A great many of the poems, however, do not owe their inspiration to the Orient, and many are completely unoriental.  Such are, for instance, those of the Randsch Namah, expressing, as they do, Goethe’s opinions on contemporary literary and aesthetic matters.  Again, many are inspired by personal experiences, and, as is now well known, the whole Buch Suleika owes its origin to the poet’s love for Marianne von Willemer; some of its finest poems have been proved to have been written by this gifted lady.  Such poems, written under the impressions of some actual occurrence, were sometimes subsequently orientalized.  Some striking illustrations of this are given by Burdach in the essay which we cited before and to which we refer.

As the Divan was an original work, though inspired by Oriental sources, Goethe did not feel the necessity of imitating the extremely artificial forms of his Oriental models.  Besides, he knew of these forms only indirectly through the work of Jones.  What Hammer’s versions could teach him on this point was certainly very little.  Perhaps he did not realize what an essential element form is in Persian poetry, that, in fact, it generally predominates over the thought, and this so much that the unity of a gazal is entirely dependent on the recurrence of the rhyme.  Instead of such recurrent rhyme he employs changing rhyme and free strophes.  Only twice does he attempt anything like an imitation of the gazal, but in neither case does he satisfy the technical rules of this poetic form.[109]

From all this we see that Goethe in the Divan preserves his poetic independence.  He remains a citizen of the West, though he chooses to dwell for a time in the East.  As a rule he takes from there only what he finds congenial to his own nature.  So we can understand his attitude towards mysticism.  He has no love for it; it was utterly incompatible with his own habit of clear thinking.  Speaking of Rumi, the prince of mystics, he doubts if this poet could give a clear account of his own doctrine;[110] the grades by which, according to Sufi-doctrine, man rises to ultimate union with the Godhead he calls follies.[111] Therefore to him Hafid was the singer of real love, real roses and real wine, and this conception of the great lyric poet was also adopted by all the later Hafizian singers.[112] Unfortunately it cannot be said that it is quite correct.  For even if we ignore the mystical interpretation which Oriental commentators give to the wine of Hafid, we cannot possibly ignore the fact that the love of which he sings is never the ideal love for woman, but mostly the love for a handsome boy.[113]

With the Divan Goethe inaugurated the Oriental movement in German poetry, which Rueckert, Platen and Bodenstedt carried to its culmination.  These later Hafizian singers remembered gratefully what they owed the sage of Weimar.  Rueckert pays his tribute to him in the opening poem of his Oestliche Rosen, where he hails him as lord of the East as he has been the star of the West.[114] And Platen offers to him reverentially his first Ghaselen: