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The Temporality of Desire in Ḥasan Dihlavī's ʿIshqnāma (2021)
- Author(s):
- Rebecca Ruth Gould (see profile) , Kayvan Tahmasebian (see profile)
- Date:
- 2021
- Group(s):
- Global Literary Theory, Islamicate Studies, Literary theory, Persian and Persianate Studies, Poetics and Poetry
- Subject(s):
- Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939, Love, Middle Ages, Iranians, Sex--Philosophy, Love--Philosophy, Poetry, Sufism
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- Indo-persian, medieval love, Romance, Freud, Medieval, Persian, Philosophy of sex and love
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/7bw0-vg75
- Abstract:
- This article traces the conception of love and desire (ʿishq) in a Persian verse romance by the Indo-Persian poet Ḥasan Dihlavī, known as ʿIshqnāma (composed in 1301). ʿIshqnāma narrates a tragic and unconsummated love affair between a young Hindu couple. As the two protagonists immolate themselves in what is at once a reworking of the Indic custom of widow burning (sati) and an allusion to the deaths of the famed lovers Laylī and Majnūn, the poet offers an innovative account of the temporality of desire. In transforming the Persian master narrative of love, Ḥasan anticipates Freud's account of the account of the death drive in relation to the pleasure principle in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1921). This article initiates a dialogue between Freud and Ḥasan Dihlavī in order to suggest that desire for another may be the self's only means of reckoning with its contingency.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 3 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
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jmw.2020.2.3-4.72.pdf