Ghazal: Structure and Poetic Devices
What the Ghazal section tests
Ghazal questions test command of the form's technical vocabulary and the ability to analyse a sher rather than translate it. You must recognise matla, maqta, radif, qafiya and behr, and name the sanaat at work.
Core rules
- Structural terms: a sher is a couplet of two misras; the matla is the opening sher where the radif appears in both lines; the maqta is the closing sher containing the takhallus, the poet's pen name.
- Radif is the repeated word or phrase at the end of the misra; qafiya is the rhyming element immediately before it. Locate the qafiya first, then the radif; reversing the two is the commonest error in the paper.
- Each sher usually stands alone thematically. Within one sher the first misra sets up (tamheed) and the second resolves; that link is the rabt.
- Devices examiners ask for: tajnees (paronomasia), ihama (double meaning), husn-e-talil (pleasing causation), mubaligha, tashbeeh, kinaya and laff-o-nashr.
Worked example
Sher: hazaron khwahishein aisi ke har khwahish pe dam nikle / bahut nikle mere armaan lekin phir bhi kam nikle.
Reasoning: the closing word nikle repeats in both misras, so it is the radif, and this sher carries its radif in both lines. The rhyming letters before it are -am in dam and kam, which is the qafiya. The line works by mubaligha: each desire is said to cost a life, yet desires still outnumber the lives spent. Dam also carries ihama, breath of life and price paid. Answer structure: radif, qafiya, device, then theme, the insatiability of desire.
Traps
- Calling the radif a qafiya, or claiming a ghazal has no metre because it is short.
- Assuming all shers develop one continuous argument.
- Missing the maqta because the takhallus sits inside the misra rather than at its end.