IN the Library of Congress, it was said a few years ago, are housed over 250 books on literary criticism that elaborate the art of James Joyce. Joyce’s grandson, Stephen J Joyce, once asked if anything was added to Joyce’s legacy by these books.
He thought his grandfather’s literary works could be read and enjoyed by anybody without any literary theory or scholarly explanations. Vladimir Nabokov, the American-Russian novelist, once remarked that those who read books do not do so “for the academic purpose of indulging in generalisations”.
Such views may be held by those who do not or cannot see the profound connection between life and literature. Literary criticism is not meant for “indulging in generalisations”, rather its purpose is to see through the generalities and explain the theoretical and social backdrop of literary pieces against which they were created. When Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, Time magazine succinctly described in a piece Morrison’s art and the very essence of what literature is all about. It said “she knows a truth about literature that seems in danger of passing from civilised memory: the best imaginative writing is composed of specifics rather than platitudes of generalities; it seeks not to transcend its own innate characteristics but to look through the limitations and prejudices of those lucky or wise enough to read it”.
And “to look through the limitations and prejudices”, one needs some academic background and literary theorists help provide us with that background knowledge. One of the most prominent literary theoreticians of our times in this country was Dr Vazeer Agha (1922-2010). He was one of the few critics and researchers of Urdu known for their original and thought provoking analysis of Urdu literature. Vazeer Agha’s real contribution towards Urdu criticism is plurality of his approach to literature, not confining himself to a singular ideology or one school of thought. Known for his peculiar approach, Vazeer Agha is often referred to as the originator of ‘imtizaji tanqeed’, or ‘amalgamated criticism’ in Urdu, a literary theory that combines various schools of thought and draws ideas from numerous fields of knowledge such as psychology, anthropology, mythology, history, science, aesthetics, culture, sociology, economics and structuralism.
It was only possible for a critic like Vazeer Agha with a hugely vast reading and an eye for different disciplines to evaluate literature in its vast and variegated backdrop. This has enabled his critical writings to be refreshingly different and equally enlightening, contrary to many of his contemporary critics whose critical analysis sounds boringly predictable and full of clichés.
As is evident from Vazeer Agha’s latest book, Urdu fiction: tanqeed, published posthumously in 2018 by Lahore’s Al-Hamd Publications, his criticism is not meant to ‘generalise’ what was being written in Urdu but to seek specifics to understand what exactly a piece of literary writing stands for. In the preface to the book Shahid Shaidai has briefly recounted the critical essays that the book carries, highlighting the theoretical and literary aspects of each of them. The first two essays discuss the historical development of genres of the short story and novel with the historical context and framework along with mythologies and traditions of Egypt, Babylon, Greece and India.
These essays contain some gems that are a product of Vazeer Agha’s long years of study and his insightfulness. For instance, Agha says in one of the essays in the book while analysing the symbolism in Urdu short story that symbolic short story was a temporary trend in Urdu that almost ended in 1970s and one of the reasons for its fading out was lack of storyline or plot in short stories written with a desire to express through symbolism. Though a short story does not come to life unless it rises above the plot, mere psychological or symbolic description of milieu does not work well.
Analysing female characters in short stories by Manto and Ismat Chughtai, Agha says though both depict women as rebellious and have painted them as much developed characters, Ismat’s women characters interact only at surface while Manto’s women characters interact at two levels and often behind the persona of a ‘bad’ character or a prostitute Manto sees the face of another woman, a mother, a worshipper, a character quite opposite to the rebellious one that he paints initially.
Other essays included in the book analyse fictional works by some well-known fiction writers of Urdu, such as Ratan Nath Sarshar, Shams Agha, Rahman Muznib, Jogindar Paul, Ghulam-us-Saqlain Naqvi, Ashfaq Ahmed, Rasheed Amjad, Mansh Yaad and Khalida Hussain. These evaluations indeed show Urdu fiction written by these writers in a different perspective and a depth that is rare in today’s critics.
Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2018
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