Mirza Ghalib
1797–1869
Biography
Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan, who wrote under the pen name Ghalib (1797–1869), is among the greatest poets in the Urdu language. He lived in Delhi during the last decades of the Mughal Empire, and he wrote in both Urdu and Persian. His life coincided with a period of upheaval, from the decline of the empire to the spread of British rule and the events of 1857 in Delhi, and his reputation has lasted far beyond his own lifetime.
His ghazals, the classical lyric form of Urdu and Persian verse, are admired for their dense imagery and layered meanings. His themes include love, loss, philosophy and the condition of human life. He was also a letter writer, and his prose is valued alongside his poetry. He spent most of his life in financial difficulty.
The site holds his Diwan, دیوانِ غالب (The Diwan of Ghalib), a collection of his ghazals and verse. It is the natural starting point for readers who want to meet his poetry directly, and it gives a fair sense of the wit and compression that have made his couplets so widely quoted.
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Books
دیوانِ غالب
by مرزا غالب
This collection presents the Urdu poetry of Mirza Ghalib, including ghazals, qasidas, qit'as, rubaiyat and other verse arranged in the sections of the source web book. Ghalib's intricate lyric poems explore love, longing, wit, faith and the uncertainties of human life. This book…
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