A Comparative Study of the Beloved's Eye in the Ghazals of Hafiz and the Canzoniere of Petrarch

The Ghazals of Hafiz and the Canzoniere of Petrarch (1304–1374) have at least three common characteristics: (a) from the qualitative point of view: Each of these two works is at the top of the medieval love poetry: one in the Persian literature, and the other in the European literature; (b) from the chronological point of view: These two books of poetry have been written during the fourteen the century A.D. (8th century AH); (c) from the quantitative point of view: The ghazals of Hafiz contain near 4092 distichs or bayts (i. e., 8184 lines or mesra') and the Canzoniere of Petrarch contains 7784 lines. So, they are contemporary, contain a similar number of lines and are at the top of the medieval love poetry. The description of the beloved's eye is one of the principal common places of these two poets: Petrarch mentions the eye 263 times in the Canzoniere and Hafiz 216 times in the Ghazals. Moreover, Hafez writes about the Narcissus-a metaphor of the eye-in 44 distichs. This paper shows, with the comparative-contrast method, the common and different characteristics of the beloved's eye in the Hafiz and Petrarch's poetry.