From Tercentenary of Death to Quatercentenary of Birth: Homage to Shakespeare by Urdu Poets (1916-1964)

This paper analyses the poems by Urdu poets paying homage to Shakespeare. The tradition originated with Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), who contributed a poetic homage to Shakespeare for Sir Israel Gollancz’s edited volume in connection with Shakespeare’s third centenary celebrations in 1916. The tribute, which took the form of a sonnet, contributed immensely to Shakespeare's popularity among the non-Anglophone Muslim population of India in the first half of the twentieth century owing to the enormous impact that Iqbal exercised on Indian readers, specifically, Urduphonic readers. The paper argues that Iqbal is the most critical source in making Shakespeare a household name among the Urdu-speaking population of India. Waheeduddin Saleem, often described as the first professor of Urdu in the world, then carried Iqbal’s legacy. The other Urdu poets in the same tradition include Mahindar Singh Kausar, Jagan Nath Azad, Muhammad Fazlur Rahman, and Khaleeq Qureshi. Apart from the similarity of the topic, all these poems have a similar style, which has a clear footprint of Iqbal on the construction of those poems. The paper further argues that Matthew Arnold’s sonnet on Shakespeare may have inspired Iqbal’s sonnet on Shakespeare.