INDEPENDENT UNION OF
AZERBAIJANISTS
“UNOCAL KHAZAR LTD” (USA)
ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF
AZERBAIJAN
Azerbaijan in the Agelong Multilateral Cultual Intercommunications
(June 4-6, 1998)
Summary reports
The Summary is Completed by
Professor Rafig Abdul oglu Radjabov
(Stuttgart, Germany)
Literature, as well as other
cultural influences, played and plays an eminent role in the development of the
spiritual life of races and peoples.
The German „Minnesang” for
instance, can be partly traced back to the songs of the Troubadours which, in
turn were influenced by Arab
lyric poetry.
The image of the oriental,
especially the Islamic, world transmitted to the West was contradictory. This
contradiction appeared already in the literature of the crusades which depicted
the Islams as "civitas diaboli" or "noble heroic pagans".
In the following centuries
the negative image of the Orient prevailed in German literature due to ignorance
and religious fanatism. It was increased by historical events like Ottoman
offensives in Eastern Europe, as the German dramas of the Baroque, with their
cruel despots of far-away Eastern countries (e.g. Gryphius, "Katherina von
Georgien") reveal.
This negative image changed
with the discovery of the sea-route to India which enabled more complete
information about the East to be gathered.
The Enlightenment, the most important German representative of which was Lessing, marked a milestone in the development of a more objective picture of the Orient which culminated in the representation of the outstanding role of Islamic tolerance.
At the same time, the West
was fascinated by the Oriental World. This fascination became particularly
apparent in the German literature of Pre-Romantism and Romantism due to
translations of literary as well as of religious and scientific eastern
sources.
Goethe's (1749-1832)
interest in the Oriental World can be traced back to 1772 when he began to
study the "Coran". The fragment, "Mahomets Gesang” (1773), a
result of these studies, is a homage to Mohammed. By the picture of a mighty
stream which flows to the ocean, a symbol of God, Goethe expresses the idea of
Mohammed as a spiritual leader of mankind. This fragment is the most important
German homage to Mohammed. This symbol, a stream flowing to the ocean, is prevalent
in Oriental Mysticism. Most of all Goethe was inspired by Mohammed
Schems-ed-Din Hafis from Shiras (1320-1389), the great mystical poet whose
"ghasels" collected in “Divan" became the basis of his own
"West-östlicher Divan" (1814-1818).
Hafis' influence on Goethe
can be deduced from the fact that the first poem of the "West-östlicher
Divan" appeared already one year after Hammer-Purgstall had published a
translation of Hafis' "Divan". It was the first complete translation
of a Persian "Divan".
In order to understand
Hafis' "ghasels" better, Goethe studied besides the "Coran"
Nizami, Attar and Rumi. The titles of the twelve "Books" of the Divan
reveal the oriental influence as Goethe put Persian expressions before the
German names, e.g. "Parsi Nameth". Moreover, it is worth mentioning
that Goethe called one of the twelve "Books" of his "Divan"
"Hafis Nameh" (Hafis' Buch) and another one "Saki Nameh"
(Schenkenbuch). By "Saki" Hafis understood, in the sense of oriental
mysticism, a perfect man who offers a goblet of divine wine to the poet as the
first poem of his "Divan" (Hafis 1942, No. 1) shows. Like in Hafis'
"ghasels", in Goethe's poems, too, Saki became a "running
metaphor" to express love. Besides not only did Hafis' name appear most
frequently in Goethe's "Divan", but he also dedicated a poem to him
"An Hafis" (To Hafis).
With a few exceptions,
Goethe did not use the metric form of the "ghasel” since it is not apt for
the German language. Instead he borrowed other forms from Hafis like dialogues,
appeals etc.
Almost every poem has an
allusion to the eastern world, but none was taken over from Hafis in a literary
sense.
