Abstract

Hafiz of Shiraz is one of the most influential and stylistically distinct poets in Persian literature. While he assimilated and refined the artistic achievements of his predecessors, his manner of expression so profoundly reshaped poetic style and taste after him that the understanding of his art is often seen as a dividing line between what came before and what followed. However, stylistic studies of his poetry have typically focused either on his influence on later poets or on readers’ interpretations of his verse. Such approaches have often obscured the intrinsic value of his poetry and led to endless disagreements over the meaning of his concepts and expressions.

This treatment of Hafiz’s legacy arises in part from traditional methods of teaching Persian literature. In such pedagogical approaches, emphasis is placed on explaining vocabulary, idioms, allusions, rhetorical devices, and figures of speech, so that students can eventually paraphrase difficult verses into modern prose. This method leaves little room for a holistic understanding of a text or a poem as an integrated work. Even when a teacher sought to present a unified interpretation of a poem or an entire collection, conventionalists resisted and urged a return to the traditional analytical mode. Consequently, generations of students — including ourselves — have continued this method, which has limited Persian literature students to understanding poetry mainly through isolated couplets.

Researchers, too, have tended to base their judgments about Hafiz’s worldview or beliefs on individual verses — sometimes going so far as to declare him a believer or a heretic based on a single line, even when that verse may actually refute such a view. This excessive focus on the isolated couplet has led some to claim that Hafiz’s true art lies in crafting stand-alone verses and to interpret his innovation in the ghazal as an intentional fragmentation of the form. Such beliefs in a “disjointed style” have concealed the deeper coherence and integrity of his poetry, disrupting a fuller understanding of his thought.

Readers influenced by this linear approach often attempt to find a straightforward, sequential meaning in Hafiz’s ghazals, attributing each image or motif to a fixed belief or historical event. While this simplifies interpretation for commentators, it fails to convey the complexity of Hafiz’s poetic vision and the sense of mission he may have held toward his art. Moreover, this kind of literal reading has led scholars to interpret each word, line, or metaphor as a reflection of a specific moment in Hafiz’s life. Attempts by biographers and modern commentators to reconstruct his life from his poems or to link his expressions to the history and conditions of his time are largely speculative and lack firm evidence. The clearest proof of the unreliability of such interpretations is the degree of disagreement among their proponents — if a verse truly described a definite historical event, it would not allow for so many divergent explanations.

In some of Hafiz Shirazi's ghazals, there is talk of travel, but it is not in a narrative form, but rather an ordinary word, but in some ghazals, travel is mentioned in a narrative form. The narrative of travel in this type of ghazal has a purpose other than mentioning the journey and the attendant or issues related to the journey as a personal experience; in other words, in this type of ghazal, the poet does not intend to write a travelogue. However, researchers and commentators of Hafiz's Divan consider the words and issues mentioned in the poem about the journey and its hardships to be related to the poet's personal experience, and based on the expressions and concepts in her poem, they consider Hafiz to be unhappy with the journey.



Such historicist and biographical readings treat Hafiz’s poetry as a direct record of his life and times. Yet because his poetry resists this approach, the results of these studies are inconsistent and contradictory. Scholars who focus only on deciphering difficult words and phrases — without considering the unity of the ghazal — interpret every declarative statement as a factual report. In reality, each ghazal conveys a distinct idea or reflection, structured through a design or framework that serves as a vehicle for thought, not necessarily as a literal representation of events. The failure to recognize these structural designs has led interpreters to treat them as factual, using them to construct speculative accounts of Hafiz’s life and milieu.

Based on his position and the issues of his era, Hafiz, in each ghazal, has a central idea. This idea and the main message may only appear in one line out of several in the ghazal, while the remaining verses and lines express metaphorical, artistic interpretations of the same idea. These two types of expression— the main idea and the metaphorical expressions— interpret and reveal each other. In initial readings of each ghazal, it seems as though disparate elements are placed together; however, with a closer reading, one can discern that a single concept is repeated in different forms, and this repetition not only contributes to coherence but also represents the intersection between metaphor and narrative.

The teaching of Hafiz’s ghazals today is still largely based on traditional commentaries and selections derived from them. Therefore, to illustrate the need for a new pedagogical approach, this study focuses on those ghazals in which “travel” appears as a narrative motif. Most commentators have treated this motif as a literal episode in Hafiz’s life and have interpreted many of his ghazals accordingly — an approach repeated by many university instructors as well. In teaching Hafiz, however, attention should be paid to the poetic essence and structural unity of his ghazals. His poetry should be approached as an organic whole, not through selective interpretation of individual words or references to specific places, deaths, or hardships as literal events. If we cannot grasp the overall design or metaphorical narrative of a ghazal — or the unique cohesion Hafiz creates — we should not invent stories to reconcile contradictions that arise from our linear thinking, nor should we depict the poet in ways that merely serve to justify our own interpretive inconsistencies. Hafiz’s ghazals that narrate journeys as stories or events reveal the integrated nature of his poetry. When he alludes to incidents or digressions within these journey narratives, it is to highlight their metaphorical and allegorical dimension. Therefore, when Hafiz speaks of a journey, it should be understood as a poetic framework for expressing philosophical or critical ideas — not as a factual account of his travels or memories.