[Michael Juster]

First, welcome! We're very pleased to have you. I know you are an expert on Persian literature, and I would very much appreciate your take on what an English ghazal in the best spirit of the original would like. What I would call "lazy" ghazals are a little trendy in the mainstream, and I am not interested in adding to that number. However, when I have tried to look for more responsible guidance, the advice has been conflicting. I have great confidence in your judgment, and will gladly take your opinion as authoritative. Thanks so much. Mike

[Dick Davis]

Thanks for the welcome and the question Mike. The ghazal in Persian (and Arabic, Turkish and Urdu) is so different a form from anything traditional in English that it's quite tricky to say what it should be like in its English incarnation, supposing it has to have one. Some poets have concentratd on its usual content, which is often similar to the "usual" Petrarchan love sonnet content - love of an absent or indifferent beloved. As this content is fairly common in a number of poetries there's nothing in English particularly to tie it to the ghazal. In form the poem (in the languages in which it is common) is as follows: it has monorhyme throughout: the lines are very long (typically about 24 syllables: the meter and syllable count are the same from line to line of course), and divide in the middle (usually each line is printed as two lines in English). The first line rhymes internally at the half way point and at the end; all other lines only rhyme at the end. If each line is printed as two lines in English the rhyme scheme looks to be: a, a, b, a c, a, d, a, e, a, . .. etc. Ghazals are rarely shorter than 6 lines and rarely longer than about 20 lines. Still finding even 6 rhymes in English (7 actually as the first line rhymes internally) is pretty tricky, so the form is almost impossible to reproduce exactly in English. So poets tend to make their own compromises.
The closest I've written to a ghazal in English is the following poem (but I did not rhyme internally on the first line, so it's not a real ghazal, and this is about fulfileld not unrequited love - a possible but not common subject for a ghazal):
A Monorhyme for Miscegenation
(For Yass Amir-Ebrahimi and Stuart Benis)

We all know what our elders warned
In their admonitory drone,

"Water and oil won't mix my child -
Play safe, stick staunchly to your own".

And I concede they're half right when
I think of all the pairs I've known

(Black/White, Jew/Gentile, Moslem/Me -
The home-raised with the foreign-grown)

Mixed marriages, it's true, can make,
Two lives a dire disaster zone.

But only half: since when they work
(As my luck, and my friends', has shown)

Their intricate accommodations
Make them impossible to clone:

For gross, gemütlich kindness, for
Love's larky, lively undertone,

For all desired and decent virtues
They stand astonished and alone.

I've also trnaslated a ghazal by the 14th century female poet Jahan Khatun, trying to keep the form. Here is that (not very successful I think) effort:

I know you think that there are other friends for me than you:
Not so.
And that apart from loving you I've other things to do:
Not so.

Beloved, out of pity, take my hand before I fall,
You think the world can give me other loves to cling on to?
Not so.

You strike me like a harp, play on me like a flute - and now
You say that others strike me, play on me, in this way too?
Not so.

Your eyes are languorous and rob my wakeful eyes of sleep,
Are any curls as wild as yours, as lovely and untrue?
Not so.

You say my heart has not been hurt by your disdain. It has.
Has any ever suffered love’s despair as I do now for you?
Not so.

You have so many slaves, all finer than I am, I know -
But can you point to one more wretched in your retinue?
Not so.

Adding a phrase (here"Not so") after the rhyme is typical of some Persian gahzals, but is not a necessary feature of the form.
I hope this is of some use.

[Roger Slater]

Since this is a form that can only be somewhat crudely adapted to the English, I guess it allows for many different views and variants. But lots of people, for some reason, seem to turn to Agha Shahid Ali for the "rules," which you can see at http://members.aol.com/poetrynet/ghazals/.

Among other things, Ali seems to assume that the second line of each couplet will not end with a rhyme but with a word or group of words that serve as a "refrain," and that the rhyme words immediately precede the refrain words. Dick's approach of making the couplets simply rhyme seems a bit easier to pull off (though I'm speculating, since I've never done a ghazal), but also seems to be different from most ghazals I have seen.

Ali also sets forth other requirements and features. For example, he is emphatic that there be no enjambment between couplets because "each couplet must be like a precious stone that can shine even when plucked from the necklace though it certainly has greater luster in its setting."

Also, though not required, ghazals frequently conclude with a "signature couplet" in which the poet says his own name or refers to himself in some way.

