Literary device
Qafia
The rhyming word that immediately precedes the radif in a ghazal couplet. Where the radif anchors, the qafia varies — and the discipline of choosing fresh qafias keeps the form alive.
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Literary devices
How metaphor, enjambment, radif, and other devices work — guidelines a poet considers, then bends with care.
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Literary device
Radif
The repeated word or short phrase that ends every second line of a ghazal. One of the form's defining structural devices in the Persian, Urdu, and Arabic poetic traditions.
Literary device
Tadmīn
Embedding a complete verse line — often from a different poet or language — directly into one's own composition. Closely related to tazmīn; many sources treat them as variants of one practice.
Literary device
Tazmīn
The classical Arabic, Persian, and Urdu device of taking another poet's line into a new composition, usually by elaborating on it. A figure of homage, conversation, and inheritance.
Literary device
Īhām
Deliberate semantic ambiguity — a word chosen so two distinct meanings are both available to the reader at once. One of the most prized devices of classical Arabic, Persian, and Urdu lyric.