Pastoralism, Anti-Pastoralism, and Post-Pastoralism in the Seraiki Poetry of Khwaja Ghulam Farid

An Ecocritical Study

Abstract

This study examines pastoral, anti-pastoral, and post-pastoral tendencies in the Seraiki poetry of Khwaja Ghulam Farid through an ecocritical close reading of selected kafis. Drawing primarily on Terry Gifford’s conceptualization of pastoral, anti-pastoral, and post-pastoral modes, the study investigates how Farid represents Rohi, Thal, and adjoining desert landscapes as both aesthetic and lived environments. The analysis shows that images of rain, dunes, vegetation, livestock, grazing communities, and seasonal renewal construct an Arcadian vision in which nature appears intimate, sustaining, and spiritually meaningful. At the same time, Farid’s poetry registers drought, thirst, water scarcity, migration, difficult travel, barren terrain, and the material hardships of desert life, thereby complicating pastoral idealization. The coexistence of these apparently opposed tendencies produces a post-pastoral sensibility: nature is neither romanticized without qualification nor reduced to deprivation, but represented through the interdependence of beauty, suffering, human survival, and ecological conditions. The study argues that Farid’s poetry offers an important early expression of environmental consciousness in Seraiki literature and demonstrates the value of ecocritical approaches for understanding the cultural and ethical relationship between desert communities and their landscape.