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Locating the World in Metaphysical Poetry: The Bardification of Hafiz

Burney, Fatima

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Authors

Fatima Burney



Abstract

Discussions on world literature often imagine literary presence, movement, and exchange in terms of location and prioritize those literary traditions that can be easily mapped. In many regards, classical ghazal poetry resists such interpretation. Nonetheless, a number of nineteenth century writers working in Urdu and English reframed classical ghazal poetry according to notions of locale that were particularly underpinned by ideas of natural essence, or genius. This article puts two such receptions of the classical ghazal in conversation with one another: the naičral shā‛irī (natural poetry) movement in North India, and the portrayal of classical Persian poet Hafiz as a figure of national genius in the scholarship of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Both these examples highlight the role that discourses of nature and natural expression played in nineteenth-century literary criticism, particularly with regards to conceptions of national culture. They also demonstrate how Persianate literary material that had long circulated in cosmopolitan ways could be vernacularized by rereading conventionalized tropes of mystical longing in terms of more worldly belonging.

Citation

Burney, F. (2019). Locating the World in Metaphysical Poetry: The Bardification of Hafiz. Journal of World Literature, 4(2), 149-168. https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00402002

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jan 10, 2019
Online Publication Date Jun 10, 2019
Publication Date Jun 1, 2019
Deposit Date Jan 23, 2019
Publicly Available Date Jan 23, 2019
Journal Journal of World Literature
Print ISSN 2405-6472
Electronic ISSN 2405-6480
Publisher Brill Academic Publishers
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 4
Issue 2
Pages 149-168
DOI https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00402002
Keywords Bardic Nationalism, Ghazal, World Literature

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