The Ghazal as a Just Poem
By William Dennis
"The philosophic critics of all ages coincide with the ultimate judgement of all countries, in equally denying the praises of a just poem, on the one hand, to a series of striking lines or distiches, each of which, absorbing the whole attention of the reader to itself, becomes disjoined from its context, and forms a separate whole, instead of a harmonizing part...."1
You will see that despite Coleridge’s elongated manner, he does not overstate the danger a writer runs into when using disjunctive linkage in a poem intended for an audience unaccustomed to that manner of sequencing thought. The risk is of extinguishing interest in the poem.
So it is worth examining any insightful material which may come our way on the subject of putting together the lines of a ghazal; and the most illuminating concept in contemporary thought has been brought to general awareness by the cognitive linguist, George Lakoff, in his book, "Moral Politics."2 It is clear that the progress of ideas in a ghazal does not follow the straight-line narrative common sense would like to suggest. Yet there is, or ought to be, a method to the thing which differentiates it from that disorganization called whimsey. Cognitive linguistics studies the unconscious systems of concepts we use to organize our thoughts, and the interesting point here is that the systems are more unconscious than the concepts. We are all accustomed to analyzing concepts, with better and worse success. Who is not familiar with the concepts of an upright man versus some supine creature, hardly conceived to be a man at all? Yet that these are part of a universally accepted system of metaphor, based on our status as bipeds– in sickness and in health– goes generally unnoticed. But a systemic means of assembling concepts into a ghazal is something we need adequate mental artifacts with which to deal.
George Lakoff presents us with the notion of "Radial Categories," which he labels, "the most common of human conceptual categories...variations on a central model." His example is the category, "mother"– birth mother, genetic mother, the one who nurtures, and the marriage partner to one’s father. Or consider "Harm," giving his central case of physical harm, with financial harm, political harm, social harm, and psychological harm as sub-models. Radial categories consist of central cases with different variations.
Let us look at a more specialized radial category: Emotional Pain, this one used by the Urdu poet, Ghalib, who died in 1869.
Five couplets taken from one of Ghalib’s ghazals with that as the central model reveal:
So it is worth examining any insightful material which may come our way on the subject of putting together the lines of a ghazal; and the most illuminating concept in contemporary thought has been brought to general awareness by the cognitive linguist, George Lakoff, in his book, "Moral Politics."2 It is clear that the progress of ideas in a ghazal does not follow the straight-line narrative common sense would like to suggest. Yet there is, or ought to be, a method to the thing which differentiates it from that disorganization called whimsey. Cognitive linguistics studies the unconscious systems of concepts we use to organize our thoughts, and the interesting point here is that the systems are more unconscious than the concepts. We are all accustomed to analyzing concepts, with better and worse success. Who is not familiar with the concepts of an upright man versus some supine creature, hardly conceived to be a man at all? Yet that these are part of a universally accepted system of metaphor, based on our status as bipeds– in sickness and in health– goes generally unnoticed. But a systemic means of assembling concepts into a ghazal is something we need adequate mental artifacts with which to deal.
George Lakoff presents us with the notion of "Radial Categories," which he labels, "the most common of human conceptual categories...variations on a central model." His example is the category, "mother"– birth mother, genetic mother, the one who nurtures, and the marriage partner to one’s father. Or consider "Harm," giving his central case of physical harm, with financial harm, political harm, social harm, and psychological harm as sub-models. Radial categories consist of central cases with different variations.
Let us look at a more specialized radial category: Emotional Pain, this one used by the Urdu poet, Ghalib, who died in 1869.
Five couplets taken from one of Ghalib’s ghazals with that as the central model reveal:
1. The heart given away yields pain;
2. Humility does not help to lessen emotional pain; 3. Emotional pain drives away confidants and friends; 4. All suffering is assigned, perhaps incorrectly, to one suffering emotional pain; and 5. Emotional pain is the product of friendship. |
Literalistic translation by Aijaz Ahmad3 reads:
Why should one, having given his heart to someone else, utter cries of pain?
