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Abstract
This study aims at investigating the poem The Poppy Flower (Reedi Gul) by Ghani Khan from the dialectical perspective of Hegel. For Hegel art or literature is the product of alienation through which the subjugated and not-thinking beings called slaves externalize the true spirit or geist. This is the stepping stone towards self-consciousness through art and poetry to be used by the subjects for self-recognition. Humans in their primal forms are free as in the state of nature but the instruments of morality and materiality which develop with the progress of history turned them into slaves. There ensues a dialogue between every phenomenon in nature and history. This dialectical process between the primal and the classical arts produces the finest point of literature called Romanticism. Hegel’s emphasis on spirit and then discovering that through reason makes him a “rational Mystique.” This study puts forth the claim that Pashto poet Ghani Khan uses dialectics in his poem The Poppy Flower (Reedi Gul) as a stepping stone to move from the state of not-knowing to the state of knowing. It is this dialectical process that ultimately brings self-consciousness, alienation in the poet. The paper has developed a model which puts Hegel’s concepts in a tabulated form under the main headings of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis. Analysis of the data proves that Ghani Khan is a “rational mystique” like that of Hegel. Ghani Khan who suffered otherization at the hands of his critics also gained self-consciousness just like the poppy flower with the synthesis that being alien is not a curse but a blessing. This realization establishes a unity between the finite (the poet, the poppy flower) and infinite (geist).
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