A Dance of Sparks: Imagery of Fire in Ghalib’s Poetry

Even though Urdu poetry, with all its richness and variety, can stand comparison with poetry in any other language in any period of history, there have been few scholarly studies on the subject. Even the nineteenth-century Urdu poet, Mirz Asadullah Khan Ghalib, recognized as the greatest of Urdu poets, has been the subject of only a few studies in English.

This book, written by an eminent Professor of the Harvard University, is a significant contribution to both Ghalib and Urdu literature. The author has chosen only one of the many symbols—fire—used by Ghalib to convey to the readers how the poet used it in a variety of ways to achieve poetic heights.