Goethe's Divan and Dialogue Through Music

There is a never-ending issue in the Middle East. It is a millennia-old problem that has plunged people and generations into pain and tragedy.

Art is a way of expressing suffering and tragedy. My focus is always on art, not on pains and tragedies. In this sense, I always emphasize that art is a necessity, something that lives with us. With this perspective, let me approach this unresolved issue through Goethe and music. How can we approach an ongoing war through Goethe and music?

There is an orchestra. Its name is the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. It takes its name from Goethe's work, the West-Eastern Divan. What is this work and where does it come from? Let us first introduce the book, take a journey into its spirit, and then move on to the story of the orchestra. Poetry and music unite East and West together. We have the strength to achieve this, regardless of nationality, religion, race, or blood.

Goethe and Hafiz: A Poetic Dialogue

In 1814, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe read the poems of the great fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafiz in a newly published translation by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. For Goethe, the book was a revelation. He felt a deep connection with Hafiz and Persian poetic traditions, and was immediately inspired to create his own West-Eastern Divan (1819) as a lyrical conversation between the poetry and history of his native Germany and that of Persia. The resulting collection engages with the idea of the other and unearths lyrical connections between cultures.

Goethe was in his mid-sixties when his long-standing publisher and friend, Johann Friedrich Cotta, gave him a new German translation of the Divan of the 14th-century Persian poet Hafiz.

Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz (c. 1320–1389) is one of the most beloved poets of the Persians, and is considered by many, from different cultures, to be one of the seven literary wonders of the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe both agreed. As Emerson said of Hafiz: "He fears nothing. He sees too far, he sees throughout; such is the only man I wish to see or be." He also famously remarked: "Hafiz is a poet for poets."

Hafiz’s poems were admired by such diverse figures as Nietzsche and Arthur Conan Doyle, whose character Sherlock Holmes quotes Hafiz. Garcia Lorca praised the Sufi poet. Johannes Brahms was so touched by Hafiz’s verse that he incorporated several into his compositions. Queen Victoria is said to have consulted Hafiz in times of difficulty, part of a long-standing Middle Eastern tradition known as Fal-e Hafiz, in which a reader seeks guidance by randomly opening one of Hafiz’s books with a heartfelt question.

As Goethe’s poems accumulated, he assembled them into a “German Divan” as a response to Hafiz, whom he addressed as his twin. Hearing a call from the East, he responded from the West, constructing a poetic bridge. He wrote:

Know yourself and in that instant

Know the Other and see therefore

Orient and Occident

Cannot be parted for evermore

During this project, Goethe also fell in love with Marianne von Willemer, the young wife of a Frankfurt banker. This romance further fueled his poetic output, echoing the love-saturated ghazals of Hafiz. The resulting poems, some of which were written by von Willemer, formed the “Book of Suleika,” at the heart of the Divan, where Goethe adopted the persona “Hatem” to correspond with his beloved, mirroring the Persian epic of Joseph and Zuleika.

The West-Eastern Divan is one of the great masterpieces of world literature, a poetic fusion of European and Persian traditions. It not only responded to the rich imagery and aesthetics of the East, but may also have foreshadowed modern geopolitics, seeking reconciliation between an often divided East and West. Goethe may have recognized Hafiz’s spiritual ambition: using beauty and love as the only true paths to the Divine. Unlike Rumi’s ecstasy, Hafiz favored sobriety and refinement, but the same underlying devotion to divine love pervaded both.

Goethe, deeply aware of these mystical dimensions, responded with poems that celebrated this blend of earthly and transcendent beauty. In the West-Eastern Divan, he also treated poetry as a living entity capable of transcending time and place, embodying his concept of Weltliteratur (world literature). For Goethe, poetry could connect cultures, forming bridges where none seemed possible.

The New Divan: A Contemporary Poetic Response

The bicentenary of Goethe’s Divan was marked by the publication of two significant volumes by Gingko, an organization devoted to fostering dialogue between East and West. The organization's name itself references Goethe’s symbolic Gingo biloba poem.

1. The first publication is a new bilingual edition of Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan, translated into English prose by renowned scholar Eric Ormsby. This edition includes previously unpublished poems and Goethe’s own Notes and Essays. Ormsby emphasizes the book’s enormous impact on European literature, calling it: “Nothing less than a decisive reconfiguration of German, and indeed European, poetry.”

2. The second volume is A New Divan: A Lyrical Dialogue Between East and West. In it, twelve poets from the East and twelve from the West compose poems inspired by the twelve “books” of Goethe’s original Divan. These poets hail from Morocco to Turkey (Gonca Özmen), Syria to Afghanistan, Germany to Mexico, Estonia to Brazil.

The project includes poetic responses to themes like “The Poet,” “Love,” “The Tyrant,” and “Paradise.” Over twenty English-language poets—including Adonis, Mourid Barghouti, Elaine Feinstein, Jan Wagner, Don Paterson, and Paul Farley—helped create English versions of these works.

The New Divan initiative was marked by live readings and performances in the UK and Germany. In our present era of cultural tension, it expands Goethe’s vision of poetry as a universal medium of understanding.

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra: Music as a Bridge

This was not the only reinvention of Goethe’s Divan. In 1999, Daniel Barenboim, the Argentine-Israeli conductor, and Edward Said, the Palestinian-American literary theorist, co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Their goal was to bring together young Jewish and Arab musicians to make music and talk to one another.

The orchestra’s founding echoes Goethe’s ideals, art as dialogue across boundaries. In 2019, it performed to great acclaim at the BBC Proms with works by Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and Lutosławski.

Said, known for his landmark book Orientalism, had critiqued much of Western scholarship for its imperial gaze on the East. But as Marina Warner explained in a BBC programme, Said regarded Goethe’s Divan differently. He saw it not as an appropriation, but as “a dialogue that allowed the thought he encountered to enter him.”

This belief inspired the orchestra’s name and mission. In fact, the introductions to A New Divan were written by Daniel Barenboim and Mariam Said, Edward’s widow.

It is essential to distinguish Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan from the dominant Orientalist paradigms that would later characterize much of 19th-century European thought. Unlike the exploitative and reductive tendencies of classical Orientalism, critiqued most notably by Edward Said, Goethe’s approach to the East was dialogical, reverential, and self-reflective. His Divan does not attempt to possess or define the East but rather enters into a poetic and philosophical conversation with it. Goethe saw in Hafiz a twin soul, not an exotic "other." His project was not one of cultural appropriation but of mutual recognition, anticipating a model of cultural understanding rooted in Weltliteratur, or world literature.

The orchestra is based in Seville, Spain and includes musicians from across the Middle East—Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Spain. It stands as one of the most unique musical ensembles in the world.

Educational Legacy and Institutional Projects

In 2015, Barenboim’s long-time collaborator, Argentine pianist Martha Argerich, was named an honorary member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. A year later, the Barenboim–Said Akademie opened in Berlin. This state-accredited conservatory offers Bachelor of Music and Artist Diploma degrees and follows the orchestra’s founding ideals of coexistence and artistic excellence.

Barenboim and Said, who became close friends in the early 1990s, created the orchestra not to romanticize peace, but to cultivate understanding through artistic cooperation. As Barenboim himself stated: “The Divan is not a love story, and it is not a peace story. It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn't... The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance.”

A young Israeli musician further emphasized this:

“Barenboim is always saying his project is not political. But this is a political statement by both sides. It is more important not for people like myself, but for people to see that it is possible to sit down with Arab people and play. The orchestra is a human laboratory that can express to the whole world how to cope with the other.”

Edward Said: Scholar, Humanist, Cultural Bridge

Edward W. Said (1935–2003) was born in Jerusalem, raised in Jerusalem and Cairo, and educated at Princeton (B.A. 1957) and Harvard (M.A. 1960; Ph.D. 1964). He began teaching at Columbia University in 1963 and was appointed University Professor of English and Comparative Literature. Beyond academia, Said wrote columns for Al-Hayat and Al-Ahram, contributed to newspapers globally, and served as music critic for The Nation. He was also on the editorial boards of 20 journals and edited Harvard University Press’s Convergences series.

He lectured at over 200 universities on four continents and was one of the most influential public intellectuals of the 20th century. His advocacy for humanism is best captured in his own words: “Humanism is the only – I would go so far as saying the final – resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history. Separation between peoples is not a solution for any of the problems that divide peoples... Cooperation and coexistence of the kind that music lived as we have lived, performed, shared and loved it together, might be.”

