Nazm: Form, Explanation and Poetic Devices in the Prescribed Poetry
Nazm questions almost always begin with form identification, because the form dictates what you are allowed to say about a couplet.
Form first
- Ghazal: usually 5–11 couplets sharing qafiya and radif; the first bayt is the matla', the last the maqta' where the poet inserts his takhallus.
- Qasida: monorhyme, usually panegyric or moral.
- Masnavi: couplets rhyming internally (aa bb cc), used for narrative.
- Ruba'i: four half-lines, rhyme aaba.
- Qit'a: a short fragment, often gnomic.
The explanation answer, four moves
- Give the literal (zahiri) sense of the couplet in plain prose.
- Gloss two or three mushkil alfaz - marks are awarded per word.
- Name the device with evidence: tashbih, isti'ara, kinaya, mubalagha, tazad, talmih (allusion to Yusuf, Farhad, Majnun), husn-e ta'lil.
- Close with the theme, and for a Sufi poet add the 'irfani reading after the literal one.
Worked example
«بنی آدم اعضای یک پیکرند / که در آفرینش ز یک گوهرند» Literal: the children of Adam are the limbs of one body, made of one essence. Gloss: a'za' = limbs; gauhar = essence, jewel. Device: tashbih baligh - the comparison is asserted with no like-particle, humanity declared identical to a single body; adam here means mankind, not the first prophet. Theme: universal brotherhood and mutual obligation.
Traps
- Calling the opening couplet the maqta' (it is the matla').
- Confusing radif (the repeated word after the rhyme) with qafiya (the rhyme itself).
- Giving only the mystical meaning, or only the literal one.
- Paraphrasing without naming the device.
- Claiming a takhallus the text does not actually show.