A Stylistic Study of Nizām Vafā's Ghazals

Nizām Vafā is one of the distinct contemporary poets who has practiced various literary genres including travelogues, letter-writing, dramas, and essays both in verse and prose. However, he owes his fame to his graceful Ghazals written in a plain language, expressive of his thoughts and pure feelings. His Ghazals’ major theme is love and its related issues which sometimes turn into Voque-gui (depicting a realistic view) and Vasukht Gerai (disparagement with a feeling of hatred) because of purity of his feelings and clarity of his language. Patriotism, the transience of human life, morality, virtue, piety, and the praise of poet-hood are among his other themes. Vafā’s generally uses the official language (rather than archaic or vernacular) of his time and mostly enjoys rhetorical techniques and literary figures, including simile, especially preferential simile, and figures related to Palilogy, including chiasmus, epanastrophe, alliteration, and paronomasia. Through an in-depth examination, this paper for the first time tries to exemplify the stylistic features of Nizām Vafā’s Ghazals in different linguistic, literary, and philosophical levels not only to delineate the poet’s innovative style (despite his following of great poets like Saadi and Hafiz), but also to pay tribute to his distinct position among his contemporaries.