A Life in Poetry: Hāfiz’s First Ghazal

Summary

Discussing Hāfiz, in his chapter on “Lyric Poetry” (in Persian Literature, 1988), Heshmat Moayyad defined ambiguity as “one of the main characteristics of the Hafezian style,” and one which differentiates Hāfiz's style from that of his predecessor Sa‘dī. Moayyad went on to say that it is this which lends to Hāfiz's style “a degree of sophistication…that is unparalleled in Persian poetry,” and which makes him “somewhat aloof and unreachable, with an aura of mystery around him; he is a fascinating challenge, as well as a source of aesthetic pleasure” (1988: 140). In taking up this challenge in this volume dedicated to Professor Moayyad, I will argue that one source of Hāfiz's ambiguity is the “literary” nature of his ghazals, and that an understanding of this “literariness” may aid in both appreciating his style and in unraveling some of its mysteries.

That Hāfiz is among the great figures of Persian literature needs no demonstration: poetry is, after all, “literature,” and Hāfiz is an undisputedly great poet. But what is it, precisely, that makes Hāfiz's poems (or any others) “literary”? How do we define “literariness” in relation to a tradition which had no word for “literature” (and, arguably, no concept of “literature” as a special class of texts), but an abundance of terms relating to eloquence, art, craft, style and so on, and an abundant interest in the minutiae of style? How do we define “literariness” in a tradition where the primary means of “publication” of a text – even one composed in writing – was oral presentation and/or performance and oral transmission, to which the written word took second place?

Let me propose two working criteria for “literariness” (whether in prose or in poetry) in such a tradition. One is a self-conscious attention to style and to rhetorical refinement; the other is an equally self-conscious engagement with the literary tradition and the literary milieu in relation to which one produces one's own works. Both topics receive considerable attention in Arabic and Persian “literary criticism” – in works on rhetoric and poetics, in collection of ma‘ānī, in discussions of “borrowing” and “plagiarism” – although the critics’ focus differs somewhat from that of modern readers, and they take things for granted that are often obscure to us.