Locating the World in Metaphysical Poetry: The Bardification of Hafiz

Burney, Fatima

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