CHAPTER ONE

ENGLISH AND ARABIC/IRAQI ROMANTICISM

THE PROBLEM OF DEFINITION:

Romanticism is not a single coherent aesthetic theory, but rather a general term used to describe a number of attitudes, and ideas, not all of them connected with one another.

In The Oxford Companion to English literature, Paul Harvey describes Romanticism as: "a word for which, in connexion with literature, there is no generally accepted definition."^(l) Francois Jost supports Harvey: "The multiple meanings of the word romantic are one of the main sources of difficulty in defining the romantic movement."⁽²⁾

The Arab critics, Like the English, admit the difficulty of defining Romanticism. ( In Mawsū^Cat al-Mustalah al-naqdī (Encyclopedia of Critical Idioms),^{(3)  C}Abd al-Wāhid Lu'lu'ah begins his argument with a warning: "he who tries to define Romanticism will face a dangerous task whose victims are numerous." In an interview, in Oxford University, Mustafā Badawī was asked to define the term Romanticism. He replied with a joke, but possibly a serious joke: "O Gosh! you ask me to define who God is! " In Shīlī fī 'l-adab al-^CArabī fī Misr (Shelley in Arabic Literature in Eqypt),⁽⁴⁾ Jīhān Ra’ūf confirms the fact that attempts at a definition of Romanticism are a waste of time:

" All critics agree that definition of Romanticism is a kind of nonsense because of the multiplicity of its aspects and tendencies…. Some try to define Romanticism by comparing it to Classicism, which precedes it, and others define it by comparing it to Realism, which follows it. There are wide definitions as well as narrow ones, yet none of them help the subject of literary criticism very much."

The various definitions can be grouped under two general headings, one of which identifies Romantic as a universal tendency of the human mind, the other of which insists on defining Romanticism as a historical movement.

(A) A HUMAN TENDENCY:

Some English critics, like the Arab critics, treat Romanticism as a human tendency, Which exists in all periods and in all cultures. In Romanticism,⁽⁵⁾ Lilian Furst lists various definitions of Romanticism by many writers. We will choose those which focuss on Romanticism as a human tendency:

1) Phelps: "Sentimental melancholy", "vague aspiration",  "subjectivity, the love of the pictureque, and a reactionary spirit …"

2)  George Sand:   "Emotion rather than reason;  the heart

opposed to the head."

3) Herford: "Extraordinary development of the imaginative sensibility."

Many Arab critics claim that Romanticism existed in earlier Arabic literature. This they have been unable to do convincingly, since they have confused a general human tendency with the artistic ideals of a distinct literary movement, or school. Iliyā 'l-Hāwī regards the experience of ruin and time past, the parting of lovers, the death of things and living beings and crying over evanescent nations and their traces in classical Arabic poetry as the original Romantic experience.⁽⁶⁾ He chooses two lines from Imru' al-Qays's Lāmiyyah, which are tinged with a romantic spirit:

الا عم صباحا ايها الطلل البالي        وهل يعمن من كان في العصر الخالي

وهـــل يعمن الا ســعيد مخلـــد         قليـــل الهمــــوم ما يبيــت بأوجـــــال

 (May you be happy this morning, worn traces! but can any one be happy who was here in past time? / Can anyone be happy except the very old fortunate man, who has few cares and does not pass the night with fears?)

Jamāl al-Dīn al-Ramādī. agrees with al-Hāwī: he regards the classical Arab poets, such as Qays Laylā, Qays Lubnā and Jamīl Buthaynah, as belonging to the Arabic Romantic School, which reveals love in daily events and personal conversations, He also includes in this school the Andalusian poets, such as Ibn Zaydūn, Ibn Khafājah and Ibn Sahl, who describe the beauty of nature very often, and sing of its rivers and gardens. These schools, he believes, are identical to the French and English Romantic schools.⁽⁷⁾ al-Ramādī gives examples from English and French literature to be compared with their counterparts in Arabic literature:

"The cult of Melancholy in English poets, such as Byron and Shelley, and French poets, such as Musset and Hugo, occurred in the poetry of the traditional Arab poets. For instance, some of Jamīl Buthaynah’s poetry might be categorized as of Poetry of Love and Death. The sad tendency of Musset's Tristesse (sorrow), and Lamartine’s Pourquoi mo ame est triste (Why is my soul sad?) is also found in Qays b. al-Mulawwah’s, Qays b. Dhurayh’s and ^CAbbās b. al-Ahnaf's poetry.    ^CUmar b. Abī Rabī^Cah also displays it in his narrative poetry."⁽⁸⁾

In her article "Ta'ammulāt fī 'l-rūmānsiyyah" (Meditations on Romanticism), published in al-Aqlām,⁽⁹⁾ Ihsān al-Malā'ikah believes that Romanticism as a tendency did not only originate in European literature at a certain time, it also existed in every place in all historical periods. She gives Shakespeare’s Sonnets as an example of early English Romanticism. She also goes back to early stages of traditional Arabic poetry. She believes that:

"the Romantic tendency developed after Udhrī poetry, in the love complaint of ^CAbbās b. al-Ahnaf, al-Mutanabbī’s poems of love and friendship …."⁽¹⁰⁾

As a European school, Romanticism was established in the early 19th century. The late twenties and thirties of this century witnessed the development of a specifically Arabic form of Romanticism. It was quickly assimilated in Lebanon and Egypt because there is an affinity between western Romantic notions and the Romantic tendencies in traditional Arabic poetry.

  Having made a survey of the definitions of the term 'Romanticism' in Kuwait and Baghdad, on 4-12th of 1984, I found that the Arab writers hesitate to define this term. Most of the definitions are incomplete; some of them focus on Romanticism as a human tendency and a historical movement at the same time. Together they comprise a comprehensive definition, whatever their individual divergences:

1) ^CAbdah   Badawī: "The Romantics love nature, adore passionate love and prefer imaginative language. They choose simple and delicate poetic meters, like al-Khafīf."

2) ^CAbd Allāh al-Muhannā: "love, adoring nature, and treating women equally, no matter to what social ranks they belong."

3) Jalāl Khayyāt: "Inner sufferings, personal problems, change in content rather than form, and change in social traditions."

4) Nāzik al-Malā'ikah refuses to give any definition of the term 'Arabic Romanticism', and she denies her awareness of Romanticism when she was composing her early poems: ⁽¹¹⁾

 (There is nothing called 'Arabic Romanticism', for Arabic poetry at the beginning of the twentieth century tended to personal passions, as a result of development from early Arabic poetry .... I know of nothing in my life called 'Romanticism'. When I was composing the poems of my collection ^CAshiqat al-layl, I did not know that that was Romantic poetry. Therefore, I cannot answer your question as to when I first began coposing Romantic poems.)