To convey a general
impression of the exotic eastern world Goethe applied the means of
"couleur locale" by adopting from Hafis' "Divan"
place-names (Baghdad, Damascus, Buchara, Euphrates), jewellery (rubins,
emeralds, pearls), scents (incense, musk) or simply by mentioning elements of
the oriental way of life: deserts,
oases, caravans, camels, tents, carpets, turbans, veils etc.
While these few examples of
the "couleur locale" serve to show Goethe's evocation of fantastic
far-away countries in general, the picture of a caravan can also be interpreted
in a transferred sense as he understood himself as a "perpetual wanderer”.
The same idea is expressed in Oriental Mysticism.
Most of the poems of the "Divans" of both, Hafis and Goethe, have the same topic: love and wine. Without being acquainted with Sufism, the prevailing connection of love with wine is the reason why Hafis was formerly counted to the Anacreontic poetry. But in most of his poems this connection means something unreal. Love as a reality is the starting-point to express unreal love and mystical unification with the divine power or God (Buergel/Allemann 1975, 21). Hafis, like other great Persian poets, was influenced by Sufism (Schimmel 1980, p. 5; Schimmel 1985, 109), according to which "love" and "wine" are interchangeable. It is typical of Persian lyric poetry that several Islamic thoughts and certain pictures of the "Coran" can be transformed into purely aesthetic symbols. Thus, new connections between secular and worldly pictures, between religious and profane ideas are possible (Schimmel 1982, 108). So Rumi often speaks of the wine of Mohammed which is love and inspires men (Schimmel 1981, 179).
As an example one of Hafis' poems can be cited in which by wine he understands his longing for eternity, for freedom from space and time (Hafis 1942, No. 131, 2.). In most of his poems Goethe also means by love and wine something unreal, divine, though not in the sense of Sufism. So in the most famous poem of his "Divan," "Selige Sehnsucht”, he connects, too, love with eternity by saying: "Never will die he whose heart was given love by eternity" (Goethe 1965, I, 17). Or, in another poem, when he calls wine "wine of eternity" and states that the "drinker looks into God's face" (Goethe 1965, IX, 3).
Moreover, when Goethe speaks
of wine he means creative power, blessed longing of "divine drunkeness" (Goethe 1965, IX,
10). In this respect he is also indebted to Persian literature, especially to
Hafis, by using the metaphor of pearls for poetry (Goethe 1965, VI, 16). The
picture of pearls thrown into the wild ocean reveals the underlying thought
that poetry is caused by passionate love and suffering (ocean). Another Persian
metaphor, the candle and the butterfly,
which symbolizes the total submission to love as a reflection of
"divine love", is applied in the same poem, "Selige Sehnsucht". Death - the butterfly burnt
in the candle - is the precondition of the transformation of material life into
higher spheres. This idea culminates in the imperative of the last verse:
"Die and live!” Schimmel explains the metaphor of the candle and the
butterfly by the mystical idea that divine love is a flame, the effect of which
is deadly and invigorating (Schimmel 1985, 416). But at the same time this
metaphor can also be understood like that of pearls as creative power, a
recurrent theme in Goethe's work.
Goethe also took over the
charming and tender metaphor of the rose and the nightingale (Goethe 1965, VIII, 16), one of the
most common of the Persian literature, applied by Hafis, too (Hafis 1942,
No.465). Goethe intensified this metaphor of love by connecting it with the
names of the famous lovers - Leila and Mejnun.
Other metaphors to express
love and passion are curls of hair and dust. Curled hair means in Hafis' poetry
love as slavery. So Hafis calls himself a "prisoner of hair" (Hafis
1942, No.406), and Goethe, who uses this metaphor in the same sense, writes:
"Nobody can free himself from the chains of hair" (Goethe 1965, VIII,
20). In a mystical connection Hafis applies the metaphor "dust" for
the "veil" which hides the "face of the soul" (Hafis 1942,
No.342). In another "ghasel"
"dust" means boundless feelings, for instance when he exclaims that
he wants "to clean with his eyelids the dust of his lover's path"
(Hafis 1942, No. 42). The metaphor of
dust is applied by Goethe, too. In his poem "Alleben" he praises
Hafis as being able to create love-poetry by mastering even elements like dust
(Goethe 1965, II, 10).
