Review of Panegyric Poems by Hafez

Document Type : Research Paper

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Abstract

Panegyric poems are one of the controversial issues about ghazalscomposed by Hafez. Some researchers deny that Hafez has said such poems and believe that scribes have added the said poems to his work. Some others reinterpret and justify panegyricghazals and verses by Hafez, so as to maintain his sacredness. A look into the views held by researchers and matching them with ghazals by Hafez shows that there are two main reasons for denying or justifying his panegyric poems:believing in lack of coherence in the structure of the ghazals and inattentiveness to the secondary meaning of verses, in a way that they consider each verse independent from others and believe that the real sense of words in each verse is meant by Hafez. Since there are only a few ghazals which are praise-centered from the beginning and others are accompanied by a plan or introduction such as serenades, panegyricghazals by Hafez are divided in this paper into two groups of arranged and planned ghazals and unarranged and unplanned ones. The secondary meanings of sentences too are categorized under each group. In conclusion, the secondary meanings of sentences and their coordination with the general structure of ghazals indicate that panegyricghazals by Hafez have a systematic structure. Not only does presence of such poems in his Divān devalues the greatness and dignity of Hafez, but also provides a better understanding of his smartness.

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