Literary Devices Notes صنائع بدائع

Paper 2 is 50% of your entire 3247 qualification. It tests your ability to respond to poetry and prose — not grammar rules. These notes cover the structural vocabulary you need for ghazal and nazm analysis, the eight literary devices most commonly tested, and a guide to constructing Paper 2 answers.

The غزل is the dominant poetic form in your prescribed set texts. Every structural term below will appear in questions.

Example — Faraz: رنجش ہی سہی

رنجش ہی سہی دل ہی دکھانے کے لیے آ آ پھر سے مجھے چھوڑ کے جانے کے لیے آ

• ردیف: کے لیے آ (repeats at end of every second line)
• قافیہ: دکھانے، جانے، بتانے، لگانے (the rhyming word before the ردیف)
• This is the مطلع — notice both lines end with the full ردیف + قافیہ

Example — Faraz: اب کے ہم بچھڑے

اب کے ہم بچھڑے تو شاید کبھی خوابوں میں ملیں جس طرح سوکھے ہوئے پھول کتابوں میں ملیں

• ردیف: میں ملیں
• قافیہ: خوابوں، کتابوں، گلابوں، نقابوں

The نظم is freer in form than the ghazal and develops a single sustained theme or argument rather than independent couplets.

Hali's مسدس (Musadas-e-Hali) uses the six-line stanza form to chart the decline of Muslim civilisation and call for revival. Zameer Jafree's آدمی explores human dignity; Sarhadi's قطعات are philosophical meditations. Unlike ghazal shairs, a nazm's stanzas build on each other — you must read the whole poem, not just a single stanza, to understand the argument.

A comparison between two things using an explicit connecting word (ادات تشبیہ).

ادات تشبیہ (comparison words): جیسے، کی طرح، مانند، سا، سی، جوں

If you see any of these words, it is تشبیہ, not استعارہ.

Example — Faraz:

جس طرح سوکھے ہوئے پھول کتابوں میں ملیں

Meeting someone in dreams is compared to finding dried flowers in old books — both are fragile, faded, and unexpectedly preserved. ادات تشبیہ: جس طرح

Example — Parveen Shakir:

اس نے خوشبو کی طرح میری پذیرائی کی

The welcome she received is compared to how fragrance spreads — invisible yet pervasive. ادات تشبیہ: کی طرح

In an answer: Name the device, quote the line, then explain what the comparison suggests about feeling or meaning — not just what is being compared to what.

One thing is called another without any connecting word. The comparison is implied, not stated.

The test: remove the comparison word — if there is none, it is استعارہ.

Example — Parveen Shakir:

وہ تو خوشبو ہے ہواؤں میں بکھر جائے گا

The beloved is not like a fragrance — he IS a fragrance (وہ خوشبو ہے). No ادات تشبیہ. Pure استعارہ.

Example — Iqbal (شاہین):

Iqbal's eagle (شاہین) is a sustained استعارہ for the self-reliant, soaring Muslim spirit. The eagle is never said to be like a person — it is the ideal human. This is called a مرکزی استعارہ (central/extended metaphor) when it runs through the whole poem.

A non-human thing — an object, animal, abstract concept, or force of nature — is given human qualities, actions, or emotions.

Technically a sub-type of استعارہ, but taught as a separate device in Pakistani syllabi and credited separately in mark schemes.

Example — Iqbal:

ابھی عشق کے امتحاں اور بھی ہیں

عشق (love — an abstract emotion) is given the ability to administer tests (امتحاں لینا). Love is being a teacher or examiner — a human action. This is تشخیص.

Example — Hali (Musadas):

Throughout the Musadas, the Muslim community (قوم) is addressed directly as if it can hear, think, and respond — sustained تشخیص applied to an abstraction.

Deliberate exaggeration to intensify emotion or emphasis. The statement is impossible literally but powerful emotionally.

Example — Iqbal:

خودی کو کر بلند اتنا کہ ہر تقدیر سے پہلے خدا بندے سے خود پوچھے بتا تیری رضا کیا ہے

Raising the self (خودی) so high that God himself asks the person's will before decreeing fate — literally impossible, emotionally overwhelming. The مبالغہ amplifies the value Iqbal places on human agency and self-realisation.

