The Ghazal in English
A Letter to the Editors of Lynx: The Journal of Linking Poetry
By William Dennis
The story is told that when the young Ghalib began saying sher in Delhi, he manufactured the tale that for two years his family had given residence to a Persian teacher, in order that Ghalib might receive instruction in the Persian language, Farsi. This was to avoid being known as be-ustad or masterless poet, one who never received proper instruction. Let us take this name for the spontaneous appearance of ghazal writers in contemporary America and advance the process toward recognition as a movement. Ghalib went on to immortal status in Urdu and Persian composition, demonstrating that much can be accomplished with little formal instruction. The pen name, Ghalib, means, “One Who Overcomes.”
When I think how the sonnet’s several shapes serve the purposes they have, first Petrarchian, then Shakespearean, they hybrid, then mongrel; first love song, then ruminative disquisition; rhymed, blank, and free, but always lovely, it quiets the heart. The sonnet has been like the vase of classical Greek antiquity, always thrown in strict proportion of height to circumference, but very different time to time. Likewise, the ghazal started as the cry of an animal in distress and became a song of passion men use to recount their condition to their loves. Like the sonnet, the ghazal is primarily a love song, but many other materials have been happily poured into its shape. We do not worry ourselves over the future of the sonnet, if any; and I do not feel the ghazal will be any the worse for our wear.
There are those who say insightful things and wonder with intelligence what will become of the ghazal, an outgrowth of other language families, when it is captured by the English tongue. They, as I have, wonder how the mechanisms of the ghazal, particularly the refrain ending each couplet, will carry over into our own speech. In very fact, such repetition often has a heavy effect, boots full of water, dragging the throw-rugs about. But the more I practice, the more I believe that such clumsiness is only part of the early stages of learning. I am reminded of the Eskimo who found himself in Victorian England when the bicycle was the fastest thing on earth. Seeing so many men step on a pedal and glide swiftly away without the wobbling crash, which inevitably followed upon his own attempts, this arctic denizen concluded that the bicycle was inherently unsuited to the Eskimo physical equipage; that the English were differently articulated and thus, the bicycle, the product of English and European physical traits, would never be really helpful to the Eskimo. This conclusion was even supported by various Englishmen with whom the Eskimo consulted, all of whom were recognized experts in the practice of bicycle locomotion.
We would serve ourselves ill to worry that the twists of the ghazal may not fit the shape of English, as it is spoken in verse in our day, rather than consider what new turns it may introduce. After all, language is in constant change and poetry must surely be among the first places where the new speech makes appearance. If not in verse, where? What is rather easy to accomplish in Farsi, Urdu or Arabic, may be practiced as a more difficult grace in English. Antelope easily dance on their toes, which ballerinas accomplish only with great discipline. Rhyme, so common as to be disregarded in Japanese and easily braided in chains in Italian, has a long and noble history in English, where it is more difficult to accomplish. Radif, a refrain or partial phrase ending each hemistich, comes trippingly to the tongue that speaks any language which modifies verb-stems with consistent suffixes, and in which it is reasonably acceptable to place the verb at the end of the sentence. It is amazing that there is not a rage for ghazal in Germanic lands. Or perhaps there is.
As a folk, we are in a strangely untutored period of our cultural history. Though we read all the great works of our heritage in these mediums, consonance, assonance, rhyme and meter are unfamiliar tools, which jingle when we disturb our grandparents’ old valise. Our inheritance, for that matter, is so diverse as to stun the inquiring mind. Immigrants typically arrive possessing more familiar acquaintance with their national literature and more pride therein than almost any well-educated Westerner has in his own. Names writ as large as Yeats and Frost are only vague rumor to most. Interestingly, if one chats with young people who claim an interest in poetry, it is rhyme and meter that they consistently select as the medium of their first expression. As they grow sophisticated, they frequently go on to free verse, only to be replaced in the dock by fresh rhymers from what seems to be an ineradicable pool at the base of our sensibility. It may well be that the most profound literary influence in the Western world is really Mother Goose.
Our unpracticed hands fumble about with the intricacies of form. Even the briefest form– haiku– requires the artist to keep at lest three balls in the air. Ghazal is somewhat more elaborate in its accustomed usage. The first thing one might propose to facilitate the assimilation of the form would be to drop incomprehensible technical jargon. Words borrowed from Urdu, Persian, Arabic and farther afield can not advance the general understanding nearly as well as the English terms readily available. The use of internal rhyme, a refrain and the poet’s name in the final couplet is much more likely to advance understanding than matla, radif, qafia, etc.
When English-speakers turn to great ghazal, they generally find work written long ago. Ghalib, who died in 1869, is more likely to be translated than the currently popular Gulab Ali. Our examples are dated. Of course, there can be no criticism of great masters, but one no longer speaks in the orotund phrases of the King James Bible, either. Absent some living continuity with the tradition of ghazal-writing in its native places, we can but feel our way and be grateful for what we find in the dark. One may thankfully note some haiku in American journals written by Japanese authors. Ghazal by Indian writers do not seem to be making the same transition yet. We are surely the poorer for it.