In her chapter "Mahādhīr fī tarjamat al-fikr al-gharbī" (words of warning about translating          western thought), in al-Tajzi'īyyah fī 'l-watan al-^CArabī (division in the Arab world)⁽¹²⁾, Nāzik’s attitude is different. There she defends the Romantic poets. She rejects the Arabic adoption of Eliot’s and Pound’s literary concepts, because they do not suit the Arabic mood. She believes that Romanticism should continue in Arabic poetry, despite its decline in English poetry:

ولذلك نخسر حين نتخلى عن الرومانسية ونعتنق اتجاهات ايليوت او باوند في الشعر, لان هؤلاء المعاصرين في الغرب يزدرون العاطفة والوضوح والموسيقى بشكل ملحوظ. ولعل لهم ان يزدروا ما يشاؤون ما دام ذلك لا يضر اوطانهم ولا قضاياهم القومية. اما نحن فان تقليدنا لهم في هذا الازدراء يسئ الينا ويعرقل تحررنا ونمونا الاجتماعي واننا لنكون جهلاء ضعفاء الرأي لو تخلينا عما نحتاج اليه لمجرد ان نقاد اوربا يستهجنونه.

 (That is why we lose when we rid ourselves of Romanticism and embrace Eliot’s or Pound’s trends in poetry, because the contemporary writers in the west obviously despise passion, clarity and music. They can despise what they want, as long as this does not damage their countries and their national affairs. Imitating this disdain will harm us and hinder our freedom and social growth; and we shall be ignorant and weak in judgement if we get rid of what we need, simply because the European critics disapprove of it.)

She gives reasons for her call to maintain the Romantic trend in Arabic poetry. In short, these reasons are as follows:⁽¹³⁾

1) Romanticism calls for subjectivity, which is more useful, in Arabic poetry than objectivity, as a corrective to conventional poetry which expresses the ideology of a society rather than of an individual.

2) It believes in individual rebellion against corruption in society.

3) It encourages its adherents to revive ancient literature and to glorify and modernize national history.

4) It glorifies passionate feeling.

5) It believes that languages are like human beings - they grow and decline.

She believes that Modern Arabic poetry is in need of these qualities.

(B) A HISTORICAL MOVEMENT:

Historically, the Romantic movement is essentially a European phenomenon, nurtured in European literature as the result of a series of ideological and technical developments and inspired by a reaction against the neoclassical movement. Those developments had prepared for the triumph of Romanticism. The Romantic movement first became a self-conscious literary programme in Germany in l790s-l830s. Thereafter, it spread slowly from one European country to another. It did not reach France until the third decade of the 19th century, when it can be seen in the lyric poetry of Lamartine, Hugo and Vigny in the years between 1822 and 1826.⁽¹⁴⁾ England received Romanticism at the end of the 18th C. and the beginning of the 19th C. and in England the Romantic period may be said to have ended with the deaths of Keats in 1821, Shelley in 1822 and Byron in l824.

In The Oxford Companion to English Literature,⁽¹⁵⁾ Harvey gives an approxitmate date for the movement:

" [It] began in the late 18th cent. (though there are earlier isolated examples of the romantic spirit) and lasted into the 19th cent. in literature and art. The classical, intellectual attitude gave way to a wider outlook, which recognized the claims of passion and emotion, and in which the critical was replaced by the imaginative spirit, and wit by humour and pathos."

Margaret Sherwood describes the Romantic movement as:⁽¹⁶⁾

".... a period of fundamental upheaval in every department of life, political, social, and in the world of thought.… This was the time of the birth of our modern world: of changing thought, political, social, philosophic; of changing forms of government; the depth and energy of the revolutionary movement springing from fresh apprehension of the rights, the powers, the possibilities of man, can hardly be overestimated."

As a literary movement, the Arab writers admit that Romanticism is of European origin. In an Interview, in Baghdad University, 1984, Salūm defined Romanticism as:

"an extension of the European Romantic movement, the reaction against social and political conditions. It is the conclusion of the Arab renaissance, whereas English romanticism is the result of the French Revolution." Jīhān Ra’ūf, Shīlī fī 'l-adab al-^CArabī fī Misr, describes Romanticism as "the most Important literary movement in Europe".⁽¹⁷⁾

From the previous survey, we conclude that the English and Arab definitions stress common characteristics:

1) revolution against tradition

2) identifying man with nature

3) paying homage to pain

4) adoration of passionate love

5) a preference for symbolic language

 In addition to that, we conclude that Arabic Romanticism, as a literary school, derives from the English, in particular, and the European, in general: as a human tendency, it existed in Classical Arabic and European poetry.

FUNDAMENTALS OF ARABIC/IRAQI AND ENGLISH ROMM1TICISM:

English Romanticism is a literary school which has a theory, based on various fundamental concepts that had great influence on 19th century English society. It changed rigid traditional concepts and attitudes to more liberal ones. The Romantic movement began in England in 1798 with Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s work The Lyrical Ballads. It was Wordsworth’s preface to The Lyrical Ballads that turned it into a revolutionary poetic manifesto, and it was this preface from which Arabic Romantic poets drew several of their crucial tenets:

1) Poetry is described as the spontaneous overflow of emotions.

2) The poet is a teacher and must strive to reveal truth, not through scientific analysis and abstraction, but through an imaginative awareness of persons and things.

3) The poet may broaden and enrich human sympathies and enjoyment of nature in this way.

4) The poet should communicate his ideas and emotions through a powerful re-creation of the original experience.

5) The poet should use the language of the common man.

6) A poem should stimulate past emotion in the reader and promote Learning by using pleasure as a vehicle.

The second most influential Romantic manifesto for the Arabic poet was Shelley's A Defence of Poetry, which was written in 1821, but not published until 1840; the most significant elements in this book which the Arab Romantics adopted are:

1) Poetry is the expression of the imagination.

2) Imagination is superior to reason.

3)Poets are those the creative activity of whose imagination causes the purest and most intense pleasure to others.

4) Poetry exists in the infancy of society.

5) Translation of poetry is impossible, since its music can never be reproduced.

6) Poetry is superior to history.

The third influential English Romantic manifesto for the Arab Romantics was Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria. Despite the difficulty of Coleridge’s philosophical language in Biographia Literaria, the Arab writers translated this book into Arabic, and adopted some of the arguments, especially those on the division of imagination into primary and secondary, and the distinction between Fancy and Imagination. Many examples will be given in the following chapters which will indicate the extent of the Arab writers’ understanding of English Romantic theory.

The impact of the Literary concepts of The Lyrical Ballads, A Defence of Poetry and Biographia Literaria on Arabic poetry had two aspects, one theoretical, and the other practical: the first was the change in the critical concepts of Arab literary men, and the appropriation of the characteristic positions of Romantic critical theory; the second was the composition of poems which showed both direct and indirect borrowings from English poetry in particular and European poetry in general.

