Pretty Women and Wine

In Hafez’s poem, “Ode 44”, figurative language is used to depict the dangers of temptation to the religious man by utilizing a continuous metaphor to compare temptation, the tenor, to a drunken woman, the vehicle.

The poem’s first stanza describes a woman who is wearing very little,” With tilted glass, and verses on her lips,” (line 3). This line utilizes a metonymy to establish that the woman is drunk. The “tilted glass” connotes a glass of alcohol that has been drunk and the “verses on her lips” mean that she must be singing or maybe even mumbling. Drunk people are known to slur their words and speak incoherently. So, the narrator chooses these words to establish the fact that the woman is drunk. This line creates an image of a drunk woman, who we know is half-naked from the previous line, singing a song. Later in the stanza, the woman, “slips into [the narrator’s] bed,” (line 7). This hyperbole creates a comedic effect and further emphasizes the fact that the woman is drunk because drunk people often stumble around and lose their bearings.

In the second stanza, the narrator uses irony to express his rationalization for being tempted. In lines 20-21, he says, “Yea, by the special privilege of heaven/ Foredoomed to drink and foreordained forgiven,” (Hafez). The irony here is that heaven is supposed to be a perfect holy place, yet the narrator believes it is heaven’s fault that he is tempted. If the heavens didn’t create wine, he would not be so easily tempted. This is further emphasized in line 26 where the narrator says, “O knotted locks, filled like a flower with scent,” (Hafez). This line uses a metaphor to compare his penitence to a “knotted lock” and then uses a simile to compare his desire to a “flower with scent”. How can a man not be tempted to bend down and smell a delicious rose? This is his rationale for wanting to be with a woman, especially if she offers him wine.

I believe this poem, in its original language, would have reflected an acceptance of Islam. The narrator clearly wants to be a sinless man, but the temptation is just too hard to resist sometimes. However, when the poem gets translated, it is hard to realize it was written by a Muslim. I would still know that this was written by somebody who followed a religion, but I would have guessed Christianity because of words like “Puritan” and “penitent”.

By: Tierney Bowden

A Love “Like This”

Coleman Barks’ translation with John Moyne of “Like This” by Rumi rejects Islamic spirituality although Rumi’s original work embraced it. People deserve the opportunity to read Rumi’s work with Islamic references (as he intended). Rumi uses an apostrophe for the speaker of the poem to address their lover (or general lovers). The speaker repeatedly gives their audience instructions like “lean your head toward him or her / Keep your face there close” and “Kiss me on the lips”. This apostrophe makes the poem more intimate because it places readers in the perspective of someone receiving these instructions from their lover. As Rumi describes all the ways love is a “miracle” or close to experiencing God (seen in lines 11 and 12), the reader can picture the passion between these two people. Rumi wrote “How did Jacob’s sight return?”. Based on my limited research, Jacob was blinded due to his sorrow upon losing his son, Joseph, and his sight returned once his son’s shirt was on his face. He recognized his son’s scent from the shirt. The line “A little wind cleans his eyes” appears to be personification. The wind is not literally cleaning Jacob’s eyes. Some Qur’an websites explain this to be a miracle due to Jacob’s patience and trust in God. The line “the breeze says a secret” is another example of personification conveying something that is not physically possible. The speaker appears to feel a closeness to nature that influences their view of love.

Despite the beautiful spiritual imagery that Rumi uses, some of the Islamic context was lost in translation for the first three lines. The “perfect satisfaction of all our sexual wanting” does not necessarily convey the same meaning as being surrounded by houris (beautiful virgins) in paradise. Merriam-Webster defines houri as “one of the beautiful maidens that in Muslim belief live with the blessed in paradise” (Merriam-Webster). The translation of this line has completely removed any religious connotations. Rumi’s original writing compares love to beautiful women and paradise itself. Rumi describes this love as transcending human experience. This love is so powerful that it is similar to the afterlife. “Perfect satisfaction” hints towards the importance of this love, but it does not fully encapsulate the depths of the original meaning of houris. Throughout the poem, the repetition of “Like this” comes after each image that the speaker offers. Rumi uses similes to compare love (or the tenor) to spirituality and nature (or the vehicles). The original comparison to houris is a transfer of the sexual and paradise elements. However, Rumi probably did not intend to reference the fact that one would have to be dead to reach this paradise. Overall, the comparisons are only “like” this love (that is the closest experience to a miracle) because the speaker has not actually seen the miracles or died for love.

