The incentive provided by Ḥāfeẓ prompts the German poet to make a fictitious journey to the East, where the competition between poetry and religion, a favorite theme of both poets, leads to instructive discussions.
The title West-östlicher Divan(West-Eastern Divan) is ambivalent, and shows that the work is not to be understood unidimensionally, but as a dialogue (Richter, p. 217). A discussion takes place which begins as a lyrical dialogue between Goethe and Ḥāfeẓ, but later expands to encompass East and West (Goethe, 1988, p. 366). When considering not only the work’s title, but its content as well, the ambiguity becomes even more obvious (Wertheim, pp. 244-46). The incentive provided by Ḥāfeẓ prompts the German poet to make a fictitious journey to the East, where the competition between poetry and religion, a favorite theme of both poets, leads to instructive discussions. The eastward journey—which, with its initial poem, “Hegire,” in the Buch des Sängers, marks the beginning of a new phase in life (Ileri, p. 184)—and the sojourn in the east also characterize this lyrical work as poetry based on personal experience. This poetry shows Goethe’s wealth of imagination—an imagination steadily nourished by Ḥāfeẓ—through masquerades and role-playing, irony, jest and earnestness.