Explores the urban, cosmopolitan sensibilities of Urdu poetry written in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Lucknow. Ruth Vanita analyzes Rekhti, a type of Urdu poetry distinguished by a female speaker and a focus on women's lives, and shows how it becamea catalyst for the transformation of the ghazal.

Autorentext
RUTH VANITAVisiting Professor in the South Asia Language Area Center at the University of Chicago, USA.

Inhalt
Women in the City: Inner and Outer Worlds Women in the City: Fashioning the Self Eloquent Parrots: Gender and Language Servants, Vendors, Providers: the City's Many Voices Neither Straight Nor Crooked: Love and Friendship in the City Challenging and Changing Literary Convention: Sex in the City 'I'm a real sweetheart': Masculinity and Male-Male Desire Styling Urban Glamour: Courtesan and Poet Camping it Up: Jan Saheb and His Followers The Poetics of Play: Hybridity, Difference, Modernity Play, Pleasure, and the Modern Indian Imagination