The Arab writers were acquainted with The Lyrical Ballads, A Defence of Poetry and Biographia Literaria through two channels:

A) directly from the original sources, and from the critical studies on these books in English or French;

B) indirectly from the Arabic versions of these books, and from critical studies in Arabic.

Like English Romanticism, Arabic Romanticism is based on four fundamentals:

1) Individualism

2) Nature

3) Imagination

4) Emotion.

(1) INDIVIDUALISM:

Individualism is one of the major characteristics of English and Arabic Romantic theory. Al-^CAqqād, for instance, believes that:

"Poetry is  ….. a self-image of the poet, even when it deals with other people’s lives …. the poet who cannot be recognized from his poetry does not deserve recognition."^(l8)

In her defence of Romanticism in Arabic poetry, in al-Tajzī'iyyah fī 'l-watan al-^CArabī,⁽¹⁹⁾ Nazik stresses the relation of Romanticism to Individualism; she explains why Romanticism is suitable to the Arabic taste:

تدعو الرومانسية دعوة شديدة  الى الروح الفردية المستقلة والنظرة الذاتية التي تنبثق عن شخصية الشاعر وهذا يلائمنا لاننا نريد ان يتحرر الشاعر العربي مما رزخ تحته طويلا من اتخاذ موقف القبيلة او العشيرة ام العائلة. فكلما كان الشاعر اكثر ذاتية كان ذلك انفع لمجتمعنا اليوم حيث نحتاج الى ان ننمي الروح الخلاقة ذات الفكر المتفرد.

 (Romanticism calls strictly for the individual, independent spirit, and the personal view that gushes out from the poet’s character. This is fitting for us, because we want the Arab poet to be free of his long-lasting burden of dependence on the attitude of his tribe or family. The more the poet is personal, the better for our present-day society, because we need to Increase the creative spirit that possesses individual thought.)

THE POET AS PROPHET:

Like the English Romantics, the Arab Romantics claim for the poet the status of the prophet. In Milād shā^Cir (the birthday of a poet) [1.1] ^CAlī Mahmūd Tāhā asserts that the poet has the heart of a prophet:

هبط الارض كالشعاع السني           بعصا ساحر وقلب نبي

 (He descended to the earth like a sublime ray with the wand of a magician and the heart of a prophet.)

In al-shi^Cr wa 'l-nubbuwwah, (Poetry and Prophecy) [1.1-2], al-Sāfī 'l-Najafī denies being a prophet, though he regards poetry as an inspiration:

قيل لي, قلت ان شعرك وحي        أنبي في الشعر, ام هو وحي

قلت كلا, لست النبي, ولكن          شاعر, غير ما عهدتم, ذكي

(They said to me: 'You said that your poetry was inspiration; are you a prophet in poetry, or is your poetry Inspiration?' / I said: 'No, I am not the prophet, but a clever poet, not as you used to know me.')

In al-Khayāl wa l-wāqi^C (imagination and reality) (1945) [st.5], Nāzik treats the poet as equal to a prophet:

ان يكن قلبـــي ظـمآن وفيا

لا يرى في شاعري الا نبيا

او يكن يكتم حبا شاعريـــا

فهو ما زال باوهامي يحـيا

 (If my heart is thirsty and faithful, / it sees in my poet only a prophet; / or if it has concealed a poetic love, / it still lives in my imaginings.)

In her chapter "al-Adīb wa 'l-mujtama^C" (the artist and society), in al-Tajzī'iyyah fī 'l-watan al-^CArabī,⁽²⁰⁾ she describes the artist as follows:

..... المصلح ورجل الدين والعالم, قادر على التوجيه والاشراف. لانه الباني والمحرك للمجتمع, بينما المجتمع هو المبني المحرك, والصانع في نظر الفكر المدرك اهم من المصنوع,

(…. [he is] the reformer, the religious man, and the scholar, who is capable of guidance and supervision, because he is the builder and the awakener of society, whereas society is what is built and awakened; from the point of view of thought, the creator is more important than the created,)

She lists five typical qualities of the ideal artist:⁽²¹⁾

1) he should devote his life to knowledge,

2) his actions should correspond with his words,

3) intellectually, he should be independent from the common social currents,

4) he should reject panegyric, and explain his own ideas,

5) he should resemble the religious man, the scientist and reformer; moreover, he is of the rank of a prophet.

In this chapter, she is more tentative in claiming prophetic status for the poet than she had been in early life: ⁽²²⁾

.... كرجل الدين ورجل العلم والمصلح, انما هو في مرحلة نحو النبي. وليس في حكمنا هذا انتقاص للنبوة, وانما النبي ملهم ينطقه ربه وليس بشرا عاديا, ولكن النبوة لها صفات كثيرة وقد يملك الانسان المتميز بعض هذه الصفات صفة او صفتين. اما مجموع الصفات فلا يملكها الا النبي.

(Like the religious man, the scholar and the reformer; he is one stage towards the prophet. By this judgement, we do not diminish prophecy; the prophet is inspired, god makes him speak. He is not an ordinary person; prophecy has many qualities. The distinctive person may have some of these qualities, one or two, but only a prophet can have all of them.)

Nāzik's notions of the poet are Shelleyan. In A Defence of poetry,⁽²³⁾ Shelley associates the reformers, the philosophers

and the legislators with the poets:

"They follow the footsteps of poets, and copy the sketches of their creations into the book of common life …. we live among such philosophers and poets as surpass beyond comparison any who have appeared since the last national struggle for the civil and religious liberty. The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry …. poets are the hierophants of unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves Poets are the aknowledged legislators of the world."

2) NATURE :

Like the English Romantics, the Arab Romantics believe in the union of man with nature. Nature has an intimate relation to man; its conditions affect man’s mood. to a great extent; Its beauty makes his temper as delicate as the breeze. The delight in nature in Arabic Romantic poetry is the result of western influence and particularly the influence of Enqlish poetry. Amongst English Romantics it is Wordsworth who insists most forcibly on the relationship between nature and poetry. In Lines Written above Tintern Abbey [1. 107-112], according to him, nature teaches men moral values and may help mould their character to some degree:

                 both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognize

In nature and the language of the sense,

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.

English poetry, in general, is filled with natural imagery, such as the birds, the winds, the rivers and the flowers. Conventional Arabic poetry pays less attention to these natural elements. Like the English Romantics, the Arab Romantics sympathize and identify themselves with nature because they find an ideal beauty in it. The Arab Romantics who are used to living in desert lands are fascinated by western landscape; this fascination is evident in their natural imagery, such as snow, forests, waterfalls, cliffs, precipices, valleys, long summer days, fog and so on.

