Gender, Sex, and the City [electronic resource] : Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India, 1780-1870 /
Vanita, R.author.
Explores the urban, cosmopolitan sensibilities of Urdu poetry written in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Lucknow. Ruth Vanita analyzes Rekhti, a type of Urdu poetry distinguished by a female speaker and a focus on women's lives, and shows how it becamea catalyst for the transformation of the ghazal.
Description based upon print version of record.
Cover; Gender, Sex, and the City: Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India, 1780-1870; Contents; Note from the Editor; Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Introduction; Rekhti's Innovations; Women Readers and Writers; Women as Agents; Humor and Play; Awadh's Gender-Bending Glamour; Urbanity and Hedonism; "Randi"; Decadent or Vigorous?; History of Criticism; Hybrid Language, Hybrid Lives; Playful or Trivial?; Male Poet, Female Speaker; Rekhti's Predecessors; Hindu Erotic Writings; Stealing or Sharing? Rekhti and the Poetic Ethos; Rekhti as Poetic Genre; The Texts; A Note on Translation and Transliteration
CHAPTER 1: Women in the City: Fashioning the SelfFeminine Geography: The Rooftop; Gardens, Orchards, Rivers; The Neighborhood and Beyond; Fairs, Celebrations, Shrines; The Pleasures of Dress; Shopping and the Market; The Many-Colored Self; Jewelry and Cosmetics; Invoking Fairies and Jinns; From City to City; CHAPTER 2: Eloquent Parrots: Gender and Language; Poets, Women and Language; "Low-Class" Hybrid Speech; Tone and Dialogue; Wordplay in Rekhti; Vigor, Not Ambiguity; Eloquent Parrots; CHAPTER 3: Servants, Vendors, Artisans: The City's Many Voices; Servant, Slave, and Friend
Ambiguities of IntimacyUbiquitous Nursemaid; The World Outside; Artisans; Circulating Power and Money; CHAPTER 4: Neither Straight nor Crooked: Love and Friendship in the City; Female-Female Amours; Erotic Networks; Urban Couples; Courting and Conjugality; Dildos and Other Details; Lovers' Quarrels; Boundaries and Difference; Male-Female Relations; Ambiguous and Fluid; Male-Female Friendship; CHAPTER 5: Playfully Speaking: Transforming Literary Convention; The Rebellious Lover; Joking about Conventions; Requited Love; Happy Sexual Relations; Promiscuous Lovers
Happiness Past and Future SorrowKisses in Rekhta and Rekhti; Sleeping Together; Invoking "Reality"; The Unambiguously Female Beloved; Different Desires; CHAPTER 6: "I'm a Real Sweetheart": Masculinity and Male-Male Desire; The Banka; Male Youth and Beauty; "Mister"; "I'm a Sweetheart"; Male-Male Love and Longing; Shifting Norms; Changing Paradigms; CHAPTER 7: Styling Urban Glamour: Courtesan and Poet; Romancing the Courtesan; Advertising, Performance, Patronage; Sarapa as Predecessor of Rekhti; Buying and Selling; The Courtesan's Voice; Courtesan as Beloved; Pride of the City
CHAPTER 8: Camping It Up: Jan Sahib and His SchoolWomen as Victims; Male-Oriented Women; Didactic tone; Performing Gender; Indian Parakeet; Constructing a Rekhti Canon; Writing an Epitaph; CHAPTER 9: A Poetics of Play: Hybridity, Difference, Modernity; Knowledge and Play; Oneness of Being; Hindu Thought and Practice; Urban Fun; Hybridity: East and West; Differences between Poets; Friendship between Poets; Playing with Gender; Prophets of Freedom; CONCLUSION: The Eternal City: Pasts and Futures; Notes; Glossary; Bibliography; Index
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Explores the urban, cosmopolitan sensibilities of Urdu poetry written in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Lucknow. Ruth Vanita analyzes Rekhti, a type of Urdu poetry distinguished by a female speaker and a focus on women's lives, and shows how it becamea catalyst for the transformation of the ghazal.
Sociology.
Literature   .
Poetry.
Middle Eastern literature.
Islam.
Gender Studies.
Postcolonial/World Literature.
Poetry and Poetics.
Middle Eastern Literature.
Islam.