Eros, Poetry and Religion: The Ghazal

Catalog description

The ghazal is one of the oldest genres of poetry that continues to thrive to this day. This course examines ghazals across multiple languages, with a focus on the Persian and Urdu tradition. We will learn how to read a ghazal, as well as how not to read one. We will meet a large number of ghazal poets, and the many kinds of things for which they use this remarkably adaptable genre. We will also consider significant events in the ghazal's long life, especially the threat it faced in the face of colonial modernity, as well as its spectacular survival. Finally, we will consider the place of the ghazal within Islamic lifeworlds, exploring the connection between the ghazal's poetics and questions of truth, ethics, and religion, challenging the category of the "literary" itself