The ghazal of Mir Taqi Mir: the formation of the poetic and literary language of Urdu

Abstract

Mir Taqi Mir is a classic Urdu poet of the 18th century, an outstanding master of ghazal genre. With his work, Mir Taqi Mir proved that his native Urdu language possessed a vocabulary fit to express the finest nuances of poetic speech. He also made evident that the ghazals written in Urdu were not entirely imitations of those written in Persian, which formed the poetical basis of Urdu poetry. The article argues that the Mir Taqi Mir's heritage can be considered as a milestone in the evolutionary development of both poetical and literary language of Urdu. Throughout his life, the poet remained in a creative search. Working on a certain poetical theme, he often made recourse to it trying to bring out maximum possibilities for its realization by means of his native language. Analysis of numerous examples in the article can be considered as an effort to ascertain how borrowed poetical traditions were domesticated and how this process facilitated the selection of vocabulary and standardization of common literary language of Urdu.