Shukrī is one of the first Arab Romantics who adores nature. Natural description is the main theme of his first collection Daw' al-fajr (the light of dawn) (l909), and it also appears in his second collection Sawt al-layl (the sound of night) 1913; his response to nature recalls that of Wordsworth. In al-Shi^Cr wa 'l-tabī^Cah (poetry and nature)  [1. 4 & 5], his feelings are united with nature. The beauty of nature gives man happiness, and the anger of nature creates anger in man’s self:

نرى في  سماء النفس ما في سمائنا              ونبصر فيها البدر وهـــو منير

وما النفس الا كالطبيعة وجههـــــــا             رياض واضواء بهـــا وبحــور

(We see in the sky of the soul what is in our sky, and we see in it the full moon, giving light; / and the face of the soul resembles nothing so much as nature; in it are gardens, lights and seas.)

The Iraqi pre-Romantic poets wrote complete poems about nature; for instance, al-Shabībī wrote at least six: al-Fayadān (the flood), Wasf hadīqah (the description of a garden), al-Zahrah al-dhābilah (the faded flower), Layālī Dijlah (the nights of the Tigris), wahy 'l-ghurub (the inspiration of sunset), and Aydī 'l-rabī^C (the hands of spring). Unlike Nāzik in Shajarat al-qamar (the tree of the moon), in which the art of poetry recreates nature (see chapter 3), al-Shabībī, in ^CAlā difāf Dijlah (on the banks of the Tigris) [ st. 1], describes nature as "more beautiful than art":

ما قيمة الشعر في تصويرها وبها            شعر الطبيعة منثور ومنظوم

(What is the value of poetry in portraying it, when in it is the poetry of nature, in prose and verse?)

Al-Zahāwī wrote ten complete poems on nature: Al-Rabī^C wa 'l-tuyūr (spring and birds), al-shams fī 'l-tulū^C (the sun at its rising), al-Shams fī 'l-maghrib (the sun at its setting), Naghmat al-subh (the melody of morning), Lubnān (Lebanon), Minka anā (from you I am), al-Rabī^C (spring), al-kharīf (autumn), al-^CAsifah (the storm) and Ayyatuhā 'l-tabī^Cah (O nature!).

al-Rasāfī also wrote poems on nature, such as: al-Ghurūb (sunset), Waqfah fī 'l-rawd (a stop in the garden), Dhikra Lubnān (the memory of Lebanon), al-Bulbul wa 'l-rawd (the bulbul and the roses), Ughrūdat al-^Candalīb (the warbling of the nightingale), al-Sayf (summer), al-Shitā' (winter), Mahāsin al-tabi^Cah (the beauties of nature).

 NATURE AS A REFUGE :

Like the English Romantics, the Arab Romantics regard the natural world as a refuge from the complexities of the city. Gibrān considers the forest as a place which is free of depression. An example of this is a stanza from al-Mawākib (the processions):

ليس في الغابات حزن          لا ولا فيها الهــموم

فـــاذا هــــــب نســيم           لم تجئ معه السموم

(There is no grief or sorrow in the woods. / If a breeze blows, the simoon will not come with it.)

In Ahlām shā^Cir (the dreams of a poet) [st. 1, 2, 7, 10], al-Shabībī dreams of living alone, in the mountains, far away from the noise of the city:

ليت لي ان اعيش في هذه الدنيا                 سعيدا بوحدتي وانفرادي

اصرف العمر في الجبال, وفي                الغابات   بين الصنوبر الميــــاد

..................................

عيشة للجمال, والفن, ابغيــها,                 بعيدا عن امتــي وبـــلادي

..................................

وبعيدا عن المدينة, والنـــاس,                 بعيدا عن لغو تلك النوادي

(O if only I lived in this world, happy with my loneliness and isolation, / spending my life in the mountains, and in the woods among the shaken pinetrees. / .. . a life of beauty, and Art, that I want, far away from my country and nation; /.... / far away from the city and people, far away from the noise of those clubs.)

Imitating al-Shabībī, Nāzik, in Ma'sāt al-hayāt (the tragedy of life) [st. 15 & 20), claims to prefer living in the countryside to living in the city:

آه لو عشت في الجبال البعيدا            ت اســوق الاغنام كــــل صباح

واغني الصفصاف والسرو انغا         مي واصــغي الى صفير الرياح

*    *    *

آه لو كــان لـــــي هنالك كوخ          شاعري بيـــن المــروج الحزينه

في سكون القرى ووحشتها أقــ         ـضي حياتي لا في ضجيج المدينة

(Oh, if only I lived in the distant mountains, driving the sheep every morning, / singing my melodies to the willow and the cypress, and listening to the whistling of the winds! /* * * / Oh, if only I had there a poetic cottage among the sad

meadows, / so that I could lead my life in the tranquillity and loneliness of the villages, not in the noise of the city.)

Shelley in To Jane, The Invitation [1. 21-8] similarly escapes from society to nature:

Away, away, from men and towns,

To the wild wood and the downs—

To the silent wilderness

Where the soul need not repress

Its music lest it should not find

An echo in another’s mind,

While the touch of Nature’s art

Harmonizes heart to heart.

 THE NIGHT AND POETRY:

The night is a recurring element in English and Arabic Romantic poetry. In English Romanticism, the night is often associated with poetry.        In To Night [st. 1]⁽²⁴⁾, for example, Shelley employs the night as a symbol of poetry:

Swiftly walk o’er the western wave,

             Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,,

Where, all the long and lone daylight,

Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,

Which make thee terrible and dear,--

         Swift be thy flight!

In his chapter "Ramziyyat al-layl: qirā'ah fī shi^Cr Nāzik al-Malā'ikah" (the symbol of the night: reading of Nāzik al-Malā'ikah’s poetry) in Nāzik al-Malā'ikah: dirāsah fī 'l-shi^Cr wa 'l-sha^Cirah (Nāzik al-Malā'ikah: study of the poetry and the poetess),⁽²⁵⁾ Jābir ^CUsfūr believes that Gibrān was the first Arab Romantic poet to give the night a new significance. This derives from the western Romantic poets,

such as Novalis (1772-180l) who "saw in the pure darkness of the night a source of revelation, and inspiration . . . ."⁽²⁶⁾ Similarly, Gibrān’s night is the source of inspiration and poetry. "Gibrān is united with the night, in the pure darkness, as any mystic is united with the definite truth, in the moment of revelation which joins the prophet and the poet." ⁽²⁷⁾ An example of this unity is Gibrān's prose poem Ayyuhā 'l-layl, which was first published in 1913:

لقد صحبتك ايها الليل حتى صرت شبيها بك, والفتك حتى تمازجت ميولي بميولك, واحببتك حتى تحول وجداني الى صورة مصغرة لوجودك.

