Why Hafez Is Greater Than Shakespeare

Why Lisan al-Ghayb trumps the Bard.

‘Hafiz is the prince of Persian poets, and in his extraordinary gifts adds to some of the attributes of Pindar, Anacreon, Horace and Burns, the insight of a mystic, that sometimes affords a deeper glance at Nature than belongs to either of these bards.’

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Persian Poetry

Such is the estimation in which Ralph Waldo Emerson held Hafez. He considered him a poet for poets, a genius to rival other poetic geniuses. But did he ever consider him greater than Shakespeare? And how can one assess and compare their greatness?

Renowned playwright and poet, William Shakespeare.

One possible response comes from the scholar and poet, Mas’ud Farzad. Although Farzad did not explicitly state that Hafez was greater — in fact, he believed that such a question was futile — his perspective allows us to approach the question of comparative greatness from a different lens than one in which we may conventionally approach the question. Put simply, if greatness requires some measuring stick, then Farzad offers us an avenue (or a stick, if you will) through which we can compare literature.

In the lecture titled Hafez And His Poems delivered on January 6, 1949, he stated:

‘We have little positive indication that Shakespeare was famous outside England in his lifetime; and we learn from the scholars that even after his death (particularly before the last ten or fifteen decades) there were periods during which the general public did not know Shakespeare adequately. Is it not, therefore, a remarkable fact that (in spite of the undoubtedly less favourable state of communications in fourteenth century Persia as compared with Elizabethan England) the poems of Hafez, even in his life-time, reached the hearts of many thousands of people, commoners as well as kings, in towns many hundreds of miles apart; and furthermore, that the moon of this popularity has never waned, but has steadily gained in brilliance ever since?

'Two facts may enhance the sense of wonder which some of us would feel because of this stupendous historical phenomenon. One is that the interval of time between the writing days of Hafez and ourselves is considerably longer than the corresponding period in the case of Shakespeare; these, in round figures, being six centuries and three and a half centuries respectively. The other is that the printing press, as an aid to the dissemination of knowledge, rendered definite and early service to Shakespeare, but not to Hafez. Some of Shakespeare's plays, as everyone knows, were published even in his lifetime; and no longer than seven years after his death, a collection comprising as much as two-thirds of his writings was published by his personal friends. The first printed edition of Hafez’s poems, however, appeared more than four centuries after his death: while the first serious attempts at publishing a critical edition of his poems were made only about fifty years ago. I should, of course, emphasize that I am not making a comparison between Shakespeare and Hafez. No such comparison would be relevant, for Shakespeare was essentially and mainly a dramatic, and Hafez exclusively a lyric poet. I am merely trying to convey, through comparison with cultural and social phenomena well-known to the Western world, the measure and extent, in time and place, of the popularity and the influence of this prince of Persian, and perhaps of all, lyric poets.'

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The title of this piece was purposefully controversial, but I wanted to use it as a launching pad to discuss how one should compare literature. Can one writer be judged to be objectively greater than another? If so, on what basis? Do the points made by Farzad hold weight, or are they irrelevant? Can we only compare writers that wrote in the same language, or are judgements and comparisons across languages valid? Is the judgement of literature purely subjective, in which case you and I can conceivably be viewed as great as Shakespeare?

I’d love to hear from you guys in the comments section below :)