[Dick Davis]

Following on from the previous answer. The "refrain" is the phrase that comes after the rhyme, like "Not so" in the poem I gave as an example (the "refrain's" technical name is a "radif"). The rhyme (in a "real" ghazal, in Persian etc.) is obligatory, but the refrain is not. In fact an essential part of the aesthetic of the ghazal in Persian is an appreciation of the virtuosity of the rhyme - so I'd be inclined to say that you you can't really have a "real" ghazal without monorhyme. Of course once a form jumps languages / cultures it can get modified (sonnets in Italian usually have 11 syllables per line, in English 10, in French 12 etc). It is true that there should be no run-over lines in a ghazal: each line must be semantically self-sufficient (this rule is in fact very occasionally broken - but, as a rule of thumb it isn't). Usually a ghazal illustrates a single idea from various veiwpoints - each line illustrating the idea from a new viewpoint (e.g. with a new metaphor). This can make it seem very disjunctive in English. Incorporating one's name in the last (sometimes the penultimate) line has been quite common since Sa'di (13th century) popularised the device (though it did not originate with him): as with the radif it is not obligatory.

[Nigel Holt]

Hello, Dick,

Living where I do, I've often thought of trying to write something in one of the traditional forms. My grasp of Arabic poetics is as tenous as my grasp of FussHa Arabic, and understanding that Arabic poetry relies on quantitive metre, I have all but given up on the idea - at least in something approaching the original style - or at least until recently.

Something that did spring to mind recently was the use of polysyllabic words that in some ways reflect the case endings of classical Arabic. (My knowledge of Persian extends to three faltering words of welcome in modern Farsi, but I expect it would follow much the same pattern given the linguistic inter-relatedness of Arabic, Persian and Urdu)

The 'oon' (to take one case ending) suffixes of many classical Arabic words, to me to have the same feel as '-ation' suffixed words in English. They also mimic well, I think, the trisyllabic roots of the Arabic and the hypnotic effect of so many same end-sounds. To get to the point, do you feel using words such as these, get closer to the quantative feel of Arabic poetry? Or do you believe we need to forget ever trying to get even remotely close to the sound of a formal Ghazal?

Nigel

[Dick Davis]

Nigel,
I guess I'd have (unhelpfully) to say that the proof of the pudding would be in the eating. I'd be sceptical that one could bring it off, but if someone can do it more power to them. In general trying to reproduce the effects of a quantitative meter in an accentual meter, or in a language that "normally" uses accetual meters, is I think a thankless task. I'd say that the only poet in all English who brings it off is Campion (Bridges I think fails, though I have friends who disagree on this). My own instinct would be to abandon notions of bringing over the ghost of quantitative meter into English, but that perhaps is just cowardice, or an acknolwdgement of my own lack of competence at doing this.

[Freda Edis]

Yes, Roger, there does seem to be rhyming of the penultimate word/phrase of each couplet, as well as the through end rhyme, in some classical Persian and Arabic poets' works - Hafiz, for instance, though I've only heard poems by him in the spoken form and haven't seen the transliterations.

Also, there seems to be a considerable use of open vowels, together with labial and the softer dental consonants - the harsher ones tend to be avoided, at least, in Persian and Arabic. They lend a 'crooning' sound to the spoken poetry. I don't know if the same convention applies in Urdu.

Ghazals are a nightmare to try and emulate in English. I've tried and failed so far,

Freda



[This message has been edited by Freda Edis (edited May 02, 2002).]

[Nigel Holt]

Yes, Freda,

You only have to listen to the Shehada or the statement of belief that Muslims recite and is used at the adhan or call to prayer - it perfectly illustrates your point:

laa illah lil allah, wa mohammed ar-rasoul allah

(There is no god but the god, and Mohammed is the prophet of the god - it just doesn't have it in English, I'm afraid)

Nigel

[Freda Edis]

Nigel,

Although it's difficult to find and do well in English, it has been done. Remember Keat's line, '....the murmuring of innumerable bees'? Extending such to the whole of a poem and bearing in mind the classical ghazal form, to say nothing of the subject-matter, is a brain-torturer, though. I'd love to see it done well,

Freda

[Dick Davis]

Freda I think that line is from Tennyson (The Princess). I don't really get how it connects with quantitative meter (or maybe you are seeing the question differently from what I thought was being asked).