Literary Arts (Mar 2010)
A Study of the Meters of Bidel Dehlavi\'s Ghazals(Sonnets) and their Comparison with the Meters of Ghazals(Sonnets) in Persian and Indian-Style Ghazals(Sonnets)
Abstract
Abstract Bidel Dehlavi ( 1644 A.D./1054 A.H.-1721 A.D./1133 A.H .) was one of the most famous Persian poets of India and the greatest poet in Indian branch of a style well-known as Sabk-e Hendi (Indian Style). However, his poems have not sufficiently been studied in Iran . Meter is one of the basic elements and most effective one in poetry. Therefore, examining the quality of its meter could be one of the basic steps in interpreting and evaluating a poem. Most of Bidel-readers and Bidel-scholars consider his ghazals as the most valuable product of his wit. Furthermore, according to its history and lyrical nature, ghazal pattern has a closer connection with music and the function of meter in ghazal form is more prominent than that of the others. For this reason, in the present study, first the meters of this poet's ghazals have been introduced and then they are compared with current meters of Persian ghazal and those of the eleventh ( A.H .) century. Finally, the metrical features of his ghazals are determined as follows: Bidel composed 2858 ghazals in 32 different meters, six of which were the most frequent ones in all Persian ghazals and in the eleventh ( A.H .) century. In this way, Bidel, whose poems are famous because of their different and unusual quality, significantly conforms four fifth of his ghazals to the standard and thus they are considered "ordinary". But one can see some creativity and experimentation in the meters which are relatively less frequent meters: among the five less frequent meters in Persian poetry, Bidel composed from 1 to 56 ghazals in those meters and 4 ghazals in one meter which, according to the current evidence, there was not such an example known in Persian classical poetry at all.
