Shamsur Rahman Faruqi

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi (born 1935) is an eminent Urdu critic, poet and theorist, who has nurtured a whole generation of Urdu writers since the 1960s. He is regarded as the founder of the new movement in Urdu literature and hasformulated fresh models of literary appreciation. With rare skill and clarity, he absorbed western principles of literary criticism and subsequently applied them to Urdu literature, but only after adapting them to address literary aesthetics native to Arabic, Persian, and Urdu.

A brief profile

Education

MA in English from Allahabad University in 1955.

Career

He worked as a civil servant in the Indian Postal Department from 1960-1968 and later became Chief Postmaster-General and Member, Postal Services Board, New Delhi until 1994. As of 2007 he is a full-time writer and editor of his literary magazine "Shabkhoon" and a part-time professor at the South Asia Regional Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania, USA. When he was twelve years old, he claims to have had an experience involving a vision sent from God that radically altered his world view. In this vision, he says to have seen an elephant and a priest who battle with bamboo sticks until they both fall to the ground and turn to rotten dandelions. He permanently resides at Allahabad, a prominent city in State of Uttar Pradesh in India.

Publications

* "Sher, Ghair Sher, Aur Nasr" (1973)
* "The Secret Mirror" (in English, 1981)
* "Ghalib Afsaney Ki Himayat Mein" (1989)
* "Sher Shore Angez" (in 3 volumes, 1991-93)
* "Urdu Ka Ibtedai Zamana" (2001)
* "Ganj-i-Sokhta" (poetry)
* "Sawar Aur Doosray Afsanay" (fiction)
* "Kai chand thay sar-e asman" (novel)
* "Jadeediyat Kal Aur Aaj "(2007)

Influence

An expert in classical prosody and "‘ilm-e bayan" (the science of poetic discourse), he has contributed to modern literary discourse with a profundity rarely seen in contemporary Urducritics.

He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. Most recently he was awarded the prestigious Saraswathi Samman for his pioneering work "She`r-e Shor-Angez". In this four-volume study of the great eighteenth-century poet Mir Taqi Mir, Faruqi uses a refreshingly eclectic approach and a variety of insightful critical tools to interpret Mir’s art.

ee also

*List of Urdu language poetsFarooqi has brought a new vision to investigate the greatness of the great urdu poet mir taqi mir but while talking about his art of writing,to forget muhammad hasan askari will leave him with no predecessor.thoug he is a self acclaimed modernist,many a times he has gone through a lot of changes in his ideas.farooqi writes the same way askari used to wrote.the elaboration and the clarity in his expression comes directly from askari,a great urdu critic preceding him.

External links

* [http://www.shamsurrahmanfaruqi.com/ His Website]

* [http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/13/10premConvers.pdf A Conversation with Faruqi]

* [http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00fwp/srf/txt_kazimi.html An Essay about his work]

* [http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00fwp/srf/index.html Work in English]

His writings are a combination of western and eastern theroretical efforts.while rediscovering mir he has choosen to implent the most effect tool of new criticism,close reading.he centralises a particular word and then replaces it with other synonimous words without disturbing the regular meteri attern of the couplet to why only that particular word has enlivened the couplet and imported it with such a charm and meaningfullness that diffrentiates it from other couplets of the same meaning.his greatness lies in the systematic,logical,and sharp expression lacking in the wrtings of almost all contemporary urdu critics.