ادبیات عرفانی (Apr 2021)
Semantic-Structural Unraveling of a Complex Sonnet of Hafez
Abstract
A significant part of Hafez's poetry is the product of complex mystical experiences and the poet uses a variety of rhetorical devices in their linguistic formulation. Therefore, these two factors complicate Hafez's poetry. The mystical experiences of Hafez are more evident in his intensive narrative sonnets and due to the excessive compactness of these narratives, and the inherent fluidity of intuitive experiences, serious complications arise in the meaning and form of these sonnets despite their simple language. The sonnet 423 starting with the verse: “Last night, to the door of the wine-house, I went, sleep-stained; the Khirka wet in skirt, and prayer-mat, wine-stained” is one of these cases. This sonnet, though covertly, reports the stage of transformation from “ascetic mysticism” into “romantic mysticism”. In the form of narration, especially in the symbolic characterization of “Moghbacheh” and the conversation between him and the narrator, the literary and mystical norms of the tradition of Qalandari poetry have been violated. This character—a tavern master who often provokes the pious seeker to enter the tavern in Qalandari poetry—appears in a new role in this sonnet and rebukes the narrator for entering the tavern and drinking wine and making love to the boys. The question addressed is how we can place this sonnet within the tradition of Qalandari poetry and save the sonnet from semantic and formal contradictions. Adopting a semantic-structural reading and interpretive method, we try to untie the knot and prove that this sonnet is a continuation of the same tradition of Qalandari sonnets and the intellectual doctrine of Hafez. The poet, by manipulating the literary tradition, has achieved a narrative and artistic construction of the same ideas and through creating semantic and formal ambiguities has made it open to multiple readings.
Keywords
