Iran to celebrate Hafez Day nationwide

Iran planned to celebrate Commemoration Day of great Iranian Poet Khajeh Shamseddin Mohammad Hafez Shirazi. Various programs have been arranged to mark the occasion nationwide. Poets attending the Second International Iranian and World Poets Conference will convene at Hafez tomb in Shiraz as part of the programs to celebrate Hafez Day. In the meantime, other programs have been arranged by the Faculty of Literature of Iranian universities in different cities and their branches abroad to celebrate Hafez Day. Hafez was a Persian mystic and poet who is now revered as one of the most influential Persian poets of all time. He was born sometime between the years 1310-1337, in the city of Shiraz. Today, he is primarily remembered for his lyrical poems (ghazals). Prior to him, ghazals were primarily used to write songs celebrating wine and earthly pleasure. Hafez revolutionized the form by utilizing the stock symbols of wine and pleasure as metaphors for spiritual experience. In so doing, Hafez elevated his short, simple verses to the level of high art. As a result of his mystical and profoundly transcendent subject-matter, Hafez has become an inspiration for poets of all cultures. His poems have been translated into countless languages, and his works have influenced a number of the early European Romantics, including Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. In Iran, even though his works are nearly 700 years old, Hafez continues to be immensely popular.