In connection with the topic
of love Goethe is indebted to Hafis also in other respects by mentioning famous
lovers, historical personages or mythological birds of oriental literature,
like "Bulbul" or "Hudhud". As to the latter, Goethe was
probably influenced by Attar's epic poetry "conversations of birds"
(Buergel 1990, 315). Hafis' influence
on Goethe can also be seen by the introduction of the figures of Saki who
offers wine to the poet and Hatem, the poet (Goethe) himself. Moreover Goethe
uses, too, like Hafis, the symbolic figure of the morning wind as the lover's
messenger. These examples, selected among many others, reveal in which respect
Goethe is indebted to the eastern poet.
But Goethe's
"Divan" is not the result of a passive reflection of the East. He
fills the eastern framework with his own experiences and feelings, the most
striking evidences of which are the love-poems of "Suleika Nameh"
("Buch Suleika"). In the form of a dialogue between Suleika and
Hatem, the poet, Goethe expresses his passionate love to Marianne von Willemer,
his Suleika.
The following poem of the
"Divan" witnesses Hafis' influence as an oriental poet not only on
Goethe himself in particular but also on western poets in general, as a
representative of whom he cites Calderon, the great Spanish dramatist of the
seventeenth century:
"Herrlich ist der Orient
Uebers Mittelmeer gedrungen,
Nur wer Hafis liebt und kennt
Weiss wie Calderon gesungen.“
(Goethe 1965, VI, 14).
In other poems, too, Goethe
expresses his homage to Hafis, the best example of which is "Unbegrenzt“ (Goethe
1965, II, 6). By calling him his "twin" he recognizes in him a
related genius. Moreover, he uses for Hafis' creative power the metaphor of a
circle, a symbol of perfection: Hafis can never begin, never end, he is
boundless.
The mystical sense of the
metaphor of a circle (or ring) is common in the literature of Sufism to express
the relation between man and the divine power: what has no end can have no
beginning. (Schimmel, 19, 196). Hafis, too, applies the metaphor of a circle
(Hafis 1942) by speaking of his love where there is no beginning, is no end.
The last verse of the poem
"Unbegrenzt" reveals a confession: Goethe owes to Hafis a new
stimulation of his own creative power. His "Divan" does not represent
a simple imitation of the oriental poet but a new creation formed by using the
oriental pictures and metaphors. Thus, he made the eastern world accessible to
western readers.
The first verse of the poem
"Talismane” (Goethe 1965, I, 4) is based on the second "Sure" of
the "Coran": "Allah is the East and the West" (Der Koran),
This verse, according to Mommsen, testifies Goethe's relationship with Islam
(Mommsen 1964, 18, 24); it is a proof of Goethe's determinism which corresponds
to one of the main Muslim doctrines: the devotion to God's will. But Goethe's
literary work does not reflect a rigid determinism. Goethe is, as he called
himself, a "Weltkind."
The above-mentioned verse
reveals a grandiose cosmic view of God's omnipotence:
"Gottes ist der Orient!
Gottes ist der Occident!
Nord- und suedliches Gelaende
Ruht im Frieden seiner Hände"
(Goethe 1965, I, 4).
By mentioning the four
corners of the earth Goethe wants to underline his idea that, having the same
God, mankind is united in his peace.
Another example of literary
influence is represented by Iqbal's work.
Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938).
The great Pakistani poet, philosopher and politician, united in his works,
written in Urdu or classical Persian, traditional Persian poetry with a renewal
of the Islamic religion.
During his stay in Germany,
1907, he was, besides being attracted by German philosophers, mostly fascinated
by Goethe. He expressed this attraction in a poem "An evening (in
Heidelberg, on the bank of the Neckar)", an adaptation of Goethe's
"Wanderers Nachtlied” (Iqbal 1977), which he published, together with
other poems, in his collection "The sound of the bell of the Caravan"
(Bang-e Dara).
