Analysis
of Time to Love by
Taufiq Rafat
Term
Paper
By; Qurat ul Ain Fatima
To; Dr Yasir Arafaat
Section; M.A English 3rd C NUML
Course
title; Introduction to Pakistani Literature (IPL)
INTRODUCTION:
Taufiq Rafat is the first Pakistani poet, born in Sialkot in 1927 and died in 1998, has been
writing poetry in English for a long time. He was influenced by T.S Eliot, W.H
Auden, Ezra Pound, and Derek Walcott. He was 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 written play in verse form, named The Foothold,
published in 1965. He translated Bullay Shah and Punjabi poet Qadar Shah's
Poetry. It’s really difficult to maintain rhyme and meter in translated poems
but he has done it very beautifully. He has a beautiful collection of 150 poems. Other Pakistani writers were encomiastic
reviews of him.
He
was Doyen of English Poetry.
Taufiq Rafat shows maturity in his
early published work. He is also a poet of love. But the love poems eschew the
cloying emotionality of the bad ghazal. Such poems are lyrical and this one “The
Time to Love” has deliberate Shakespearian 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.
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:
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.
The meaning of the title is what the specific time to love is.
According to a poet, there is no specific condition or time for love. Poets say
love has no time. One cannot say that I shall love you at a particular time.
He explores the
universal theme of love. He talks universally about love. 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 usurp in a hot month like April. Love
doesn’t make any mistakes so it can move anywhere at any time. Love is
infallible feet 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. 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. Love has no lame excuses,
it arises spontaneously.
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 surpasses all emotions. Love in
itself is a whole world. Love has its own country with its own climate. 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. Muddy August and tepid April are the images pertaining to 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. However, the style of writing is 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 of time but it is
rejected by the poet intended to create awareness of love dispensable of time, it is symbolized through poetic technique by using the small letter “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.
REFERENCES:
Rehman Tariq. History
of Pakistani Literature in English 1947-1988. Oxford university press. 2015
Literature point on
August 21, 2019: https://www.scribd.com/document/422681501/Time-to-love-by-Taufiq-Raffat
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