Mirza Ghalib: The Poet of the Poets

Ghalib, like all great poets, has been interpreted and presented by different critics in different ways. To a certain extent the nature of his poetry too is responsible for the controversies about him-it is so different from the general trend of Urdu poetry. But it is different from other poetry in so many ways that any consensus about a definite direction of his poetry has not been possible as yet. He has been presented as a philosopher, an iconoclast, a pioneer and an immature and pervert poet by different critics. All the same, everyone has considered him as the most remarkable poet of Urdu. In this book one will find the cause of this diversity of opinion. The author has surveyed the poetry of Ghalib from a position which makes possible to see not only the poetry of Ghalib in its different colours but also the positions of those who look at him in his various aspects. Amidst a plethora of material published on Mirza Ghalib, the greatest poet of Urdu, this book claims a uniqueness. Avoiding the easy ways of undiluted praise, and castigation or a crude mixture of both, the author has judged Ghalib as man in the coldest reasoning and has established an entirely new relationship between an entirely new relationship between the creator and the creation. Similarly, the poetry of Ghalib has been seen in a new light, bringing out its greatness hitherto unknown.