If there is no heart in the breast, why should there be a tongue in the mouth? (The heart given away yields pain.) She/he will not give up her/his habit; why should we change our way? Why be humble and ask why she/he is angry? (Humility does not help to lessen emotional pain.) The one with whom we shared our grief has made us infamous; may this love be destroyed. Why should one, who cannot bear my grief, be my confidante? (Emotional pain drives away confidants and friends.) (Now that I am) in the cage, O friend! Don’t fear telling me the story of the orchard. The nest which was struck (and destroyed) by lightning yesterday--why must it necessarily be mine? (All other suffering is assigned, perhaps incorrectly, to one suffering emotional pain. Put another way, others become pessimistic about one suffering emotional pain.) This trial is not insufficient to destroy one’s house; If you were to be somebody’s friend, he doesn’t need the heavens to be his enemy. (Emotional pain is the product of friendship.) |
Ghalib was a sensualist among ascetics, born to both a family and a generation displaced from former greatness by persevering fate; he lived a life of ambition frustrated and passion for which he endured criticism, by means of which he could furnish his lines in ample fashion. He is correctly regarded as the Urdu-speaking bard who guilds the lapses of time with the most intellectual acumen. By no means are all ghazals bound together with this sort of internal consistency. But the best are. As stated, we are even less aware of the systems by which we organize our concepts than we are of the concepts themselves. And so, it is not inappropriate to bow in the direction of George Lakoff, the value of whose insight is confirmed by the suitability of its application in unforseen circumstances, such as the interpretation of Urdu verse forms.
As the English-speaking world struggles with the ghazal and other forms of disjunctive verse, the comment on James Joyce’s introduction of stream-of-consciousness writing in the mouth of Molly Bloom comes to mind: that he had created a new way for writers to sin. Even in Urdu it is common to find ghazals composed of parts unified only by their beauty, by their use of poetic techniques, such as radif, repeated phrases– striking lines, in Coleridge’s terminology, which are disjoined from their context and so fail to form a harmonizing whole. In the Urdu-speaking world the graceful custom has arisen of quoting couplets from a ghazal, with no concern for the original context, as there very often is none.
As the English-speaking world struggles with the ghazal and other forms of disjunctive verse, the comment on James Joyce’s introduction of stream-of-consciousness writing in the mouth of Molly Bloom comes to mind: that he had created a new way for writers to sin. Even in Urdu it is common to find ghazals composed of parts unified only by their beauty, by their use of poetic techniques, such as radif, repeated phrases– striking lines, in Coleridge’s terminology, which are disjoined from their context and so fail to form a harmonizing whole. In the Urdu-speaking world the graceful custom has arisen of quoting couplets from a ghazal, with no concern for the original context, as there very often is none.
Why doubt the splendor of my verse, haven’t you eyes to see?
Do you think it’s the glitter of lamps, or the gems I roll? – Raghupati Sahai Firaq4 |
This out-of-context quotation should be seen as playing with a weakness of the form, rather than confirming the ghazal as inherently, "disjoined," in nature rather than, "disjunctive," in its linking.
Harold Bloom5 would have us believe that we have finished with the cultural project of European civilization, but for such loose tags as still may flutter at its tail.
Harold Bloom5 would have us believe that we have finished with the cultural project of European civilization, but for such loose tags as still may flutter at its tail.
Spark-like, O phantom life, we too
Have had our turn, and go – Khwaja Mir Dard.4 |
This interconnected contemporary civilization, Bloom suggests, has been set the task of absorbing and integrating all of world culture, especially literature, into the new civilization to come. Who among us would recognize such a world?
All things here are changing, perishing,
Whirl the cup around, Saqi, as long as you can. – Dard |
Still, if this is the challenge of our time, we must bring to the ghazal what wisdom it is ours to stumble upon. What the ghazal brings to us will doubtless be equal only to what becomes of the ghazal in the hands of those future, wiser generations.
Brief is our span of life, fleeter than the lightning flash,
Fated are we to finish in haste each assigned task. Enough have I seen of this earthly show, Prosper thou here my friends, I depart for home. – Dard |
1. Coleridge, Samuel T., Biographia Literaria, quoted in Handy, William J. and Westbrook, Max, New York, Twentieth Century Criticism, Macmillan Company, Inc., 1974.
2.Lakoff, George, Moral Politics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996.
3. Ahmad, Aijaz, ed., Ghazals of Ghalib, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1994.
4. Kanda, K.C., ed. and translator, Masterpieces of Urdu Ghazal, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1992.
5.Bloom, Harold, The Western Cannon: The Book and School of the Ages, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1994
2.Lakoff, George, Moral Politics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996.
3. Ahmad, Aijaz, ed., Ghazals of Ghalib, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1994.
4. Kanda, K.C., ed. and translator, Masterpieces of Urdu Ghazal, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1992.
5.Bloom, Harold, The Western Cannon: The Book and School of the Ages, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1994