Abdul Ghani Khan’s Pushto Poetry: Evaluation of Themes and Implications for Cross-Linguistic Literary Studies

Abstract

Abdul Ghani Khan is a revered poet of Pashto, but he is widely unknown to both Pashto and non-Pashto readers in Pakistan. This study is an attempt to introduce Ghani Khan as a poet to Pashto and non-Pashto readers both nationally and internationally. For presenting Ghani Khan's themes and unique style, descriptive qualitative approach was adopted. Five poems were selected purposively from his English translated collection “The Pilgrim of Beauty” and were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's six phases of thematic analysis. The phases included familiarizing with the data, code generation, identifying initial themes, and refining the initial themes, as well as defining the final themes. As a result, 12 "latent themes" were identified and discussed which included love and beauty as blessings, mortality/beauty and immortality/love, love: affliction vs remedy, big questions: absolute truth, sacrifice, escapism, misery, honor, past-glory, rejuvenation, self-realization, and Panther. The study ends with a storyline that was developed to integrate the themes and stylistic individuality of Ghani Khan. The study has implications for the cross-cultural study of literary genres and for applications in Literature classrooms in Pakistani universities.