Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics

by Frances W. Pritchett

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.

Genres: Poetry, History

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 1994

Reviews

[Fawad Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a thoroughly delightful and insightful read. It is written with a lot of love for Urdu poetry and gives you a detailed account of effects of colonial influence on Urdu poetic traditions and how Urdu critics themselves looked down upon it.
But the book is more than just about the colonial influence. I enjoyed the second portion of the book the most. This portion is about the poetics of Urdu Ghazal and if you have even an ounce of interest in Urdu poetry you will definitely love this whole portion. It also helps you fathom the immensity of the loss. I would recommend it extremely highly to anyone interested in Urdu, its history, its poetry, colonial/post-colonial critiques.
Thank you Frances W. Pritchett.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

The road to fresh maẓmūns is never closed—
Till Doomsday the gate of poetry stands open.

What a beautiful and moving work of literary scholarship! Pritchett effortlessly weaves together many different stories. This is a tribute to Azad and Hali, a criticism of imperialistic Romanticism, and an enchanting evocation of old Delhi, with its elegant mushairas and sparring poets at the feet of a refined and tragic monarch. Pritchett makes the case that the poetry of that time is not the effete premodern trash it has been made out to be, but a tense, highly artistic tradition that retains its vitality today.

[Mike Barnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really amazing book about a whole world I had no idea existed.

[Justin Smolin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written-very easy to read, informative. Pitched at a pretty basic level (which was good for me)..