In an answer: Always explain what emotion the exaggeration is designed to produce — shock, awe, humour, grief. Identifying مبالغہ without explaining its effect earns half marks at best.

A reference — implicit or explicit — to a historical event, religious story, literary figure, or well-known person or place. The poet expects the reader to recognise the reference and bring its associations into the poem.

Common Urdu تلمیح references:

Example — Ahtish:

سر کٹ کے کر دیجیے قاتل کے حوالے

The image of giving a severed head to the killer is a تلمیح to Karbala — evoking sacrifice and defiant love rather than mere physical death.

A word or phrase carries two or more equally valid meanings simultaneously, creating deliberate ambiguity that enriches the poem.

Example — Momin: (the most famous ایہام in Urdu poetry)

تم میرے پاس ہوتے ہو گویا جب کوئی دوسرا نہیں ہوتا

Two readings exist simultaneously:

• (1) When I am alone and no one else is here, I feel your presence (longing in isolation)
• (2) You only come to me when there is no one else — i.e. I am the last resort (bitter reproach)

The word گویا itself carries ایہام: it means both "as if" (suggesting imagination) and "indeed/obviously" (suggesting certainty). The poem is great because both meanings are true at once and cannot be resolved.

Example — Faraz:

رنجش ہی سہی دل ہی دکھانے کے لیے آ

دل دکھانا: to hurt the heart, but also idiomatically "to visit" (دل بہلانا). The paradox — come to hurt me — is also a plea: any attention, even painful, is welcome.

Two opposite or contrasting words, ideas, or images placed together in the same couplet or line to create tension, irony, or paradox.

Example — Faraz:

آ پھر سے مجھے چھوڑ کے جانے کے لیے آ

آنا (coming) and جانا (going) are placed in the same phrase. The command to come in order to leave is a تضاد that expresses the masochistic logic of love.

Example — Momin:

وہی یعنی وعدۂ وفا کا، تمہیں یاد ہو کہ نہ یاد ہو

یاد ہو کہ نہ یاد ہو — "whether you remember or not" — places memory and forgetting side by side, highlighting the speaker's grief that the vow of fidelity (وعدۂ وفا) means nothing to the beloved.

The deliberate repeating of a word, phrase, or grammatical structure for emphasis or emotional effect.

Example — Momin:

تمہیں یاد ہو کہ نہ یاد ہو

This phrase is repeated at the end of every couplet throughout the ghazal. The تکرار of "whether you remember or not" creates a sense of resigned obsession — the speaker cannot stop thinking about someone who has forgotten him.

ردیف as structural تکرار: In the ghazal form itself, the ردیف is a built-in form of تکرار. When a poet chooses a ردیف like کے لیے آ (Faraz) or یاد ہو کہ نہ یاد ہو (Momin), the repetition across every shair accumulates emotional weight with each return.

Paper 2 questions use prompts like:

• اس شعر میں شاعر نے کیا احساس پیدا کیا ہے؟
• Explore the ways in which the writer creates a sense of [feeling].
• What do you think and feel about this passage? Give reasons.

The structure that works:

1. Make a point — state what the poet is doing or expressing.

2. Quote — give the exact Urdu words as evidence.

3. Analyse — explain how the language/device creates that effect.

Weak answer: شاعر نے تشبیہ استعمال کی ہے۔ (The poet used a simile.)

Strong answer: شاعر نے سوکھے پھول کی تشبیہ استعمال کی ہے جو یہ احساس دلاتی ہے کہ یادیں خوبصورت تو ہیں مگر مرجھائی ہوئی اور کھوئی ہوئی ہیں — "جس طرح سوکھے ہوئے پھول کتابوں میں ملیں"۔

(The poet uses the simile of a dried flower, which conveys that memories are beautiful but faded and lost — "just as dried flowers are found inside books.")

The difference is analysis of effect, not just identification of device.