Analysis of Time to Love by Taufiq Rafat
Critical Analysis of Figurative Language in the Poem "Time to Love" by Taufiq Rafat
Taufiq Rafat is the first Pakistani poet born in Sialkot in 1927 and died in 1998, has been writing poetry in English, using a multilevel approach to explore themes of love. He was influenced by T.S., whose innovative use of speech used by the poet inspired a new wave of poetic expression. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Ezra Pound, and Derek Walcott. He was not only a poet but a good critic as well. He spent his whole life in Pakistan. His poetry is about conflicts between rural and urban, past and present, tradition and modernity, etc. He was the first-ever Pakistani to write a play in verse form, named The Foothold, published in 1965. He translated Bullay Shah and Punjabi poet Qadar Shah's Poetry, using a multilevel approach to capture the essence of their messages. It’s really difficult to maintain rhyme and meter in translated poems, but he has done it very beautifully, showcasing the figures of speech used in his work. He has a beautiful collection of 150 poems, each one a unique noun that captures a moment in time. Other writers wrote encomiastic reviews of him, highlighting how his figurative language reveals meanings that resonate across generations.
He was the Doyen of English Poetry.
Taufiq Rafat shows maturity in his early published work. He is also a poet of love, using figures of speech and lexical categories indicated in Taufiq to express deep emotions, while his analysis of language features establishes a unique voice. But the love poems eschew the cloying emotionalism of the bad ghazal, employing consonance to enhance their impact. Such poems are lyrical, and this one, “The Time to Love”, has deliberate Shakespearean echoes. The function of these echoes seems to be to underline the contrast between Renaissance freedom and spontaneity and inhibitions and schematization of the present puritanical way of life in Pakistan.
You can also read poems from Pakistan Literature in English, like this Analysis of the Daud Kamal Poem "The Rebel" reveals two analysis levels that deepen our understanding of his themes.
THE TIME TO LOVE
The time to love
Is when the heart says so
Who cares
If it is muddy august
Or tepid april?
For Love’s infalliable feet
Step daintly
from vantage to vantage
to the waiting salt-lick
If Spring
Has any importance
It is for us
The rhymsters,
Who need
A bough to perch on
While we sing
Love is a country
With it’s own climate
Critical analysis of the poem reveals the intricate figures of speech and lexical choices that the poet employs.
He explored the universal theme of love. But, unlike the poem sensibility of the traditional love poets who hanker after a beloved in their poetry, he employs a modern approach that analyses language features and establishes a new understanding of love.
The meaning of the title is what the specific time to love is. According to Rafat, there is no specific condition or time for love, as it can be understood across two language levels. He say love has no time. One cannot say that I shall love you at a particular time, as love is an idiom that defies scheduling.
He examines the overarching concept of love.. He talks universally about love, employing the speech used by the poet to connect with diverse audiences. It’s a spontaneous reaction if someone is hot that follows no season, no specific weather, or any particular condition imposed by self or anyone else. The poet reveals the true nature of love. Unlike the poetry of traditional love, poets express the love affairs of males and females in poetry. This poem has more to do with the intellectual and philosophical side of love instead of the traditional and emotional aspects. He discusses different seasons like August, April, and spring. Love cannot be started in a particular month as August, when everything is muddy. It cannot be said that it will be in a hot month like April. Love doesn’t make any mistakes, so it can move anywhere at any time, much like an idiom that captures spontaneity. Love is an infallible feet that can touch and may point to others without illness from the outside weather or seasonal factors. It’s a spontaneous reaction. Love rises in one’s heart without someone’s own accord, delivering the meaning that love can be both beautiful and complex. No one can say that he or she will love a specific occasion or time, can’t say I can’t love you this moment or doesn’t have time to love. All these are lame excuses, which are often just nouns that fail to deliver the meaning that love truly embodies. Love has no lame excuses; it arises spontaneously, much like a personification of freedom itself.
Love knows not what time is
There is no importance of spring for Love. The importance of spring is just for ordinary people. The rhymesters, who wrote a poem, need a site or weather to imitate, but love, as a human life experience, surpasses all emotions. Love in itself is a whole world, an adjective that encapsulates the vastness of human emotion. Love has its own country with its own climate, and this figurative language reveals meanings that resonate deeply. Love has its own rules. Actually
Love is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.
He uses free verse to express his thoughts. He uses a free and rebellious style of writing, often incorporating adjectives that evoke strong imagery. Muddy August and tepid April are the images of his own culture, as he has used different phrases, expressions, and ideas that are related to his own culture, so he gave a call to localism. His expression is universal, transcending cultures and employing metaphor to connect with readers. However, the style of writing is that of Western writers. Even Western writers focused on the display of concrete images to show some ideas. So, Rafat incorporates local images to express his thoughts.
“Time to love” itself seems to be poor in time, but it is rejected by the Tuafiq Rafat, intended to create awareness of love, dispensable of time, it is symbolised through poetic technique by using the small letters “August” and “April”. The emphasis on the mindset of the reader is that it’s all about your temper.
Love is its own place and itself can make heaven of hell, hell of heaven.