Exploring Love Beyond Seasons: A Literary Analysis of The Time to Love by Taufiq Rafat

The Time to Love” by Taufiq Rafat: A Modern Pakistani Poem on Timeless Love

Taufiq Rafat was a Pakistani poet and writer who was born in 1927 in Sialkot and died in 1998 in Lahore. He is credited with the introduction of the concept of a “Pakistani idiom” in English literature, which reflects the culture and sensibility of his country. He also conducted poetry workshops and mentored many younger poets.

Taufiq Rafat is known for his imagist style, which aims to purge poetry of unnecessary words, to render language precise, vision-specific, and thought-concentrated into the image. He was influenced by poets like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and W.H. Auden, who were also imagists and modernists.

Rafat also developed his own "Pakistani idiom", which means he adapted and naturalised English to express the Pakistani experience. He used local words, images, symbols, and themes to reflect his culture and sensibility. He also blended the characteristics of British Romanticism with his localised flavour, creating a unique and peculiar style.

Some of the features of Rafat's style are:

1. He uses simple and direct language, avoiding ornate or obscure words. He prefers concrete nouns and verbs over abstract ones. He also uses colloquial expressions and contractions to create a conversational tone.
2. He uses metaphors, similes, and other poetic devices to create vivid images and convey layers of meaning. He often compares love, nature, life, and death to different objects or phenomena, such as a tree, a stream, a bone, a monsoon, etc.
3. He uses free verse, which means he does not follow any fixed rhyme scheme or meter. He varies the length and structure of his lines and stanzas according to his mood and message. He also uses enjambment, which means he runs one line into another without punctuation, to create a sense of continuity or urgency.
4. He uses irony, satire, and humour to criticize or comment on the social and political issues of his time. He often mocks the hypocrisy, corruption, violence, and injustice that he observes in his society. He also uses self-deprecation and wit to lighten the mood or tone of his poems.

Analysis of the Poem The Time to Love by Taufiq Rafat

The Time to Love is one of his poems from his first collection, Arrival of the Monsoon, which was published in 1985. The poem explores the universal theme of love, but not traditionally or emotionally. Rather, it shows the intellectual and philosophical side of love, which transcends time and seasons.

The poem consists of three stanzas, each with four lines. The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF. The tone is conversational and reflective, as the speaker addresses an unknown listener or lover.

In the first stanza, the speaker asserts that the time to love is when the heart says so, regardless of external circumstances such as the weather or the month. He suggests that love is spontaneous and natural, not bound by any rules or conventions. He also uses a metaphor to describe love's infallible feet, which step daintily from vantage to vantage to the waiting salt lick. This implies that love is agile, graceful, and adventurous, seeking new experiences and pleasures.

In the second stanza, the speaker continues his argument by saying that if spring has any importance, it is only for the poets, who need a bough to perch on while they sing. He implies that spring is a cliché symbol of love and romance, which poets use for their poetic expression. However, he claims that love is a country with its own climate, meaning that love has its own seasons and variations, independent of the natural world.

In the third stanza, the speaker concludes his poem by saying that love is not a flower that blooms and fades, but a tree that grows and spreads its branches. He uses another metaphor to compare love to a tree, which suggests that love is enduring, strong, and fruitful. He also says that love does not need any adornment or decoration, such as garlands or wreaths, but only needs itself to be complete. He ends the poem with a rhetorical question: What more can one ask? This implies that love is sufficient and satisfying in itself, and nothing else matters.