By removing islamic references, translators are “sanitizing” the content and removing important context. Although translators may claim to not intentionally remove islamic context, their unconscious biases may be influencing their decisions. Media without mention of any religion can play for a wider audience. Some religious people feel alienated when their religion is not at the forefront of the media that they want to consume. People may find Rumi’s translated poems (without the references to the Qur’an) and appreciate them more because it does not conflict with their beliefs. Later in the poem, mentions of Jesus, Joseph, and Jacob are still intact. Due to the initial omission of Islam, people might mistake the lines “Jesus raised the dead, / don’t try to explain the miracle” as a reference to Christianity. 

~Miki Chroust

The Pleasure in Euphoria

As we continue to analyze poetry we learn that figurative language has a lot of impact upon a poem when added in the right places under the right circumstances. In the poem written by HAFEZ, Ode 44, we see figurative language connect the euphoria that you experience with being drunk, and the pleasure of being sexual. HAFEZ stratigically places figurative language in the poem in order to emphasize the relation between these two.

HAFEZ uses metaphors such as “Filled full of frolic to her wine-red lips,” and similes such as “Warm as a dewy rose,” HAFEZ uses these in order to emphasize the scene and elaborate on the sensuality of sexual desire and how aloha emphasizes the sensuality. HAFEZ also continues to add “the gods above above ordained this wine for us” which of course is not true as the gods were not the ones that made the wine, yet the idea that the gods made the wine helps emphasize how good the wine was.

This seems very odd to juxtaposed to what is believed by Islamic spirituality. Islam is viewed as very private and a conservative religion so the talking of sex and drinking seems very taboo. Yet there is connection with the feeling of pleasure and the spirituality and unity that comes with the euphoria of sex and drinking.

Guadalupe Lemus

Breathless First Love

Love poems have a way of using a lot of figurative language to describe delicate feelings in the most intricate of ways possible. Not only does it invite the audience into the poet’s mind, but it also paves a pathway of imagination and what it is like for one to feel when in love. In Ode 44, Hafez tells a story of a specific night with a woman and wine through metaphor usage for the purpose of conveying one’s deepest desires in a vulnerable position.

Hafez starts off with laying out the central setting of the poem, which I feel really helps set the scene and gives a visual to the audience of what the atmosphere is like before continuing on with his thoughts. He further continues to describe her appearance and body language by saying “Narcissus-eyes all shining for the fray” (Line 4, Hafez). This word choice lets the readers know that the woman has light, yellowish colored eyes. The second part of the line, especially ‘shining”, indicates that the poet sees a sense of lust in her light eyes, waiting to essentially undress and become exposed to him. Such body language gives the narrator ideas of what the woman might want to initiate. Immediately after the observations, the woman makes a move and gets into bed with him then proceeds to ask if he’s asleep or awake. This questions forces the narrator to literally springs in excitement to show her that he was ready to move forward towards wherever these actions were leading. Hafez then writes “Of Heaven’s own vine: he surely were a churl” (Line 14, Hafez). This line is intriguing in a few ways. For one, readers can notice that the poet capitalizes the word ‘Heaven’, showing the underlying respect he might have when it comes to religion, culture, and God. Going off of that thought, this creates an almost contradicting meaning in the line because it basically shows how an un-welcomed deed is committed while recognizing the respect to the ‘All Knowing’. Such assumptions are later backed up when towards the end Hafez mentions “Foredoomed to drink and foreordained forgiven” (Line 21). The poet is aware what he is doing is a sin, but decided to do it anyways. Taking in account the story and figurative language, this love rejects Islamic spirituality because a lot of things that take place goes against the religion and one can tell that the poet/author is well aware of it, but decided to pursue the love anyways. That’s how powerful this love is for him.

Simranpreet Kaur

Lovers in the night, Poets trying to write

A poem such as “Like This” is one that you can feel deep inside, but a poet like Jalaluddin Rumi, can change lives. From the New Yorker article “The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi” we read that celebrities such as Madonna or Chris Martin have experienced spiritual journeys thanks to Rumi. A personal favorite Rumi poem of mine is “Like This”. Forms of figurative language that can be seen throughout “Like This” from ‘The Essential Rumi’, Translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne are similes, and hyperboles. In my own interpretation, the simile of “like this” that can be found in between almost every stanza is a comparison between things in nature to things involving love, such as a kiss. An example comes from stanza 11, “Stare into this deepening blue, while the breeze says a secret. Like this.” The next piece of figurative language is hyperbole. When Rumi writes “When lovers moan, they’re telling our story” doesn’t actually mean that these two lovers are telling a story, it’s more of a comparison to the narrator’s love life, and meant to represent all lovers. Another favorite hyperbole that I love is “If someone asks how tall I am, frown and measure with your fingers the space between the creases on your forehead.” The figurative language throughout this poem is connecting the outside world to the body, over and over again. This love embraces Islamic spirituality because of that connection to the body, nature and spirit.

