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Course Description

Summary

Scholar and translator Elizabeth Gray traces the uncertain history of the ghazal in The Green Sea of Heaven: Fifty Ghazals from the Diwan of Hafiz: "Some believe that the classical Persian ghazal evolved from the nasib, the brief and often erotic prologue to the Arabic qasida, a longer ode with a ghazal-like rhyme scheme composed on pangyric, didactic, elegiac, or religious subjects. Others believe the ghazal developed from early Iranian folk poetry, about which we know nothing. Others believe it to be a blending of indigenous Persian lyric with the more formal structures and themes of earlier Arabic poetry.” In other words, no one is exactly sure where ghazals come from, though we have some compelling leads. 

What we know for sure is that classical Persian and Arabic language poetry are intertwined historically, and that to learn this entangled history is also to trace the development of language and meter themselves. To learn the ghazal’s history informs not just our study of poetry, but also the work of countless historians and philosophers whose work made use of their evolving languages.

Alongside a survey of the history of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, we will read numerous classical Persian and Arabic poetic forms. Time and again, we’ll return to the ghazal as an anchor of our study, uncovering and grappling with the formal/metric challenges of its translation into the English language. Students should be equipped already with a basic understanding of formal poetic elements, including most aspects of prosody (including meter). Students should also feel comfortable reading historical and historiographical texts while reading more traditional literary criticism. Lastly, students should expect to both read and write extensively.