Agha Shahid Ali's poetry frequently deals with the dichotomy between history and memory, and the need to counter a false history by elevating one's own memory and the collective memories of a place.
In the "I See Kashmir from New Delhi at Midnight" poem, the subtitle affixed is from W. B. Yeats' poem "Easter 1916": Now and in time to be,/ Whenever green is worn, ... A terrble beauty is born. Yeats poem dealt with the Easter Uprising in Ireland against Britain in 1916, and the deaths of the movement's revolutionary figures at the hands of the British. Although Yeats' poem starts with a dismissive attitude towards the movement and its proponents, the execution of its leaders was as much a shock to Yeats as it was to the ordinary Irish people. The oxymoron "terrible beauty" can refer to the unintended effects of the execution which spurred further nationalist sentiment in Ireland rather than dissipating it or all the needless death that occurred during this uprising, which was terrible yet beautiful because it opened the eyes of Ireland. However, Ali's selection of these last lines of the poem refers to not only the green colour symbolizing the nationalist movement, but how these revolutionaries may be dead and buried under the green grass, but they will live on forever in Yeats' words.
Thus Ali's poetry can be presented as an attempt by the poet to rewrite history, or the official reading of history which "In your absence you polished me into the Enemy./Your history gets in the way of my memory" ("Farewell" 22), subject as it is to suppression in "news, the blood censored,/for the Saffron Sun and the Times of Rain" ("The Last Saffron" 27). More explicitly, Ali expounds on this conundrum in "A Footnote to History", emphasizing the urgency of the situation as "their words reach/ the shoe, demanding/ I memorize their/ ancient and recent/ journeys in/ caravans ambushed by/ forests on fire" (70). But relating this Yeats extract to the poem he chose to suffix this to, the green can be a reference to the thread he tied at Shah Hamdan, a tradition customary for both Hindus and Muslims who would visit the Sufi shrines. A rooted, ethnic and local tradition, it underpins the melancholy of his memories, colored as they are of the terrible beauty that ravaged Srinagar and severed his bond with Rizwan.
In the "I See Kashmir from New Delhi at Midnight" poem, the subtitle affixed is from W. B. Yeats' poem "Easter 1916": Now and in time to be,/ Whenever green is worn, ... A terrble beauty is born. Yeats poem dealt with the Easter Uprising in Ireland against Britain in 1916, and the deaths of the movement's revolutionary figures at the hands of the British. Although Yeats' poem starts with a dismissive attitude towards the movement and its proponents, the execution of its leaders was as much a shock to Yeats as it was to the ordinary Irish people. The oxymoron "terrible beauty" can refer to the unintended effects of the execution which spurred further nationalist sentiment in Ireland rather than dissipating it or all the needless death that occurred during this uprising, which was terrible yet beautiful because it opened the eyes of Ireland. However, Ali's selection of these last lines of the poem refers to not only the green colour symbolizing the nationalist movement, but how these revolutionaries may be dead and buried under the green grass, but they will live on forever in Yeats' words.
Thus Ali's poetry can be presented as an attempt by the poet to rewrite history, or the official reading of history which "In your absence you polished me into the Enemy./Your history gets in the way of my memory" ("Farewell" 22), subject as it is to suppression in "news, the blood censored,/for the Saffron Sun and the Times of Rain" ("The Last Saffron" 27). More explicitly, Ali expounds on this conundrum in "A Footnote to History", emphasizing the urgency of the situation as "their words reach/ the shoe, demanding/ I memorize their/ ancient and recent/ journeys in/ caravans ambushed by/ forests on fire" (70). But relating this Yeats extract to the poem he chose to suffix this to, the green can be a reference to the thread he tied at Shah Hamdan, a tradition customary for both Hindus and Muslims who would visit the Sufi shrines. A rooted, ethnic and local tradition, it underpins the melancholy of his memories, colored as they are of the terrible beauty that ravaged Srinagar and severed his bond with Rizwan.
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