The title for my post comes from one of my favorite movies, ” A Star is Born”. It is not at all relevant to this poem, but I felt like that lyric from the movie really resonated with the poem.

Anne K. Anderson

Love is Intoxicating

Out of the three poems that were presented to us “Ode 44”, “Ode 487” by Hafez, and translated by Richard Le Gallienne along with the third poem “Like This” by the author Rumi the one that I chose was “Ode 487”. In this poem, the author Hafez used multiple types of figurative language to convey his message of love for example he utilizes personification, alternate rhyme, rhyming couplet, metaphors, and similes to further perceive a message that love isn’t easy.

With the use of these figurative languages, the author can within the poem illustrate a beautiful romance that couldn’t be. In the very first line “With last night’s wine still singing in my head,” we can see how the author employs personification to give parts of the poem life and help give us some context as to what the narrator is feeling. In this poem, I believe that the love that is being described is the love that doesn’t happen between two people. It is in a way describing the emotional roller coaster one goes through when they have been rejected, “and mocked my foolish hopes of winning her.” (line 15) In this line, we can see how the narrator was rejected by a woman that he was interested in. The way that this poem is written and the messages it is portraying I believe that it is rejecting Islamic spirituality because the author brings up “ the holy city of intoxication” and in the Islamic religion they aren’t allowed or it is seen as haram for them to drink alcohol. This is why I believe that this poem overall is based on rejection in the sense of love as well as rejection towards the Islamic religion.

Sandra Landa-Sanchez

The Delicacy of Love

Love is a delicate subject, people have different ways of showing love. One of the ways where people where successful in portraying love is through literature. Poets have expressed their feeling towards their loved ones through the use of the poem’s figurative language. To exemplify this, Hafez expresses the rush of love he feels towards a girl through the use of figurative language in his poems “Ode 487 ,” and “Ode 44.”  

The use of figurative language in both poems helps in delivering Hafez’s message to the reader. Hafez focuses on the use of imagery in both poems to help deliver his point to the reader. This can be seen through line 14 in the poem “Ode 487.” Where the poet employs the use of a very detailed description of her eyes and actions. Similarly, imagery is also seen in line 8 through the poem “Ode 44,” as the Hafez is describing the physical appearance of the girl. On the other hand, a personification is seen in the first line in the poem “Ode 487,” Hafez gives a wine glass human traits as it is able to sing in his head, showing the amount of pain he is in as he is not able to win over the love of his life. On the other hand, Hafez uses a simile in his poem “Ode 44”  which is found in the sixth line “warm as a dewy rose,” emphasizing on the beauty of his lover. As a student that grew up in the middle east, Islam was the most popular religion in Palestine. Both of these two poems contradict the two ideas of being able to be sexual (have sex) with a girl or have the ability to drink. Both of these poem contradict two of the basic ideas of Islam, thus, rejecting the Islamic spirituality.

Metaphor Like a Trick or Real.

Ode 44 was the poem that caught my attention mostly. I didn’t really understood what Hafez was exactly comparing love to was it God and love or was he comparing woman and his Love? Hafez believed we were full of imperfections and we’re all not perfect throughout his poem he uses figurative language like metaphor and personification. This poem embraced Islamic spiritually because of the metaphors that this poem had. He uses metaphors in many lines the line that caught my attention the most was “filled full of frolic to her wine-red lips” the way he uses metaphor here is because we don’t exactly know who “her” is and he doesn’t exactly mean her lips are red this line can mean different things but it will not mean the most obvious.

Hafez represented the love between “wine” and “love” but this is also a metaphor because wine, doesn’t exactly have to be wine it can be his past lover or wine can mean something completely differently. Hafez uses another figurative language smile he compares wine and love “A double traitor he to wine and love” but what exactly is he comparing? We know his comparing wine and love but we don’t exactly know what wine is… Which is why he uses metaphors all over his poem. Another metaphor he states out is “With wine and woman brimming o’er with laughter!” now his talking about woman but he doesn’t exactly mean that wine and woman connect, it’s just a line that tries to trick us into thinking the obvious but in reality it’s just a metaphor talking about something completely different. He uses Metaphors, Stanzas, and similes to try to get us into thinking something else, when really his comparing religion and love his recognizing the imperfections of human beings because he truly believes that we’re not perfect which is why I believe that he is representing love between him and god and is embracing Islamic “spiritually” because his not actually saying it into his poem but instead uses figurative language like metaphors.

