“Poetry is the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, orelevated thoughts” (Dictionary.com). To put it together poetry is a way of expressing your feelings and emotions through certain word choice and structure. There are multiple types of poetry but one poetry style that we are all to familiar about is lyrical poetry, this is “a verse or poem that is, or supposedly is, susceptible of being sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument” (Britannica). This type of poetry can be commonly related to songs, songs are poems that are read in a different way and incorporate musical instruments.
Hafez was born in 1325 and is arguably one of the best lyric poets of persia, he later died in 1389 but his name continued to live on. He received a classical religious education, lectured about the Quran (Iran’s bible), and wrote commentaries on religious classics. Throughout his life one of Hafez guiding principles was Sufism which is “the Islamic mystical movement that demanded of its adherents complete devotion to the pursuit of union with the ultimate reality” (Britannica). Growing up Hafez was raised in a small town called Shariz and had a deep rooted interest in the Quran after hearing his father recite it. When his father passed away Hafez dropped out of school to work at a bakery and as a copyist, he later became a poet at the court of Abu Ishak and also taught at a religious college.
Hafez later fell out of favour of the court, from 1368- 1369 and did not come back until years before his death. Throughout his poetry he talks a lot about his life in Shiraz and describes what his neighborhood was like. One of Hafez most celebrated forms of poetry is the ghazal, a lyric poem that is six to fifteen couplets and is linked by unity of subject and symbolism, rather than by a logical sequence of ideas. Ḥāfeẓ’s new ideas and concepts shedded a new light on poetry and the traditional way of the ghazal. The traditional ghazal dealt with love, wine, and freedom which were used by Ḥāfeẓ in a new, conventional, and fresh way. The most remarkable features of his ghazals were the “kaleidoscopic” shifts of imagery and motive into a single poem.
One of Hafez’s most important innovation was the use of the ghazal instead of using the qasida in panegyric. The panegyric is a public speech or published text in praise of someone or something, Hafez reduced this to one or two lines in his poem, and left the rest of the poem to his personal ideas. Hafez’s popularity of his poems grew from his “simple and often colloquial though musical language, free from artificial virtuosity, and his unaffected use of homely images and proverbial expressions” (Britannica). Hafez’s new approach and touch to an old style of poetry intrigued many persians and brought him a lot of popularity. Not only did Hafez’s ghazals spread thought Iran but also became very popular in the western world. It’s like Hafiz was way ahead of his time being able to transform something old into something new and noteworthy. Unfortunately Hafez died in 1390 but, his name continues to live on in many people’s’ hearts due to his new ideas and contributions he made towards poetry.
