In his Noten und Abhandlungen Goethe paid tribute to several other Persian poets: Ferdowsi, Anwari, Neẓāmi, Rumi, Saʿdi, and Jāmi (Goethe, 1998a, pp.
In his Noten und Abhandlungen Goethe paid tribute to several other Persian poets: Ferdowsi, Anwari, Neẓāmi, Rumi, Saʿdi, and Jāmi (Goethe, 1998a, pp. 153-60). But Ḥāfeẓ was the only one to whom he devoted an entire book. In his Zwillingsbruder he had discovered a poet whose inspiration awakened in him a feeling of rejuvenation. And although in some cases a critical distance can be felt in Goethe’s approach to the form of Ḥāfeẓ’s poetry, he nevertheless felt inspired to write ḡazal s; an example is the last poem of the Buch Suleika(Goethe, 1998b, pp. 344-45). In many poems he employs a “signature verse” ( taḵallos á) typical of the ḡazal, in which he addresses, refers to, or identifies with the Persian poet (see, e.g., 1998b, p. 32: “Und mit diesem Lied und Wendung/Sind wir wieder bei Hafisen”). But Goethe’s attempts at writing ḡ azal scame up against his own criticism, which he expressed in the poem Nachbildung by criticizing the formal constraint of using monorhyme (Goethe, 1998b, pp. 64-65; Lemmel, p. 95). But while Goethe preferred a unifi;ed and logical whole—and here he remains Western (Bürgel, p. 21)—he followed closely the thematics and imagery of Ḥāfeẓ’s poetry (for comparisons see Bürgel, pp. 21-26). In the Buch des Sängers and the Buch Hafi;s, where Ḥāfeẓ’s name is most often mentioned, motifs and characters from the latter’s poetry form the Persian mask of the Divan.