(I have accompanied you, O night, until I have become like you, and I have become so familiar with you that my tastes have become mingled with yours, and I have loved you so much that my passion has turned into a miniature of your existence.)

Gibrān talks about the night as the consolation of lovers, poets, and singers; it is the place of ghosts, souls, and the imagination; it is the spring of longing and memories. In the first three lines of Gibrān's Ayyuhā 'l-layl (O night!), night suggests love, poetry, prophecy, beauty and sublimity:

يا ليل العشاق والشعراء والمنشدين

يا ليل الاشباح والارواح والاخيلة

يا ليل الشوق والصبابة والتذكار

(O night of lovers and singing poets, / O night of ghosts, spirits and phantasms, / O night of longing, passion and remembrance!)

Night and darkness are also recurring images In the Iraqi poets, particularly in the poetry of al-Bayyātī, al-Sayyāb, and Nāzik. To al-Bayyātī, the night offers the inspiration for his "romantic   meditations on joy, sorrow, and estrangement."⁽²⁸⁾  The association of this mood with the approach of night is one with which modern Arabic poets have a peculiar affinity. "His meditations are often tinged with profound sadness and feelings of inner death."⁽²⁹⁾

    In Min ahzān al-layl (some of the sorrows of night) [st. 3]: ⁽³⁰⁾

"he depicts thoughts and feelings aroused in him [al-Bayyātī] by the river of darkness, in which he is hunted by despair, and trapped in an endless night of dreadful visions"

آمنت بالليل الـــذي لا ينتــــهي ........ وحطمت من فزع الرؤى مصباحي

ونهزت في نهر الظلام مشاعري....... حتــى تخضب مــاؤه بجــراحي

(I believed in night that would not end, / and I smashed my lamp from fear of visions; / I pushed my feelings away into the river of darkness, / until its water was dyed by my wounds.)

The night in Nāzik's poetry symbolizes poetry, imagination, dreams, mystery and beauty. Like most Romantics, she represents night or evening as the best time to write poetry, to contemplate her sorrows and to play her music. In Dhāt masā' (one evening); 1946 [ st.17], she apostrophizes the night, associating it with poetry and melancholy:

هكذا يا ليل صورت شقائي

في نشيد من كآباتي وحزني

قصة قد وقعت ذات مساء

وحوت روحي واحزاني ولحني

(In this way, O night! I have portrayed my misery, / in an ode of my melancholy and grief — / a story that happened one evening / and encompassed my soul, my griefs and my melody.)

This recalls Tāhā's Ghurfat al-shā^Cir (the room of the poet) [st.1]:

ايها الشاعر الكئيب مضى الليــ         ــل وما زلت غارقا في شجونك

مسلما رأسك الحزين الى الفكــ        ــر, وللسهد ذابـــلات جفونــــك

(O melancholy poet! Night has passed and you are still absorbed in your sorrow, / surrendering your sad head to thought , and your wan eyelids to sleeplessness.)

It also recalls al-Shabībī's association of the night with poetry in Ayyuha 'l-layl [1. 6-7]:

أيها الليل! انت نغم شجي         في شفاه الدهور, بين النحيب

ان انشودة السكون, التي ترتج,      في صدرك الركود الرحيب

(O night! You are a sad tune on the lips of the ages, clearly lamenting. / The ode of silence, which reverberates, is in your peaceful and unconfined chest.)

 In Nāzik’s Bayn fakkay al-mawt (between the jaws of death) (1945) [st. 8], night ( = evening) suggests poetry, phantoms and winds:

وستمحو الايام ذكر فتاة            شغفتها الهة الشعر حباً

فقضت امسياتها تتبع الاطـ         ـياف والعاصفات شرقا وغربا

(The days will wipe out the remembrance of a girl infatuated by the goddess of poetry; / she spent her evenings following phantoms and storms eastward and westward.)

The goddess of poetry here is an allusion to one or more of the Muses. The directions of the storms (eastward and westward) may suggest a personal conflict in Nāzik’s mind and heart, or it may suggest the conflict within her of eastern and western literary traditions.

In Anā (I am) [st. 1], Nāzik identifies herself with the night:

إني كالليل: سكون, عمق, آفاق

الليل يسأل من أنا؟

انا سره القلق العميق الاسود

انا صمته المتمرد

 (I am like night: silence, depth and horizons. / Night asks who I am; / I am its perturbed, deep and black secret; / I am its rebellious silence.)

(3) IMAGINATION

For the English and Arab Romantics, imagination is fundamental because, as they believe, poetry without it is impossible. For modern Arab writers, Coleridge is the supreme theoretician of the imagination. They adopt his concepts of imagination, and present his critical comments on the fundamentals of Romantic theory. They derive their knowledge of Coleridge from one or both of two sources:

A) through translations of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, such as ^CAbd al-Hakīm Hasan’s translation: al-Nazariyyah al-rūmāntīkiyyah fī 'l-shi^Cr (the romantic theory in poetry), published in Cairo in 1971,

B) through the expositions of Coleridge’s theory offered by western critics, as in ^CAbbās ^CAlwān's Tatawwur al-shi^Cr al-^CArabī al-hadīth fī 'l-^CIrāq (the development of Modern Arabic poetry in Iraq),⁽³¹⁾ in which the author's arguments depend on quotations from western critics' studies of Coleridge’s theory, such as Abrams’s The Mirror and the lamp (1960), and Walsh’s The Use of Imagination (1959).

C) through Arab critical studies of this theory in Arabic and English, such as Suhayr al-Qalamāwī's al-Muhākāt (emulation), and Mustafā Badawī's Coleridge.

 In Egypt, Shukrī and aI-^CAqqād adhere to the philosophy of imagination derived from the English Romantic poets. Their distinctions between 'imagination' and 'fancy' and between 'observation' and 'meditation' are Coleridgean.⁽³²⁾ al-^CAqqād emphasizes that thought and imagination as well as passion are very necessary in poetry. Imaginary Images are the source of beauty in style. This view is derived from Coleridge, who considers imagination as "the power by which one image or feeling is made to modify others and by a sort of fusion to force many into one."⁽³³⁾

^CAlwān, in  Tatawwur   al-shi^Cr al-^CArabī al-hadīth fī 'l-^CIrāq,⁽³⁴⁾ focusses on Coleridge’s philosophical ideas of imagination, the distinction between the primary and secondary imaginations, between fancy and the creative imagination and between mechanical and organic poetry. In Biographia Literaria, Coleridge divides imagination into two kinds -- the primary and the secondary: he considers the primary imagination as:

"the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM."⁽³⁵⁾ and the secondary imagination as the power by which man reconstructs objects out of the ideas of reason in his own consciousness, or as:

 "an echo of the former, co-existing with conscious will, yet still as identified with the primary in the kind of its agency and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still, at all events, it struggles to idealize and to unify." ⁽³⁶⁾

In A Defence of Poetry,⁽³⁷⁾ Shelley defines poetry as "the expression of the imagination". Keats believes that the ultimate reality is to be found only in the imagination; he agrees with the claim that imagination is something absorbing and exalting which discloses an unseen spiritual order. Through imagination Keats seeks an absolute reality in which he appreciates beauty through the senses. Through beauty he feels that he comes into the presence of the ultimately real:

"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of Imagination -- what the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth -- whether it existed before or not -- for I have the same idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty"⁽³⁸⁾

Like the English, the Arab Romantic poets associate imagination with poetry. Al-Shabībī, in al-shi^Cr khayāl (poetry is imagination) [st.1], defines poetry as imagination:

اشرق النير يعلوه الجلال             فتخيلتك, والشعر خيال

( al-Nayyir [name of a star] has risen with majesty above it; so I have imagined you, for poetry is imagination.)

