Urdu Poetry: Ghalib and the Ghazal Saturday, February 16th 3:00 - 4:30PM Past Event Watch the video » “Plaintiffs in Paper Robes: The First Ghazal of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib” Frances Pritchett and Mustafa Menai will discuss the poetry of Ghalib and the ghazal form by looking at the first verse of the first ghazal of his divan. In Pritchett’s words, “An Urdu ghazal consists of a series of miniature poems, each two lines long. But it’s astonishing what can be done within the microcosm of these two lines. We can look at one ghazal, and even focus particularly on one single two-line verse, and see the whole genre in miniature. We’re going to look at the first verse of the first ghazal of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869), one of the greatest poets in the tradition–and, we would argue, in the world.” Free and open to the public. Participants: Mustafa Menai Lecturer of Urdu in the South Asia Studies Department, University of Pennsylvania Mustafa Menai is Lecturer of Urdu at the University of Pennsylvania South Asia Studies Department. His interests include the pedagogy of teaching language through literature and experimenting with different poetic structures such as ghazal, nazm, and haiku. Frances Pritchett Professor of Modern Indic Languages in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University Frances Pritchett is Professor of Modern Indic Languages in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. Her research interests include classical Urdu ghazal, especially the work of Ghalib and Mir, and traditional narrative genres in Urdu and Hindi. Pritchett’s translation of and commentary on Ghalib’s ghazals can be found… read more »
Mustafa Menai Lecturer of Urdu in the South Asia Studies Department, University of Pennsylvania Mustafa Menai is Lecturer of Urdu at the University of Pennsylvania South Asia Studies Department. His interests include the pedagogy of teaching language through literature and experimenting with different poetic structures such as ghazal, nazm, and haiku.
Frances Pritchett Professor of Modern Indic Languages in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University Frances Pritchett is Professor of Modern Indic Languages in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. Her research interests include classical Urdu ghazal, especially the work of Ghalib and Mir, and traditional narrative genres in Urdu and Hindi. Pritchett’s translation of and commentary on Ghalib’s ghazals can be found… read more »