Between Hammer and Browne: Hermann Ethé as a Historian of Persian Literature

Summary

The choice of the subject for this paper was first of all dictated by the festive occasion which brought us together in Vienna. It seemed appropriate to take a short look at the history of a branch of Iranian studies to which, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the great Viennese scholar Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall made a significant contribution: the study of Persian literature. In Hammer's wide-ranging research Persian subjects may not have taken first place, but they were certainly not among the least of his interests. Already at the start of his career, in the years after 1794, when he awaited his first assignment in the Austrian foreign service, Joseph von Hammer devoted most of his time to all things related to Persia, especially its language and literature, as he anticipated being sent to that country. However, this journey never took place: his seven years in the East (1799–1806) did not take him further afield than Turkey and Egypt. Being deprived of further opportunities to travel eastwards, the rest of his life was devoted to the indefatigable labour which resulted in his impressive oeuvre. This includes histories of the three great Muslim literatures; still, his Geschichte der schönen Redekünste Persiens of 1818 preceded by many years the Geschichte der osmanischen Dichtkunst (1836–1838) and the Literaturgeschichte der Araber (1850–1856). Hammer occupied himself in various ways with Persian literature; he became particularly celebrated as a translator. His complete translation of the Dīvān of Hāfiz, a work often spoken of disparagingly, should be granted at least the merit of having been one of the rare seminal translations from Persian poetry in western literature, especially in German poetry of the early nineteenth century. Hammer has been called, with good reason, “der grosse Anreger.” As he was a man with a considerable literary ambition of his own, he also could not resist the temptation to try his hand at original compositions based on Oriental motifs. Examples of these are to be found in the two-volume Rosenöl oder Sagen und Kunden des Morgenlandes of 1814 and Morgenländisches Kleeblatt, 1819, with hymns, elegies and eclogues “in dem Geiste des Volkes,” that is, of the Zoroastrian Persians, the Arabs and the Turks.