Lexical Metamorphoses in Bīdel’s Lyric Poems

Linguistic research is more complex than research in other literary fields, and it will be much more complicated if the research is done on a great poet like Mīrzā Abd al-Qādir Bidel, who rewrote his earlier poems and made corrections to them during his poetic maturity. This study seeks to show his poetic trajectory through the investigation of lexical metamorphoses in his poetry by considering the Ganj Bakhsh's manuscript as a source in which Bidel's lyric poems have been included up to the time he was 53 years old. The text of the poems in this manuscript were compared with the readings of the same poems in later-dated manuscripts. Attempt has been made to use descriptive-analytical method to highlight various types of linguistic metamorphoses in Bidel's ghazals in four general categories: metamorphosis through elimination of words, metamorphosis through change of words, metamorphosis through addition of words, and metamorphosis through complete change in a hemistich (mesraʿ). The necessity of studying the linguistic issues in Persian literature and the prominent position of Mīrzā Abd al-Qādir Bidel in the Indian style of poetry point to the necessity and importance of this research. Findings show that most of the metamorphoses in Bidel’s lyric poems has been through change of words, and the elimination or addition of words have not been very frequent. It was also found in this study that Bidel, by changing his attitude towards poetry, words and poetic images, was able to free himself from the shadow of the great poets of the Indian style poetry and secure a special place in Persian literature.