Evaluation of the Binary Oppositions in the Ghazals of Hafiz

The study of binary oppositions in art and literature has attracted some contemporary linguists, mythologists, narratologists and semiologists. They maintain that one may get a better understanding of the literary work through these binary oppositions. In this study attempt is made to have another look at the poems of Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafiz by considering binary opposition as one of the central elements and main features of his poems. For this purpose, 100poems have been selected randomly.In these poems 637 binary oppositions are seen indicating that in each sonnet there are 4 to 6 cases of binary opposition. The binary oppositions are grouped in three parts: verbal and lexical (35%), semantic and conceptual (54%), and literary (11%). Semantic pairs are repeated more often in the poems of Hafiz, which give his Ghazalstheir distinctive feature.