Goethe's Oriental studies are considered an 'escape' from war-ridden Europe to a more peaceful East, where the poet views 'a wise religion, a contented civilisation and elements of the patriarchal age'. This escape he refers to in the title of his poem Hejira. In the poem he says, "When North and West and South splinter, thrones burst and empires tremble, flee to the pure East and breathe the air of the patriarchs."