1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910495966403321

Autore

Pritchett Frances W. <1947->

Titolo

Nets of awareness : Urdu poetry and its critics / / Frances W. Pritchett

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley : , : University of California Press, , 1994

ISBN

0-585-13176-7

0-520-91427-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xvi, 234 pages)

Disciplina

891.4391

Soggetti

Urdu literature - History and criticism

Indo-Iranian Languages & Literatures

Languages & Literatures

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on Transliteration -- Preface -- PART ONE A GARDEN NOW DESTROYED -- 1. The Lost World -- 2. Beyond a Sea of Blood -- 3. Reconstruction -- 4. The Water of Life -- PART TWO FLOWERS ON THE BRANCH OF INVENTION -- 5. Tazkirahs -- 6. Poems Two Lines Long -- 7. The Art and Craft of Poetry -- 8. The Mind and Heart in Poetry -- PART THREE LIGHT FROM ENGLISH LANTERNS -- 9. The Cycles of Time -- 10. From Persian to English -- 11. "Natural Poetry" -- 12. Poetry and Morality -- Epilogue -- Appendix: A Ghazal Observed -- Glossary -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Frances Pritchett's lively, compassionate book joins literary criticism with history to explain how Urdu poetry-long the pride of Indo-Muslim culture-became devalued in the second half of the nineteenth century.This abrupt shift, Pritchett argues, was part of the backlash following the violent Indian Mutiny of 1857. She uses the lives and writings of the distinguished poets and critics Azad and Hali to show the disastrous consequences-culturally and politically-of British rule. The British had science, urban planning-and Wordsworth. Azad and Hali had a discredited culture and a metaphysical, sexually ambiguous poetry that differed radically from English lyric forms.Pritchett's beautiful reconstruction of the classical Urdu poetic vision allows us to



understand one of the world's richest literary traditions and also highlights the damaging potential of colonialism.