Nāzik, In al-Khayāl wa 'l-wāqi^C, relates imagination to the poets; in this poem, she repeats the phrase خيال الشعراء (the imagination of the poets) three times at the end of stanzas 1-3, and 6:

ابدا اصدح حبا وحنينا

لحبيبي وانا تحت سمائي

وخيالي, من خيال الشعراء

(Always I sing with love and longing / to ray lover, while I am under my own sky; / ray imagination comes from that of other poets.)

رحمة, لا تنزليني من سمائي

واتركيني في خيال الشعراء

(Mercy! Do not bring me down from my heaven! / Leave me in the imagination of the poets!)

انني لذت باحلام السماء

وتخيرت خيال الشعراء

(I took refuge in the dreams of the Sky, / and chose the imagination of the poets.)

She ends the last two stanzas with the phraseوهم الشعراء  (the fantasy of the poets), instead of 'the imagination of the poets':

وخيالاتي ووهم الشعراء

(And my imaginings and the illusion of the poets.)

(4) EMOTION:

The Arab Romantics agree with the English Romantics in their preference for feeling over reason. Feeling, they believe, is the mainspring of Romantic art. Wordsworth defines poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."⁽³⁹⁾  The spontaneity, and the overflow of emotion are frequently emphasized by the Arab Romantic poets. Shukri agrees with wordworth’s definition of poetry; poetry should express truthfully the excitement of passions. This is revealed in the introduction to his collection Daw' al-fajr (the light of dawn). It derives from his poem ^CUsfūr al-jannah (the sparrow of Paradise) [1. 6]:

الا يا طائر الفردوس        ان الشعر وجدان

(O bird of paradise! Poetry is ecstasy!)

Imitating Shukrī, Nāzik introduces her collection ^CAshiqat al-layl (1947)with lines that summarize her personal view of the relation of poetry with feelings:

اعبر عما تحس حياتي

وارسم احساس روحي الغريب

فابكي اذا صدمتني السنين

بخنجرها الابدي الرهيب

واضحك مما قضاه الزمان

على الهيكل الادمي العجيب

واغضب حين يداس الشعور

ويسخر من فوران اللهيب

(I express what my life feels, / and I sketch the strange feeling of my spirit; / I weep when the years strike me / with their fearful eternal dagger, / and I laugh at what time has decreed / for the wondrous human frame; / I am angry when feelings are trampled. / and the blazing fire is derided.)

In ^CAshiqat al-layl, Nāzik makes her first attempt in Romantic poetry. This collection is tinged with personal feeling, and Romantic themes: sorrows, pain, melancholy, pessimism, deprivation, loneliness, madness, disappointment, confusion, vagueness, rebellion and the conflict of heart and mind. Her love experience is spiritual more than sexual; she believes that sexual feelings have a bad effect on the soul and the mind. In "al-shi^Cr fī hayātī" (poetry in my life),⁽⁴⁰⁾ she categorizes her disdain for sex and marriage as a fourth reason for her melancholy:

وسبب رابع لكابتي وعذابي احتقاري للجنس والزواج واعتقادي بان الحب يدنس روح الانسان لما وراءه من حسية. وهي فكرة لا تتجلى في قصيدتي (مدينة الحب) في (عاشقة الليل). وهناك اسباب اخرى متفرقة هي المسؤولة عن نبرة الكابة والعذاب في (ماساة الحياة) و (عاشقة الليل).

(And a fourth reason for my melancholy and anguish is my disdain for sex and marriage and my belief that love contaminates man’s spirit because it has sensation. It is an idea revealed in my poem Madīnat al-hubb (the city of love) in ^CAshiqat al-layl (the lover of the night). There are other miscellaneous reasons that are responsible for the tone of melancholy and anguish in Ma'sāt al-hayāt and ^CAshiqat al-layl.)

In al-Tajzī'iyyah fī 'l-watan al-^CArabī,⁽⁴¹⁾ in her argument as to why Romanticism is more suitable to modern Arabic poetry than any other literary tendency, Nāzik explains:

تمجد الرومانسية العواطف الخصبة باشكالها جميعا. على اننا حين نفحص العاطفة فيها نجدها مرادفة للانسانية تقريبا .... ومهما يكن فان اللفته العاطفية في الرومانسية ضرورية للشعر العربي والروح العربية اليوم خاصة وان الصفة العامة للفكر العربي عبر عصوره كانت صفة ذهنية لا عاطفية.

(Romanticism glorifies all kinds of rich passions. But when we study passion in Romanticism, we find it is almost synonymous with humanity ..... Whatever it is, the passionate glance in Romanticism is necessary to Arabic poetry and to the Arab soul today, particularly because the general quality of Arab thought throughout the ages has been intellectual, not passionate.)

In Juhūd (shirking) [st. 8-10], social standards are not as important to her as feelings:

أأنا حــــلم     وشعور طـــــهور

ام انا جسم      مغرق في الشرور

*   *   *

بل أنا آفاق     من شعور عنـيف

وأنا أعماق     من خضم مــخيف

*   *   *

المقاييـــس      ليــس تعنينـــي

الاحاسيـس      هــي قانــــوني

(Am I a dream and a pure feeling? / Or am I a body immersed in evil? / * * * / I am horizons of a violent feeling, and I am depths of a frightening ocean. / * * * / Standards do not concern me; feelings are my law.)

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ARABIC/IRAQI ROMANTICISM:

To examine the origin and development of Arabic Romanticism, it is convenient to discuss individual countries one by one even if this involves a disregard for strict chronology. It would make chronological sense to begin with Egypt, move to Lebanon, and finish in Iraq, but since Iraqi Romanticism forms the core of our subject, we will begin in Iraq and refer to its counterparts in Egypt and Lebanon when it is necessary. We will also shed light upon the pre and post-Romantic periods in modern Iraqi poetry.

