Faiz Ahmad Faiz
(1911–1984), modern Urdu poet of Pakistan. Born in Sialkot, Pakistan, Ahmad Faiz symbolizes the heights that progressive poetry reached on the Indian subcontinent. He employed all the devices of classical Urdu lyrical poetry to convey a modern sensibility. The heady combination of ideological commitment and romanticism ensured his wide popularity. A recipient of the Lenin Prize for his work on behalf of the downtrodden and for peace, Faiz wrote eight volumes of poetry and six volumes of prose, as well as other works. His poetry represents the high point of progressive literature in the Urdu language.
Faiz's early poems were concerned with love and were written in the idiom and imagery current in Urdu poetry in the early decades of the twentieth century. His formative phase ended when Urdu poets were divided into three categories, depending on their ideological-artistic inclinations: first, those writing in the orthodox classical tradition who regarded any deviation in matters of style and prosody blasphemous; second, those who styled themselves progressives (whose objective was to work for social uplift rather than for aesthetic reasons) or their sympathizers; and third, the group called "Circle of Men of Good Taste," who claimed to write pure poetry, unencumbered by any social(ist) concerns. These distinctions were drawn in the 1940s and 1950s by the Circle of Men of Good Taste. Faiz belonged to the second group, though he did not share the extreme views of some of its members. The catholicity of taste, lyricism, and perfect blending of tradition and modernity in his poetry made him acceptable to all, encompassing ideological divides.
The first collection of his poems, Naqsh-i Faryaadi (Supplicant's Prayer), was published in Urdu in 1941. His earliest poems, written mostly in the ghazal form, speak of love in the traditional vein. However, the poem Mujh se pahli si muhabbat meri mahboob na maang (My Beloved, Do Not Ask of Me My Former Kind of Love) marks the beginning of a new consciousness in which love for an earthly beloved is suffused with awareness of suffering humanity.
The poems in his second collection, Dast-i Saba (Fingers of the Morning Breeze, 1952), reflect his commitment to the progressive ideology at its height so much so that he characterized Indian independence in 1947 as a "much-stained radiance" in his justly famous poem Subh-e azad (Freedom's Dawn), which expresses Faiz's dissatisfaction with mere political freedom unaccompanied by economic freedom. In his inimitable style Faiz gave expression to a feeling of disillusionment with the false dawn of India's freedom from colonial domination, as well as feelings of resolve to continue the struggle against all oppressive regimes. Many of the poems in Dast-i Saba and all the poems in his third collection, Zindan Nama (Prison Writings; 1956), were composed during his imprisonment from 1952 to 1955 for opposing imposition of martial law in Pakistan and have an urgency about them. They speak of the need to fight against capitalism and dictatorship and to safeguard freedom of speech, the isolation of prison life, and undaunting courage in the face of suffering, imprisonment, even execution. At the same time Faiz also wrote poems about human feelings that are universal in nature, including "Tanhaai" (Solitude) and "Yaas" (Despair).
Faiz's diction is often consciously literary and decorative. He moved from the traditional rhymed verse in his early phase to free verse in his middle and later phases. In matters of style he blended the old with the new; his adherence to the traditional symbols and imagery of the ghazal is traditional, whereas his espousal of social themes is new. Innovation and experimentation for their own sake had no appeal for him.
Further Reading
Ali, Agha Shahid. (1992) The Rebel's Silhouette. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Kiernan, Victor. (1971) Poems by Faiz. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Lazard, Naomi. (1988) The True Subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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