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Document Details : Title: Five Ghazals of ῾Aṭṭār Author(s): SKALMOWSKI, W. Journal: Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica Volume: 29 Date: 1998 Pages: 127-144 DOI: 10.2143/OLP.29.0.583567 Abstract : This paper forms a sequel to an earlier publication by this author on Farid-od-din ῾Aṭṭār's Manṭeq-oṭ-ṭayr. Its purpose is to apply to ῾Aṭṭār's poetry the interpretational hypothesis discussed in that article and to substantiate the claim made there that the auto-thematic, riddlelike and language-oriented ghazals constituted an essential part of that Sufi philosopher's ‘training program' destinated for the seekers of spiritual enlightenment. In order to practically illustrate this thesis five ghazals from ῾Aṭṭār's Divān have been chosen, translated literally into English and provided with commentaries explaning their sense. The choice has been motivated by the intention to discuss ghazals whose narrator most clearly speaks about his own elusive ‘nature'. To find suitable material all 179 ghazals arranged in the Divān under the letter ‘m' — and thus predominantly featuring verbs in the 1st person singular and plural — have been perused and five were chosen because of their particularly representative character. For the convenience of the reader the original texts are reproduced at the end of this paper. Because of the very sophisticated way in which ῾Aṭṭār uses the so-called taxalluṣ in his poems the theory on which the commentary is based had to be slightly revised and will be discussed first. |
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