333), Goethe also read works by Orientalists, such as the Denkwürdigkeiten aus Asien(1813-15) by Heinrich Friedrich von Diez (see Mommsen, 1961), the journal Fundgruben des Orients(1809-14; see Solbrig, pp. 192-220), and Hammer’s Geschichte der Schönen Redekünste Persiens (1818).
Goethe’s approach to Ḥāfeẓ began with enthusiasm, which, in its turn, led to interchange and dialogue, and, in the Divan, assumed a lyric-prosaic form. The need for communication, for narrative and for fi;nding one’s way into a different society is characteristic of the essence of the Divan (Bohnenkamp and Bosse, p. 306). The dialogue with Ḥāfeẓ, however, demanded a knowledgeable analysis of the Oriental world. For this there was no lack of material; for, apart from the works of such travelers to the Orient as Marco Polo, Pietro della Valle, and Adam Olearius, and, above all, the translations of Saʿdi’s Golestān and Bustān (qq.v.; Bohnenkamp and Bosse, p. 333), Goethe also read works by Orientalists, such as the Denkwürdigkeiten aus Asien(1813-15) by Heinrich Friedrich von Diez (see Mommsen, 1961), the journal Fundgruben des Orients(1809-14; see Solbrig, pp. 192-220), and Hammer’s Geschichte der Schönen Redekünste Persiens (1818).