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Abstract

This article seeks to evaluate distnuguished Urdu critic Shamsur Rahman Faruqi's contributions to Urdu Literature in general and in criticism particularly. In early phase of his literay career, he was heavily influenced by Western critical ideas but with the passage of time he became crtical of Western literary notions. He came to believe that poetry, fiction and other imaginative writings are deeply embedded in their respective indigenous cultures. Hence, Faruqi resorted to study of classical Persian and Urdu Literature in the light of their own poetics. This article sets out to delineate Faruqui's theoretical considerations and practical implications of the poetics of classical Urdu Ghazal and Urdu Dastan. That poetics is local and cultural is a postcolonial idea put forth in the backdrop of hegemonic imposition of Western literary cannonistion.