With Hafiz (Hafez in Persian, please!) and his poems Persian taste changes in favor of what I call sophisticated word play.

What happened with him was that the sense of urgency in writing vanquished. With him the plebs came to the top. Before Hafiz (Hafez in Persian, please!) poets, Persian poets, could be categorized into two categories: those with talent who used poetry to please, make money, and occasionally instruct and lead the public in the art of good manners and those who wrote poetry.

With Hafiz (Hafez in Persian, please!) the first category of poets got the upper hand and the second category of them became irrelevant.

Honest writing, like honest people, does not strive after words, does not carry its self-made linguistic identity in its hands. True poets do not play with language: they command it. The word-play poet is a lightheaded creature; he is joker: one laughs at him, one does not take him seriously. Hafez was the joker who got himself taken seriously!

And the rest, as Lord Hamlet says, was silence…

Naanaam / نانام