Author: Khurshidul Islam
Ralph Russell/
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 1998/2004
Language: English
Pages: 290
ISBN/UPC (if available): 978-0-19-563391-7
Description
The three great Urdu poets presented here have been loved and revered for generations in India and Pakistan.
All three lived in Delhi, or in its general vicinity, in the eighteenth century, during a time of widespread violence and disaster. The Mughal empire was crumbing and disintegrating internally as the great feudal nobles fought among themselves for control of the empire. In this atmosphere of misery, demoralization, and despair occurred the first major flowering of Urdu literature.
Sauda wrote poems in all the main classical forms and was an extremely skilled satirist. Mir Hasan also wrote in all the classical forms and excelled in one, the masnavi, a long narrative poem in rhymed couplets, often telling a love story, to which he devoted most of his effort. Mir, perhaps the finest of the three, is the great love poet. His favorite form was the ghazal, which the translators discus in detail, giving numerous examples.
In presenting these Mughal poets, the translators have let the literature speak for itself wherever possible, adding a minimum of comment.
THE TRANSLATORS:
Khurshidul Islam was Professor of Urdu at Aligarh Muslim University.Ralph Russel was Reader in Urdu at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.