, 18th century The question of whether his work is to be interpreted literally, mystically, or both has been a source of contention among western scholars. On the one hand, some of his early readers such as
William Jones saw in him a conventional lyricist similar to European love poets such as
Petrarch. Others scholars such as
Henry Wilberforce Clarke saw him as purely a poet of didactic, ecstatic
mysticism in the manner of
Rumi, a view that a minority of twentieth century critics and literary historians have come to challenge.
Ralph Waldo Emerson rejected the Sufistic view of wine in Hafez's poems. This confusion stems from the fact that, early in Persian literary history, the poetic vocabulary was usurped by mystics, who believed that the ineffable could be better approached in poetry than in prose. In composing poems of mystic content, they imbued every word and image with mystical undertones, causing mysticism and lyricism to converge into a single tradition. As a result, no fourteenth-century Persian poet could write a
lyrical poem without having a flavor of mysticism forced on it by the poetic vocabulary itself. While some poets, such as
Ubayd Zakani, attempted to distance themselves from this fused mystical-lyrical tradition by writing
satires, Hafez embraced the fusion and thrived on it.
Wheeler Thackston has said of this that Hafez "sang a rare blend of human and mystic love so balanced... that it is impossible to separate one from the other". For reasons such as that, the history of the translation of Hāfez is fraught with complications, and few translations into western languages have been wholly successful. One of the figurative gestures for which he is most famous (and which is among the most difficult to translate) is
īhām or artful
punning. Thus, a word such as
gowhar, which could mean both "essence, truth" and "pearl", would take on
both meanings at once as in a phrase such as "a pearl/essential truth outside the shell of superficial existence". Hafez often took advantage of the aforementioned lack of distinction between lyrical, mystical, and
panegyric writing by using highly intellectualized, elaborate
metaphors and images to suggest multiple possible meanings. For example, a
couplet from one of Hafez's poems reads: The
cypress tree is a symbol both of the beloved and of a regal presence; the
nightingale and birdsong evoke the traditional setting for human love. The "lessons of spiritual stations" suggest, obviously, a mystical undertone as well (though the word for "spiritual" could also be translated as "intrinsically meaningful"). Therefore, the words could signify at once a prince addressing his devoted followers, a lover courting a beloved, and the reception of spiritual wisdom. == Satire, religion, and politics ==