Lighthouse Review of Literature & Cultural Studies

The untranslatable refrain: radif, rhyme and the limits of the English ghazal

The ghazal's arrival in English has been narrated as a story of formal liberation, in which Anglophone poets took what they wanted and left the rest. This essay reads that account against the form's own structural logic, arguing that what was left behind — the radif, the repeated word or phrase closing each couplet — is not an ornament but the mechanism by which the ghazal generates meaning across its otherwise unconnected couplets. Through close readings of Ghalib in three English translations alongside Agha Shahid Ali's formal ghazals, I argue that the English ghazal is best understood not as a translation of the form but as a distinct form that shares its name.