Tracing Modernist Poetics Tradition and the Individual Talent in the Poetry of Agha Shahid Ali

Tracing Modernist Poetics: ‘Tradition’ and the ‘Individual Talent’ in the Poetry of Agha Shahid Ali

Mohd Siddique Khan
PhD Candidate, Department of English & Modern European Languages, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, India.

Abstract While being a representative poet of Postcolonial and Diaspora politics, Agha Shahid Ali employed the patterns of both the Modernist as well as the Transnational Poetics. Modernist, here, is being referred to the style and literary criticism of T. S. Eliot, which Ali appreciated and adopted for his own understanding of poetry. Ali’s reading of Eliot’s poetry and criticism equipped him to use the idea of ‘tradition’ and have flair in placing his own poetry in the Eliotic sense of ‘tradition’. On the other hand, he learned to articulate individual style by adhering to the postmodern aesthetics of transnational poetry. The paper explores the poems from Ali’s A Country Without a Post Office and The Half-Inch Himalayas, and analyses his artistic choices, stylistic and literary strategies as inspired from both the currents.