than seduction. The woman expected one deal, but got another. The mute
language of the visual allows multivalence, folding a contemporary inter-
pretation within a biblical guise.
Like seventeenth-century European paintings, Jami’s poem functions
mimetically through psychological assimilation, enabling identification
between the reader and the characters through the intimate metaphor of
erotic desire. His deployment of poetry as exegesis reflects Quranic con-
cerns distinguishing between disbelieving poets who distract from divine
truth and believers who do good deeds with it (Q26:221–227). Such an
understandingfits within Platonic concerns over the danger of poetry, as
expressed by Proclus:
All poetry is mimetic, and poetic mimesis can be defective in one of two ways:
either by presenting its subjects without likeness or similarity or, while achieving
such likeness, presenting a shifting diversity of character or behavior that, by
means of psychological assimilation (the effect of mimesis), will produce compar-
able characteristics in the audience.^102Figure 19Orazio Gentileschi,Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife,oil on canvas, 1630–1632.
Royal Collection Trust, CIN 405477. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018(^102) Halliwell, 2002 : 325 (412–425).
264 The Transgressive Image