The Ghazal ErosThe old ghazal, i. e. the poetry of eros in Urdu, Persian and Arabic, has been read as great literature but seldom as a document of history. This book argues that there is one element the expression of masculine passion () for a masculine object that has shaped the ghazal historically and across languages. The neglect of this element, which it terms lyric queerness, in mainstream cultural history and even LGBTQ studies, screens from us a lyrical