Literary Cultures of Tanqīd : Probing Changing Critical Sensibilities Through Mir Taqi Mir, Altaf Hussain Hali, and Akhtar Husain Raipuri

Tanqīd or Urdu literary criticism developed along with the changing socio-political landscape. At the same time, we need to acknowledge the agency of literary critics in engaging with the historical challenges in which they were couched. Understanding the literary cultures of Tanqīd hence requires addressing Urdu literary criticism as a historically situated practice, exploring how literary critics have engaged with literature in different modes of temporality. The classical period of Urdu literature, which impressed upon the language mastery of the poet to weave intricate verses, is best captured in Mir Taqi Mir’s Nikāt ush-Shu’arā (1752). With complete colonial domination, 1857 marked a watershed, which forced an inward critique on the part of the Urdu intelligentsia. One finds its most comprehensive expression in Altaf Hussain Hali’s Muqaddima-i Shi’r o Shā’irī (1893). However, it was during the interwar years that a politically and ideologically conscious engagement with literature appeared. This shift culminated in Akhtar Husain Raipuri’s Adab aur Zindagī (1935). Through a contextualized reading of these three seminal works, the paper attempts to probe the shifting critical sensibilities of Tanqīd.