Stylistic techniques and their application to a poem by Hafiz

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study is to examine one of Hafizʹs poems in the framework of stylistics. As a branch of applied linguistics, stylistics is concerned with the study of style in literary works. Stylistics is practiced as a part of understanding the possible meaning in a text. This paper examines the features of stylistic framework against the lyric (ghazal) 456 of Hafiz adopted from the late Peter Avery’s collection of the lyrics of Hafiz. Hafiz is the greatest of all the lyric poets of Iran who took ghazal to its peak. With him ghazal reaches its perfection. It starts with an examination of the make-up of a sentence ? both in English and mostly of Persian ? and its elements to show how structure is fundamental to the study of language. It shows how our understanding of language can deepen our response to a literary text. There are sections on vocabulary and sound patterns of a literary text. It also looks at language beyond the sentence to see how a text is given unity through its language. This knowledge will need the reader to go further with deconstruction a literary text.