Aliya's response blog

This project was inspired by the Ghazals of Hafiz which we read two weeks ago. I have used the words of his Ghazals  that mention wine and I have written them out in the shape of a wine bottle and a wine glass. I used the original Persian as displayed next to Elizabeth Gray’s translations in The Green Sea of Heaven.

I thought it was really interesting how the Ghazals view drinking as a means of gaining knowledge, or an enlightened state. As one says, “Ask the drunken rends for the veil’s secret, for this state is not for the ‘highly ranked’ ascetic.” I decided to represent the Ghazals in this way to highlight what seems, as least to me, and interesting clash between religious, high, register, and the more mundane, even profane subject of wine-drinking.

I found it remarkable that even in the wine glass and bottle, which we only see in our lives in a social context, Hafiz saw a route to spirituality. My piece is meant to represent, quite literally, how Hafiz read into the subject of wine-drinking. The Persian text, which resembles Arabic to the untrained eye makes us think of the Qu’ran, scripture and Islamic culture in general. This immediately ties the objects back to its religious and cultural context.