The Ottoman constitution and the war of l914-1918 fostered a nationalistic attitude in Iraqi poets such as al-Zahāwī (1863-1936) and al-Rasāfī (1875-1945); these poets were influenced by European concepts and attitudes that they had encountered during their travels in Turkey. A certain amount of liberal thought had filtered through into their writings from the translation of European works into Turkish and Arabic.

"al-zahāwī published his first Dīwān, 'al-Kalām al-manzūm' in Beirut, in 1908, followed by al-Rasāfī who published his in 1910, also in Beirut, under the title of 'Dīwān al-Rasāfī'."⁽⁴²⁾
Pre-Romantic signs in Iraq appeared first in al-Zahāwī’s and

Al-Rasāfī's works.

"with al-Zahāwī and al-Rasāfī, poetry was directly tied to political events, and the role of the poet as the political and social spokesman of his people was firmly established …. the political and social themes became the first means of rejuvenating arabic poetry through the demands these new themes had on the various elements of poetry: on diction, style and emotion."⁽⁴³⁾

Despite their commitment to traditional poetry, the Iraqi poets embraced new concepts in poetry called by them Shi^Cr al-marhalah (poetry of the phase), al-Zahāwī and al-Rasāfī pioneered modern poetry following the new tendencies of the Egyptian poets and their Romantic theory, al-Rasāfī was the first Iraqi to break the traditional modes of thinking and expression. He is regarded as:

"the poet-instigator and poet-reformer who brought new emotions and new ideas to the social and political fronts."⁽⁴⁴⁾

Al-Rasāfī ventured to write in a new form at a time when the conventional form was regarded as the best. His awareness of European literature came through his readings about the new movements that began appearing in Turkish in 1860 and owed much to European writing, especially French.⁽⁴⁵⁾

In Haqīqatī 'l-salbiyyah (the negative truth about rue) [l.6], al-Rasāfī prides himself on writing on new themes, which were not acceptable in his time: sincerity and frankness are very important to him:

احب صراحــتي قولا وفعلا          واكره ان اميل الى الريـــاء

فما خادعت مـــن احد بــأمر          ولا اضمرت حسوا في ارتغاء

ولست من الذيــن يرون خيرا         بابقاء الحقيقة فــي الخفــــاء

ولا ممن يـــرى الاديان قامت         بـــوحـــي منــزل للانبيــــاء

ولكن هــــن وضـع وابــتداع         مــن العقلاء اربــاب الدهــاء

ولست من الالى وهموا وقالوا         بان الـــروح تعــرج للسـماء

(I like to be honest in word and deed, and I do not like to incline towards hypocrisy. / Therefore, I did not deceive anybody in anything, nor did I conceal my slurping when drinking the froth.  / I am not one of those who think it best / to keep the truth hidden / nor one of those who think that religions were established by revelations coming down to prophets; / they were imposed and invented by the intellectuals, the lords of craft; / I am not one of those who imagine and say that the spirit will ascend to heaven.)

His unbelief may have derived from the Arab Romantic poets's new scepticism concerning in God and religion; these poets themselves derived this from the English Romantic poets, particularly Shelley and Byron (see chapter 4).

The response of the Iraqi literary men to the radical literary movements was late. Iraqi poetry remained longer under the rigid norms of the traditional qasīdah:

"A belated current of Romanticism arrived in Iraq at the end of the forties. The young generation of poets, who were then emerging, had readily available to them poetry from other Arab countries as well as from the West, and read avidly both Egyptian Romantic poetry and that of the Mahjar .... Romanticism in Iraq served as a stepping stone to a greater poetic freedom in both form and content, without which the leap from a deeply entrenched Classicism to more modern attitudes and methods could not have been made."⁽⁴⁶⁾

There are many factors that paved the way for Romanticism to emerge into modern Iraqi poetry:

1) the experience of the second World War and its politico-cultural consequences,

2) the introduction of 19th Century English poetry into the curriculum of the Iraqi universities,

3) the increase in scholarships, and the increase in the number of Arab students of poetry and critical studies in European and American literature,

4) the encouragement of translation of European literature written in French and English into Arabic,

5) the appearance of a literate middle-class as a result of scientific, social and industrial activities,

6) the reaction against the religious aristocracy.

Iraqi Romanticism comes through three channels:

1) from the Egyptian and the Lebanese Romantic poets’ knowledge of English literature. The Iraqi writers were aware of the new movements in Egypt and Lebanon. They read the literary works of the Dīwān, and Abūlū groups, which appeared in the journals, especially al-Risālah in Egypt, and al-Adīb in Lebanon.

2) through Arabic translations of French and English literature which made European literature available to poets who had been hampered by their ignorance of languages other than Arabic (see chapter 2).

There were Iraqi Journals that adopted the new literary conceptions of Dīwān and Jamā^Cat Abūlū (Apollo group), and supported translation from European literature. The earliest of these journals are:⁽⁴⁷⁾

1) al-Hurriyyah (freedom), which was published in Baghdad, 1924-1926; its editor was Rufā'īl Battī; it issued ten numbers only. Its aim was to build an educational bridge between Iraq and other Arab countries, to allow the Arab literary renaissance to reach Iraq.

2) al-Wamīd (the flash), which was established in 1930, and stopped after the third volume, which was issued in December of the same year; its editor was Lutfī Bakr Sidqī. This Journal, following the Dīwān group, attempted to break the statutes of conventional literature.

3) al-I^Ctidāl (moderation), which was published in Najaf, 193(?). It supported the new literary movements in Egypt and Lebanon.

ROMANTIC GROUPS AND JOURNALS:

The Iraqi Romantics, like the English, and unlike the Egyptian and the Lebanese, prefer working individually rather than in groups. The Egyptian and the Lebanese resemble the French and the German in their preference for groups and journals. In the following sections, we will discuss very briefly the achievements and the literary works of the Egyptian and the Mahjarī groups and their impact on Iraqi poetry:

(1)   Al-DIWAN:

The first seeds of modern Arabic poetry were planted in Egypt by the call of Mutrān (1870-1949) to free Arabic poetry from its traditional conventions. In his first Dīwān (1887-1908), Mutrān includes tales that are narrative, dramatic, romantic and historical. He is regarded as "the first poet to introduce the narrative trend into modern Arabic poetry."⁽⁴⁸⁾ He was influenced by French Romanticism, which is clearly evident in his emotional and love poetry. Despite the claims of many critics that Mutrān was the pioneer of Arabic Romantic poetry, his large, two-volume Dīwān includes only a few poems written in Romantic language, such as al-Masā' (evening), al-Asad al-bākī (the crying lion), Hikāyat ^Cāshiqayn (the tale of two lovers) and Hal tadhkurīn? (Do you remember?); the rest represent classical genres, such as Panegyric, Congratulation and Elegy. Mutrān, through his French education, and the Dīwān group, including ^CAbbās Mahmūd al-^CAqqād (1889-1964), Ibrāhīm ^CAbd al-Qādir al-Māzinī (1889-1949) and ^CAbd al-Rahmān Shukrī (1886-1958), through their English education, and al-Bustānī, by his translation of Homer’s Iliad in 1904, contributed to the development of modern Arabic poetry.

