The Inception of Literary Criticism in Early Modern Pashto Writings

Abstract

The article overviews the earliest Pashto texts, mostly poetic, in which the incipient forms of literary criticism can be traced as authorial self-reflections related in Persian classics to the self-praise genre (fakhriyya) and explanations of reasons for composing works (sabab-i taʾlīf). Under close examination are the seventeenth century verses of the poets affiliated with the Roshānī religious community and the writings of Khushḥāl Khān Khaṫak (d. 1689). Analyzed texts prove that through the rudimentary discourse on a variety of literary criticism topics, Pashtun authors of early modern times declared and justified the presence of emerging literature in Pashto within the Persophone cultural space of Mughal India, articulating simultaneously their commitment to the proliferation of literacy and Islamic book culture among their countrymen.