Daniel Barenboim: Musician and Cultural Visionary

Daniel Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires in 1942. He began piano lessons with his mother at age five and gave his first public performance at age seven. In 1952, his family moved to Israel, where his musical education continued. At eleven, he attended conducting classes in Salzburg under Igor Markevich, and later met Wilhelm Furtwängler, who declared: “The eleven-year-old Daniel Barenboim is a phenomenon.”

He later studied harmony and composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, grounding his career in both technical mastery and intellectual depth.

Barenboim reflected on the project’s meaning: “Our project may not change the world, but it is a step forward. Edward Said and myself see our project as an ongoing dialogue, where the universal, metaphysical language of music links with the continuous dialogue that we have with young people, and that young people have with each other.”

Global Recognition and Partner Institutions

The orchestra has gained international recognition through partnerships and performances. Key institutions that support or emerged from the project include: Barenboim-Said Akademie, Barenboim-Said for Music, Daniel Barenboim Stiftung, Fundación Barenboim-Said, Barenboim-Said Foundation USA.

From its inception, one of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra’s goals was to perform in all countries represented by its musicians. Concerts in Rabat, Doha, Abu Dhabi, and the landmark 2005 concert in Ramallah have advanced this mission.

The orchestra has also performed twice at the United Nations, in December 2006 in New York to honor Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and in October 2015 in Geneva. In September 2007, Ban Ki-moon named Daniel Barenboim a UN Messenger of Peace, and in February 2016, the orchestra was designated a UN Global Advocate for Cultural Understanding.

Their repertoire ranges from full symphonic works to opera and chamber music. Prestigious venues include: Berlin Philharmonie, Teatro alla Scala (Milan), Musikverein (Vienna), Carnegie Hall (New York), Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Moscow), Hagia Eirene Museum (Istanbul), Salle Pleyel (Paris), Plaza Mayor (Madrid), Teatro Colón and Centro Cultural Kirchner (Buenos Aires). They are also regular guests at the BBC Proms, Salzburg Festival, and Lucerne Festival.

Hafiz in Turkish Verse: Yahya Kemal’s The Death of the Bohemian

The legacy of Hafiz lives on not only in Persian and European traditions but also in Turkish poetry. One of the most evocative examples is Yahya Kemal Beyatlı’s The Death of the Bohemian (“Rindlerin Ölümü”), which channels the mysticism and aesthetics of Hafiz:

In the garden at Hāfiz's tomb there is a rose

Which opens every day with blood-like colour

At night, the nightingale weeps until dawn turns grey,

With a tune that reminds us of the ancient Shīrāz.

Death is a calm country of spring for a vagrant;

His heat fumes everywhere like a censer – for years…

And over his tomb that lies under cool compresses

A rose opens every morn, every night a nightingale sings.

This poem offers a deeply personal, Ottoman-infused meditation on death, beauty, and spiritual continuity, mirroring Hafiz’s own poetic themes.

Iqbal's Persian Reply to Goethe

In 1923, the Persian-speaking philosopher and poet Muhammad Iqbal composed Payam-e-Mashriq (Message from the East), a direct poetic response to Goethe’s Divan. Iqbal honored Goethe's gesture and returned it with a celebration of Eastern philosophical, mystical, and poetic traditions.

His work reasserted Eastern spiritual thought as a counterpart, not a subordinate, to Western modernity. Just as Goethe had entered into a lyrical dialogue with Hafiz, Iqbal entered into a transhistorical exchange with Goethe.

Final Reflections: Art as the Architecture of Peace

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Goethe’s Divan share a common spirit: the conviction that art is not merely aesthetic. It is ethical, political, and deeply human. Art does not resolve wars, but it makes dialogue possible where violence silences voices.

As Daniel Barenboim stated: “It’s not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well... The Divan is a platform where two sides can disagree and not resort to knives.”

And as Edward Said argued: “Ignorance of the other provides no help whatever.”

From Hafiz’s ghazals to Goethe’s poetic bridge, from the orchestral laboratory of Barenboim and Said to the verses of Yahya Kemal and Iqbal, a universal truth resounds:

Beauty and love, through music and poetry, may be our last common language.