A comparative study of the poetry of john milton and mirza ghalib

This paper explores a comparative study of John Milton and Mirza Ghalib, two poetic giants who, despite belonging to distinct linguistic and cultural traditions, share a common spirit of rebellion and introspection. Through a close reading of Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Deewan-e-Ghalib, this study investigates how both poets question divine authority, confront moral contradictions, and reinterpret religious dogma in light of human experience. While Milton’s Puritan worldview seeks to justify divine justice through reason and scripture, Ghalib’s Urdu poetry expresses an existential skepticism toward the same cosmic order. The analysis reveals how both poets transform theological discourse into a humanistic quest for freedom, positioning poetry as a dialogue between the finite and the infinite. The topic Comparative Literature in itself offers a broader range of research to a student who is willing to dig deep the intertextuality of literature. The comparisons more often lead to a new dimension of thought, explore hidden meaning and most importantly flourish the life in a text. As in the words of Julia Kristeva, “Any text is the absorption and transformation of another.” So, we can say literature is a process of dialogues and counter dialogue or a continuous reply of reply to the text. The stalwart of English literature of the Puritan age, John Milton (1608-1674), famously known for his masterpiece, ‘Paradise Lost’ and the Urdu literature poet Mirza Ghalib (1794-1869), both share the same kind of magnitude. When we study both the poets the grandeur, the diction, the style, the tone these poets have some magnificent impact on readers. In spite of having linguistic differences, cultural differences, religious differences their ideas are equivocally radical, phenomenal. It is not just an overnight conclusion but over the passing decades people looked upon their works and found it still majestic and stately. In the age of globalization when we study these writers closely we realize that humanity has just one race and that is humanity itself. We cannot make an analogy between the writers that how they appear same but on some context they almost react the same towards the society. In the case of John Milton when Europe was loaded with Puritan thoughts he dare to project the religious mythology in his own way, though we cannot fully understand the intention of the writer what he means by his text, the collective response was to him was a little different as William Blake argued that “he was of the Devil’s Party without knowing it. The radical views of John Milton is very much similar to Mirza Ghalib. Milton and Ghalib both belong to the same school of thought who ponder over the development of mankind. They both carry the responsibility of more a moral teacher. We can perceive the same pinch in Ghalib’s poetry, as he says, Humko Maloom hai Jannat ki Haqeeqat lekin Dil ke Khush Rakhne ko Ghalib yeh Khayal Achha hai… How Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib satirizes over the concept of heaven and even indirectly makes fun of it. The spirit of questioning over the Lordly sayings is as bitter as we find in Milton’s.