Ghalib

Selected Poems and Letters
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-0-231-18206-5
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 224 Seiten, Format (B × H): 236 mm x 162 mm, Gewicht: 424 g

Reihe: Translations from the Asian Classics

This selection of poetry and prose by Mirza Asadullah Khan, known as Ghalib (1797-1869), provides an accessible and wide-ranging introduction to the preeminent Urdu poet of the nineteenth century. Ghalib's poems, especially his ghazals, remain beloved throughout South Asia for their arresting intelligence and charming wit. His letters—informal, humorous, and deeply personal—provide a glimpse into his colorful character. These careful translations allow readers with little or no knowledge of Urdu to appreciate the wide range of his poetry, from his bursts of inimitable simplicity to the finer points of his richly layered aesthetic.

Beginning with a critical introduction of his life and work to nonspecialists and specialists alike, Frances Pritchett and Owen Cornwall present a selection of Ghalib's works, carefully explaining details of poetic form in annotations distilled from years of scholarly engagement with the commentarial tradition. Their translation maintains line-for-line accuracy and thereby preserves complex poetic devices that play upon the tension between the two lines of each verse. The book includes whole ghazals, selected individual verses from other ghazals, poems in other genres, and letters. The book also includes a glossary, the Urdu text of the original poetry, and an appendix with a translation of every instance in his letters in which Ghalib commented on his own verses.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ghalib, Mirza Asadullah Khan

Weitere Mitwirkende

Pritchett, Frances W.

Cornwall, Owen T. A.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Indische & Dravidische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

AcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart One: GhazalsPart Two: Ghazal VersesPart Three: Other Genres1. Poems2. Letters3. ProseNotesAppendix 1. Ghalib's Comments on His Own Verses"Appendix 2. Ghalib Concordance, with Standard Divan Numbers"Glossary of Technical Terms and Proper NamesBibliographyIndexUrdu Text

Über Autor(innen)

Pritchett, Frances W.
Frances Pritchett (PhD, South Asian Languages and Civilizations, Chicago)is Professor Emerita of South Asian Literature and Modern Indic Languages, MESAAS, Columbia University. She is thew author of Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and its Critics (California, 1994), the translator of Ghalib: Selected Poems and Letters (Columbia, 2017) and The Romance Tradition in Urdu (Columbia, 1991), and the coeditor of Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (3/e, Columbia, 2014), among other works.

Ghalib (the pen name of Mirza Asadullah Khan) lived from 1797 to 1869 and was the preeminent Urdu poet of the nineteenth century. Primarily famous for his ghazals, he was also witness to the turbulent events around the Indian rebellion of 1857.

Frances W. Pritchett is professor emerita of modern Indic languages at Columbia University. Her books include Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics (1994), The Romance Tradition in Urdu: Adventures from the Dastan of Amir Hamzah (1991), and Ab-e Hayat: Shaping the Canon of Urdu Poetry (2001), translated, edited, and introduced in association with S. R. Faruqi.

Owen Cornwall is currently a visiting lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University.