There are two poems by Emerson entitled “Bacchus,” one complete, the other unfinished. Emerson’s editors regard the incomplete “Bacchus” as a translation of Sāqī-nāme by Hafez, but in fact, it is an original but imitative, poem by Emerson.
He composed a poem entitled “Saadi.” Which of the two Persian poets did impress him more?
The influence of Hafez on Emerson’s poetic thought and practice is so pronounced that he might as well have titled his poem “Hafez” rather than Sa’di.” It may be partly due to the fact that he composed the poem “Saadi” before he had made the full acquaintance of Hafez. Besides, he had already drawn the characteristic features of his ideal poet in the early essay “Nature.” As Emerson got to know the historical Sa’di better, he tried to distinguish him from his townsman; but apparently, both poets made their contribution to this image of the ideal. For example, in one of his Journals, he describes an unidentified poet engaged in the business of “extracting honor from rascals, temperance from drunkards, energy from beggars, justice from thieves, benevolence from misers and elegance of manners hidden in the peasant, heart-warming expansion, grand surprises of sentiment, in these unchallenged, uncultivated men … .” (VII,182) This passage reminds one of Sa’di, who had itching feet than of the introvert, stay-at-home Hafez. In another passage in his Journals, he notes that “the human race is interested in Sa’di who is the poet of friendship, of love, of heroism, self-devotion, bounty, serenity, and the divine providence” (X, 562). These are the prime concerns of Sa’di’s most famous works, the Bustan and the Golestan. In his preface to Gladwin’s translation of the Golestan, Emerson said: “Sa’di has wit, practical sense, and just moral sentiments, but he has not the lyric and extraordinary imagination of Hafez.”
These lines from “The Poet” apparently reveal his preference for Hafez, the aesthetic over the ethical: “He sowed the sun and moon for seeds …/ But oh, to see his solar eyes/ Like Meteors which chose their way/ And rived the dark like a new day!/ Not lazy grazing on all they say, / Each chimney-pot and village picket-fence, / But, feeding on magnificence, / They bounded to the horizon’s edge / And searched with the sun’s privilege” (IX, 310-311). These lines echo what Emerson said about Hafez: “He is restless, inquisitive, thousand-eyed, insatiable and as like a nightingale intoxicated with his own music.” (VII, 417). In his works, he praises Hafez: “A commandment,” said the smiling Muse, / I give my darling son, Thou shalt not preach”; / Luther, Fox, Behmen, Swedenborg, grew pale, / and on the instant, rosier clouds upbore/ Hafiz and Shakespeare with their shining choirs. (IX, 297)
Apparently, Hafez had a great impression on Emerson and Goethe. Could you briefly talk about the English translations of Hafez. Perhaps we may begin with a short history and proceed to the types or categories of these translations. When was Hafez translated into English for the first time?
Well, apparently, the first poem by Hafez to appear in English was done by Sir William Jones in the second half of the 18th century. It was the Tork-e Shirazi ghazal in prose and verse as a “Persian song.” John Nott was also among the translators of Hafez in the 18th century. In the 19th century, Hafez was the most translated of the Persian poets.
At least three categories may be distinguished among the varied and numerous translations of Hafez. Some translators have found prose the most suitable medium to present Hafez to the English readers. Some of these translations are word for word, aiming at helping the students of Persian. The complete translation of Wilberforce Clarke is graceless and dogmatic. It is heavily annotated within the body of the literal translation abounding in Sufistic interpretations. It offers a mass of unassimilated information which obscures the poetic qualities of the Persian original. The translators in this category have argued that the sense of the poem can be more accurately represented in prose. A more subtle argument is that to translate into English verse form would be to impose an alien and inappropriate set of conventions. Edward Cowell whose best translations of Hafez are in prose says: We have not put them into rhymed dress, but we have preferred to leave them in an indistinct shape without impressing an arbitrary form on the translation. Our translation is strictly literal as we wished to give the reader an idea of Hafez as he really is. (p.290) His literal translations are written in smooth idiomatic English and are the best of Victorian translations. Among the prose translations and perhaps deserving more attention than they have generally received, are those in what Jones calls “changed, but unaffected prose.” (Clarke, p. viii) here the translator is not restricted by rhyme and meter, but offers readability and euphony. A number of Jones’s translations, as well as those by Samuel Robinson and Justin Huntly McCarthy are examples of this kind. Their rhythmical prose tries to attain to a kind of prose-poetry, with affinities to the prose of the Authorized Version of the Bible. Unfortunately, too many of these translators have taken excessive liberties with the imagery of the original, resulting in a sometimes confusing texture of irrelevant associations of word and image.
