Prominent Urdu critic Gopichand Narang passed away at the age of 91.
Gopichand Narang was born in 1931 in Doki, a small town in Balochistan, near Loralai.
Saraiki was spoken in his home and his father Dharma Chand Narang was a literary enthusiast and master of Persian and Sanskrit languages.
Gopichand Narang’s father wanted to attract him to science, but the passion he had for Urdu literature and language in his childhood remained with him till the end and he gained immense respect and fame in this field, which may be in science. They can never get it.
After independence, Narang’s family moved to India and he continued his education there.
In 1952 he obtained his MA in Urdu and in 1958 his PhD in Urdu Linguistics.
Gopichand Narang is one of the Urdu critics of the 20th century who pondered over the world of poetry and literature and passed on his critical insight to the readers of Urdu poetry.
Gopichand Narang was a representative writer of classical tradition and thought and art in his criticism. Despite keeping a close eye on ideas and movements throughout his literary life, he was always non-ideological because according to him, the main reference of literature and poetry, from which literature, literature and poetry are called poetry, is not an idea, idea or thought. Rather, it is art.
Narang Sahib’s very deep and strong academic relationship with the literary tradition and history of Urdu and Persian shows what the essence of the author’s or poet’s writing style is in the literacy of the text, and on the basis of this style, any How can the semantic dimensions of a work of art be assessed? Narang Sahib, if studied more carefully, appears to us as the first and perhaps the last stylistic critic.
Bias and narrow-mindedness are found in the criticism which the critic himself suffers from some ideological nihilism. If this narrow-mindedness and prejudice is not found in Narang Sahib’s criticism, then the reason is that instead of showing his insight and perfection on the theoretical basis of the work of art, he deeply focused on the origin of the work of art, i.e. its art and style. He kept an eye and took the theoretical, semantic or intellectual discussions out of literature and poetry and left them to the critics and experts of sociology.
All those poets and writers who did not like Narang Sahib, the reason for this was not because of any ideological or intellectual reason from Narang Sahib, but because Narang Sahib was critical of his poetry, novels or fiction, etc. Why a poem could not be defined in the craft or why a legend fell out of the art of fiction or novel.
If his articles and books on Mir, Ghalib and Iqbal are kept in front, then his center in the art of criticism can be discovered in which the coming poets and writers have been encouraged to write poetry. Carry forward the technical and stylistic values that gave Mir, Ghalib and Iqbal the highest status in Urdu literature.
Narang Sahib was among those who welcomed new experiences and trends in the world of literature and poetry in the light of the consciousness connected with classicism and tradition. If one has read his article ‘Abstract and Symbolic Fiction in Urdu’, he must know how abstraction or symbolism in the art of fiction writing could have led to the development of the following aspects of Urdu fiction.
Alas, our fiction writers wrote abstract fiction as well as symbolic fiction, but such fiction requires certain styles. This was the reason that these two forms of fiction happened.
Similarly, he did not like those who carried the burden of modernity in India. The reason for this was that they were not ready to accept what was happening in literature and poetry in the name of modernity, because for them it was okay to experiment in art or style, but if this experiment was the basis of any genre. If the essence fails to be art, then any such experience will fall outside the realm of literature.
In his essays about Premchand, Krishan Chandra, Minto, Intar Hussain or Abdullah Hussain, he also focused on the art of fiction and especially on the discovery of symbols and metaphors in the art of fiction. Attention, because for them the text of fiction is adapted to the story through symbols and metaphors.
Today, Narang Sahib is no longer with us, but his numerous articles and books will always shine like a lamp in the world of Urdu literature. His books include ‘Structuralism, Poststructuralism and Oriental Poetics,’ Literary Criticism and Stylistics, The Tragedy of Karbala as ‘Poetic Metaphor,’ ‘Progressivism,’ ‘Modernism and Postmodernism,’ ‘Meaning-making,’ ‘Dialectical Mode,” Shuntiya and Shariyat, ‘Anees and Dabeer’, ‘Urdu Ghazal’ and ‘Indian Mind and Culture’ are important.
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