The late Professor Edward Browne believes that:

the epic, lyric, didactic, mystic, satiric, or pessimist poets of Iran such as Firdowsi, Hafez, Sa’adi, Nasir-Khusrow, Attar, Jallal ad-Din Balkhi (Rumi); Ubayd-i-Zakani, and Omar Khayyam, each in his own different way appeals to some ground common to all mankind. And these are the ones that are known best, outside Iran. (Professor Ed Browne, Volume I)

He calls Iranians:

the most ancient, gifted and original peoples of the world. (ibid.)

From among these the best-known in Europe are Firdowsi, Hafez, Sa’adi and Omar Khayyam. These great-men have inspired the world during the last three centuries and one notices their praise recurring time after time in various literatures of the world.

Out of the different European nations, if we take Germany, France and England into consideration, we notice that in each country one of these poets appealed more than the others. Hafez was appreciated more in Germany, Sa’adi in France and Omar Khayyam in England.

This does not mean that the others were completely ignored but it only shows the national preference in each case. The first country who began to study the Iranian literature and appreciate it were the Germans. The German scholars were in touch with Persian literature and poetry through the translation of Sa’adi’s Gulistan and Bustan made by the traveler and scholar Adam Olearius (1671 A.D.).

These had a salutary influence on German literature of the 17th century. This influence continued to be active in the eighteenth century and one of the results of it was the tale of Joseph produced by Grumelshausen under the influence of the story of Yusuf and Zuleikha, as rendered and developed in the Iranian literature.

Thanks to a number of remarkable poet-scholars, such as Herder, Germany acquired a far better appreciation and understanding of the East than France and England. The scholars and poets of Germany who were looking for inspiration from other sources than those offered by Greek classics and Greek mythology, studied with zeal the literature of the East.

Hartmann, Schlegel and Hammer and later Ruckert revealed to poets and writers of the West new and almost unsuspected treasures that were hidden in the Eastern Literature especially that of Iran. This literature entered into 19th century German literature to a degree unparalleled in Europe since the literature of medieval Spain. (Dr. Gibb, The Legacy of Islam)

The most important single work that influenced German literature as well as all the literatures of Europe was Goethe’s “West-Ostlicher Diwan.”

Goethe, like his predecessors, made it his conscious aim to open a way for the real heritage of Oriental poetry to enter into the poetry of Europe. This great masterpiece of Goethe left a lasting impression everywhere in Europe. Goethe who had just founded his great “Social Philosophy” in which he considered the time as ripe to think of a humane world philosophy irrespective of nationality and creed.

He believed that the East and the West were not really separate from each other and should approach each other. In furthering this philosophy he also envisaged, a world literature and proposed that the door should become wide open so that the greatest poets of the East i.e. Sa’adi and Hafez should become members of it. In a letter about his “West -Ostlicher Diwan” he writes:

My hope and aim is to approach, by means of this work, the East to the West, the past to the present and the Persians to the Germans.

We are told that “West-Ostlicher Diwan” was suggested to Goethe by a translation of the Diwan of Hafez. When Goethe became acquainted with Hafez’s Diwan he wrote:

Suddenly I came face to face with the celestial perfume of the East and invigorating breeze of Eternity that was being blown from the plains and the wastelands of Persia, and I came to know an extraordinary man whose personality completely fascinated me.

Then in the late summer of the same year he wrote:

I am getting mad. If I do not immediately start composing poetry, I will not be able to bear the amazing influence of this extraordinary personality who has suddenly entered into my life.

In one place he compares Hafez to a ship and himself to a humble and broken raft and exclaims:

0, Hafez, how can anyone boast to be thy equal…

and he considers the verses of Hafez as:

a miracle of human taste and refinement and a regenerating source of perfection and beauty as well as philosophy and Erfan…

He calls him “Saint Hafez” and “celestial Friend”.  Goethe was acquainted with Iranian Literature and time and again he talks about seven great Persian poets “Firdowsi, Anvari, Nizami, Mowlavi, Sa’adi, Hafez and Jami”. He has even prepared a short biography of these seven Iranian poets.

Goethe, according to Professor Gibb:

found in Oriental poetry first of all a means of escape into the world of imagination from the brutal realities of the age. But he was not satisfied with mere imitation but by taking the art and ideals of Persian poetry with those medieval and romantic elements in the European tradition with which they were in closest harmony, he created a new idiom to express his own thought and at the same time emphasized the cosmopolitanism which it was his aim to express in German literature.

But contrary to Professor Gibb’s suggestion, in his Diwan, Goethe really tried to introduce Iranian ideas into German literature and did not use those idioms only to express his own thought. Unfortunately a new rage of nationalism swept over Europe and drowned his magnificent efforts. This combined with the new colonialism and new sense of power and superiority which was attached to it, shattered Goethe’s ideal of “Welt literature” even in Germany.

However, once the interest was aroused it could not be completely forgotten. Besides, the other countries of Europe who were just entering into the 19th century romanticism did not want to be left untouched by this new wave that had swept over Germany. So we see, at least a lip-service being paid by other countries to the literature of Iran.

www.mihanfoundation.org/literature/17th.html

Part II