Especially the poems of
another collection, 1924, a "Message from the Orient" ("Payamq-e
mashriq") reveal his veneration of Goethe. Iqbal called this collection
explicitly an "answer" to Goethe's "Divan". Like the
"Divan" it is divided into several Books, the second part of which
contains an adaptation of some of Goethe's poems. To explain the stimulus of
Goethe's "Divan" to his "Message" he gave in his
"preface" an outline of the history of orientalism in Germany. In the
same "Preface” he underlined Persian traits of the “Divan”: Goethe tried
to reveal the "Persian spirit".
One of Iqbal's poems of the
"Message", "The Stream", an adaptation of Goethe's
"Mahomets Gesang," is an interesting example of literary
interrelation. The "Prologue" of the "Message" contains the
poem "Homage to Goethe", a reminiscence of Goethe's poem "An
Hafis". In this poem he compares himself with Goethe by saying that since
getting to know Goethe he "no more praised himself." Iqbal uses, like
Goethe, the metaphors of pearls and the ocean. Besides, he applies the
traditional metaphor of the nightingale to characterize Goethe's poetry.
In his poem "Jalal and Goethe", also collected in the "Message", Iqbal invented the scene of a meeting between Rumi and Goethe in paradise. Praising Goethe's poetic power by saying that he created the "old world" once more, makes an allusion to the "Divan", too, by which Goethe created the old Oriental World.
Poetry, like all cultural
heritages, is like a torch passed on through space and time.
So Goethe received the
"torch" of Persian mystical poetry from Hafis', whom he considered as
a "twin", a similar poetic genius. He applied his Persian pictures
and metaphors to create the Oriental World.
As Goethe was attracted by
Hafis, so Iqbal was attracted by Goethe. The "torch" which he
received, was Goethe's "West-oestlicher Divan" which inspired him so
much that he wrote a "Message from the Orient" as an answer. It
contains homages to Goethe as well as a characterization of Goethe as a poet
and philosopher.
Goethe's "Divan"
is a product of his fascination by Hafis. But this influence is not a passive
one, as it leads to a "creative synthesis between East and West, between
Hafis' genius and Goethe's genius... and represents a unique homage which the
genius of the Occident pays to the genius of the Orient” (Burgel 1975, 5).
The synthesis between East
and West, as well as Goethe's idea of tolerance - not only in a religious
respect, but also in a human sense - is best expressed in Goethe's saying:
"Wer sich selbst und andre kennt,
Wird auch hier erkennen
Orient und Occident
Sind nicht mehr zu trennen."
Buergel,
J.C. 1975. Drei Hafis - Studien. Bern, Frankfurt.
Buergel,
J. C. 1990. Die persische Epik, in: "Orientalisches Mittelalter," Bd
5.
Buergel,
J. C./Allemann, F. 1975. "Symbolik des Islam," Tafelband, Stuttgart.
Goethe, J. W. 1965. "West-oestlichen
Divan," H. A. Maier (Hrsg.), Text, Tuebingen.
Hafis,
1942. "Qazvini und Gani", Teheran.
Iqbal,
M. 1977. "Botschaft des Ostens," ausgewaehlte Werke, A. Schimmel
(Hrsg.),
Tuebingen
und Basel.
Muhammed.
Der Koran 1996. Ahmad von Denffer (Hrsg.), Muenchen.
Mommsen,
K. 1964. "Goethe und der Islam", Stuttgart.
Schimmel, A. 1980.
"Triumphal Sun," London, The Hague.
Schimmel,
A. 1981. „Und Muhammad ist sein Prophet,“ Duesseldorf, Koeln.
Schimmel,
A. 1982. "Gaerten der Erkenntnis," Duesseldorf (u.a.).
Schimmel,
A. 1985. "Mystische Dimensionen des Islam: Die Geshichte des Sufismus.“
Koeln.
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