Ana Munos.

Lustful Beauty in Poetry

For this week’s assignment, we are presented with three poems that convey love between two individuals. Each poem presents different sensations of love. For one, “Ode 44” radiates the lustful desire between two lovers while “Ode 487” exudes hues of tenderness. “Ode 487” by Hafez generates stunning imagery through the immense amount of figurative language to portray romantic love within the poem. Hafez implements personification, metaphors, and similes to paint the beautifully painful world of love that of which is rejected by Islamic spirituality due to its absence of establishment.

In lines 1 and 4, Hafez uses personification to explain the drunkenness from the night preceding. Hafez states, “With last night’s wine still singing in my head,” (line 1). Hafez expounds the previous night by defining present day to what we would consider a “hangover.” To where the reader can infer many drinks had been consumed the night before — “The holy city of intoxication” — and a few lines down Hafez says, “The harp and flute were up and in full swing,” (line 4). The morning has begun. In relation to Islamic spirituality, there are different experiences with love. For instance, some say that romantic love is temporary in the eyes of Islam when not built on any firm foundation. Many religions believe in similar paradigms in which passionate desire leads to heartbreak. Hafez discusses the multiple desires that accompany what seems to be juvenile love: drinking, sex, the haziness of it all, and even deception. Hafez compares the sudden shock of a broken heart to the sensation of a violent storm, “Then took I shelter from that stormy sea” (line 24). This metaphor is employed near the rigid sounding section of the poem to indicate the wild tendencies of a storm. The drunken haze has ended. In that case, this certain love does not reject or embrace Islamic spirituality rather Islamic spirituality rejects the love Hafez fervently illustrates. As stated previously a love such as this fails to confirm any concrete foundation. 

Emily Pu

Love is Love

In Jalaluddin Rumi’s poem ‘like this’ he uses figurative language such as metaphor and personification to establish the love between two people. In the first couple lines Rumi states, “If anyone asks you how the perfect satisfaction of all our sexual wanting will look, lift your face and say, Like this.” I did not notice any figurative language in the first few lines but what he means by this is we all have the answer to that question no matter who we chose to love we all have a sexual satisfaction. Throughout the poem Rumi references the self to the gracefulness of the night sky, the perfect satisfaction of our sexual wanting, what God’s fragrance means, clouds gradually uncovering the moon. He then continues to say what God’s fragrance means which I thought was puzzling because I am unsure what he means by god’s fragrance. Perhaps he means we are all children of God and he is in all of us that’s why he says “lean your head toward him or her. Keep your face there close” We are all evidence of God’s fragrance and it doesn’t matter if we love the same sex or the opposite. Rumi then uses a metaphor/imagery to compare clouds uncovering the moon and someone loosening their rob to reveal themselves. Another metaphor he uses is comparing himself to the sky where spirits live, I thought this to mean he is important and has purpose just like the sky. He also uses personification in the same lines claiming the breeze tells secrets therefore look to your partner for they are there to guide you and listen to your secrets or thoughts.  Rumi’s poem also contains many biblical references from wondering how Jesus rose from the dead to the story of Joseph and Jacob while tying his own religion into the poem when he states, “When Shams come back from Tabriz,” What I also want to bring attention to is the fact that whomever Rumi is talking about we know that whom is a man, “when someone asks what there is to do, light the candle in his hand.” There isn’t any indication that he is talking about having intimate relations with a woman. For example, when he states, “when lovers moan, they’re telling our story.” By referring to a lover’s moan, he isn’t putting a gender norm on love. Through the use of metaphors and personification Rumi explains the love he has for his significant other, many people may not agree with their love but it shouldn’t matter and anyone who doesn’t understand this needs to as Rumi puts it “walk back into my house.” Come to terms with this kind of love and enter my world to fully understand. Essentially Rumi’s use of metaphor and personification tells the reader who he is in love with and how love shouldn’t have formalities because religion tells you it is wrong. We all have sexual desires and feelings, we all yearn for that special type of love that makes us feel like we could die for love and that is why it shouldn’t matter who we love.  

Natalie Rodriguez