And it may be that when the ghazal enters a new cultural sphere, it changes. Life is change. And that will occur only after some dispute and recrimination, if history teaches. The two-part statement, which composes each hemistich, is probably more significant than any rhyme or lack of it. Free verse, immediately recognizable as ghazal, seems entirely possible. English writing has been informed by free verse since Walt Whitman’s day, and it may be time for reaction against what might be called a bland, sometimes artless presentation. In any case, it seems not only premature, but wrong, to decide what part of the ghazal form will be adopted into the English family of usages, to sit beside the pantoum, terza rima and, just think, the sonnet. We are a nation of immigrants.
When I think how the sonnet’s several shapes serve the purposes they have, first Petrarchian, then Shakespearean, they hybrid, then mongrel; first love song, then ruminative disquisition; rhymed, blank, and free, but always lovely, it quiets the heart. The sonnet has been like the vase of classical Greek antiquity, always thrown in strict proportion of height to circumference, but very different time to time. Likewise, the ghazal started as the cry of an animal in distress and became a song of passion men use to recount their condition to their loves. Like the sonnet, the ghazal is primarily a love song, but many other materials have been happily poured into its shape. We do not worry ourselves over the future of the sonnet, if any; and I do not feel the ghazal will be any the worse for our wear.
There are those who say insightful things and wonder with intelligence what will become of the ghazal, an outgrowth of other language families, when it is captured by the English tongue. They, as I have, wonder how the mechanisms of the ghazal, particularly the refrain ending each couplet, will carry over into our own speech. In very fact, such repetition often has a heavy effect, boots full of water, dragging the throw-rugs about. But the more I practice, the more I believe that such clumsiness is only part of the early stages of learning. I am reminded of the Eskimo who found himself in Victorian England when the bicycle was the fastest thing on earth. Seeing so many men step on a pedal and glide swiftly away without the wobbling crash, which inevitably followed upon his own attempts, this arctic denizen concluded that the bicycle was inherently unsuited to the Eskimo physical equipage; that the English were differently articulated and thus, the bicycle, the product of English and European physical traits, would never be really helpful to the Eskimo. This conclusion was even supported by various Englishmen with whom the Eskimo consulted, all of whom were recognized experts in the practice of bicycle locomotion.
We would serve ourselves ill to worry that the twists of the ghazal may not fit the shape of English, as it is spoken in verse in our day, rather than consider what new turns it may introduce. After all, language is in constant change and poetry must surely be among the first places where the new speech makes appearance. If not in verse, where? What is rather easy to accomplish in Farsi, Urdu or Arabic, may be practiced as a more difficult grace in English. Antelope easily dance on their toes, which ballerinas accomplish only with great discipline. Rhyme, so common as to be disregarded in Japanese and easily braided in chains in Italian, has a long and noble history in English, where it is more difficult to accomplish. Radif, a refrain or partial phrase ending each hemistich, comes trippingly to the tongue that speaks any language which modifies verb-stems with consistent suffixes, and in which it is reasonably acceptable to place the verb at the end of the sentence. It is amazing that there is not a rage for ghazal in Germanic lands. Or perhaps there is.
As a folk, we are in a strangely untutored period of our cultural history. Though we read all the great works of our heritage in these mediums, consonance, assonance, rhyme and meter are unfamiliar tools, which jingle when we disturb our grandparents’ old valise. Our inheritance, for that matter, is so diverse as to stun the inquiring mind. Immigrants typically arrive possessing more familiar acquaintance with their national literature and more pride therein than almost any well-educated Westerner has in his own. Names writ as large as Yeats and Frost are only vague rumor to most. Interestingly, if one chats with young people who claim an interest in poetry, it is rhyme and meter that they consistently select as the medium of their first expression. As they grow sophisticated, they frequently go on to free verse, only to be replaced in the dock by fresh rhymers from what seems to be an ineradicable pool at the base of our sensibility. It may well be that the most profound literary influence in the Western world is really Mother Goose.
Our unpracticed hands fumble about with the intricacies of form. Even the briefest form– haiku– requires the artist to keep at lest three balls in the air. Ghazal is somewhat more elaborate in its accustomed usage. The first thing one might propose to facilitate the assimilation of the form would be to drop incomprehensible technical jargon. Words borrowed from Urdu, Persian, Arabic and farther afield can not advance the general understanding nearly as well as the English terms readily available. The use of internal rhyme, a refrain and the poet’s name in the final couplet is much more likely to advance understanding than matla, radif, qafia, etc.
When English-speakers turn to great ghazal, they generally find work written long ago. Ghalib, who died in 1869, is more likely to be translated than the currently popular Gulab Ali. Our examples are dated. Of course, there can be no criticism of great masters, but one no longer speaks in the orotund phrases of the King James Bible, either. Absent some living continuity with the tradition of ghazal-writing in its native places, we can but feel our way and be grateful for what we find in the dark. One may thankfully note some haiku in American journals written by Japanese authors. Ghazal by Indian writers do not seem to be making the same transition yet. We are surely the poorer for it.
And it may be that when the ghazal enters a new cultural sphere, it changes. Life is change. And that will occur only after some dispute and recrimination, if history teaches. The two-part statement, which composes each hemistich, is probably more significant than any rhyme or lack of it. Free verse, immediately recognizable as ghazal, seems entirely possible. English writing has been informed by free verse since Walt Whitman’s day, and it may be time for reaction against what might be called a bland, sometimes artless presentation. In any case, it seems not only premature, but wrong, to decide what part of the ghazal form will be adopted into the English family of usages, to sit beside the pantoum, terza rima and, just think, the sonnet. We are a nation of immigrants.