Martin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 54 - Reimagining Medieval Persian Pub LifeSynopsis

The Be-Loving Imaginer

The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 55 Reimagining Medieval Persian Pub Life Synopsis Pub life in medieval Muslim Persia? But didn’t the Qur’an prohibit wine? Actually, the meaning of the relevant Quranic passages was long and widely debated. Result: Persian pub culture was intense and celebrated with distinguished verse. In this book I focus on a “divan,” a very big “collection,” of pub verse called Eastern Roses, and I show how to position that major work in a cultural context of pub life. J. W. von Goethe, Germany’s greatest poet, was having “writer’s block” in 1814 when suddenly appeared the first-ever translation of Hafeez’ fourteenth-century “divan” into any European language appeared in German. Goethe loved it and by 1819 he had written his reply: West-East Divan, where he plays the role of a Persian medieval pub poet while yet remaining in some ways also “Western” and modern. This epoch-making marvel caught on in Germany and powerfully stimulated the rich production of several poets, whom I’ll also sample. l. Prelude: Friedrich Rückert dedicates his eastern rose-bouquet (1822) with a poem to Goethe. I’ll “reply” to this by citing a very Hafeezian poem by Goethe, plus comments. 2. “I’m tempted by the lute” is a duet between Rückert and Hafeez/Hammer. 3. Another verse dialogue between them in a sharply different mood. 4. Dialogue between Rückert and an American Anacreontic (pub poet).