The Romantic works that followed were: Shukrī's Tahta daw' al-fajr (under the light of dawn) (1909); ^CAbbās Mahmūd al-^CAqqād's Yaqzat al-sabāh (the awaking of morning) (1916), Wahy al-zahīrah (the glare of the sun at midday) (1917), Ashbāh al-asīl (the ghosts of late afternoon) (1921), Hadiyyat al-karawān (the gift of the curlew) and ^CAbir sabīl (a passer-by) (1937), A^Cāsīr maghrib (the tornadoes of a sunset) (1942) and Ba^Cd al-a^Casīr (after the tornadoes) (1950); Ibrāhīm ^CAbd al-Qādir al al-Māzinī's Dīwān in two volumes: the first in 1917, and the second in 1921; and al-^CAqqād's and al-Māzinī's book al-Dīwān in (1921). This work put forward new ideas about modern poetry, discussed the role of the poet in the 20th century, and outlined, with examples, a general theory of modern Arabic poetry. The Dīwān was as important a work to the Arabic Romantics as Wordsworth’s Preface to the Lyrical Ballads(1798-1805) and Coleridge's Biographia Literaria (1817) had been to the English Romantics, since both of them introduced attitudes and techniques alien to the established literary tradition.

(2)   Abūlū :

In 1932, the Abūlū group was founded. Shawqi was elected as the president of the group, but he died few days after the first meeting. Mutrān was chosen to replace him. Unfortunately, this group did not last long. It disintegrated in 1935.

The Abūlū group includes most of the younger generation of poets and critics in Egypt, such as Ibrāhīm Nājī (1896-1953) and ^CAlī Mahmūd Tāhā (1902-1949). Most of Abūlū's young poets read the poetry of the second generation of English Romantic poets:       Shelley, Keats, and Byron. The first

Romantic poetic collections of these poets are: Mā warā' al-ghamām (behind the clouds) by Ibrāhīm Nājī, Shāti' al-a^Crāf (the shore of conventions) and Ilā Jītā al-fātinah fī madīnat al-ahlām (to Jita, the beautiful, in the city of dreams) by al-Hamsharī (1908-1938), al-Mallāh al-tā'ih (the wandering sailor) by ^CAlī Mahmūd Tāhā, and Ayn al-mafarr (where can I run to?) by Mahmūd Hasan Ismā^Cīl. Abū Shādī (1892-1955) called for a new European literary approach. His collections Andā' al-fajr (the dews of dawn) (1910), Anīn wa ranīn (groans and ringing) (1925), Zaynab (1924), Misriyyāt (1924) incorporate a radical literary style and imagery.

This group encouraged all kinds of radical innovations; it was an independent school which produced many creative poets, who followed diverse poetic trends, such as Romanticism, Symbolism, Realism and Surrealism. The magazine of this group was also called Abūlū and was first issued in 1932. The name derives particularly from English Romantic references to Apollo as the god of poetry, as in Shelley’s Hymn to Apollo and Keats’s Ode to Apollo. In Jamā^Cat Abūlū wa atharuhā fī 'l-shi^Cr al-hadīth (Apollo group and its impact on modern poetry),^{(49) C}Abd al-^CAzīz al-Dasūqī explains in detail the symbol of Apollo and the reason that the group was so called.

(3)   AL-MAHJAR:

The third group which represents the Arabic Romantic movement is the Mahjar group in America; it includes Mikhā'īl Nu^Caymah, Gibrān Khalīl Gibrān, Iliyā Abū Madī and Amīn al-Rayhānī. This group founded an association called Jam^Ciyyat al-rābitah al-qalamiyyah (the pen club) in New York in 1920, and al-^CUsbah al-Andalusiyyah (the Andalusian Association), in 1932. The brothers ^CArābīlī established the first American Arabic journals, such as Kawkab Amrīkā (the star of America), in New York in 1892. Mikhā'īl Nu^Caymah's critical work al-Ghirbāl (the sieve) was published in America in 1923. This work supports the new literary approach of the Dīwān. It is as important a book to the Mahjar group as the book al-Dīwān to the Dīwān group, because it contains the fundamentals of the new Arabic Romantic theory. Gibrān’s literary works, such as al-Arwāh al-mutamarridah (the rebellious souls), al-Ajnihah al-mutakassirah (the broken wings), al-Mawākib (the processions) and The Prophet, which is written in English, had a considerable influence on the poetry of the Arab Romantics.

The Iraqi writers were in touch with the output of these Journals. They responded to them positively, because they were an open window on world literature. They contributed to this Journal with their Arabic versions of European poems, especially English, and other literary works. They also contributed to other Arabic Journals, such as al-Risālah in Egypt, and al-Adīb, and al-Adāb in Beirut. In "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī",⁽⁵⁰⁾ Nāzik mentions some of her articles published in al-Adīb and al-Adāb:

بعد ذلك انصرفت الى كتابة ابحاث النقد الادبي متناولة الشعر العربي المعاصر بدراسات جديدة جدة (جدا sic) مثل (هيكل القصيدة) و (الجذور الاجتماعية لحركة الشعر الحر) و (الشعر والموت) و (منبر النقد) وكنت انشر ابحاثي في مجلة (الاديب) ببيروت اولا ثم تحولت الى مجلة الاداب.

(After that I started to write works on literary criticism, treating contemporary Arabic poetry in quite new studies, such as "The structure of the poem", "The social roots of the free verse movement", "Poetry and death", and "The pulpit of Criticism". I used to publish my work at first in the journal al-Adīb, in Beirut, and then I changed to the journal al-Adāb.)

The Iraqi Romantic poets responded to the calls of the Dīwān, Abūlū and Mahjar groups and were positively influenced by the new literary products in the journals of these groups. In the following chapters, we will give examples of this influence in detail.

In a written communication in Kuwait, 1984, Nāzik prided herself on her contribution to the journal al-Adāb:

(al-Adāb issued 11 numbers, each entitled "a number devoted to Nāzik al-Malā'ikah", in 1983 and 1984. In all of them there are studies of my literary output written by the greatest Arab and western literary men, such as Claud Chichon [?], and Arnold Toynbee. The Journal al-Adāb is still issuing numbers devoted to me. It is a weekly journal which you can find in every Arab capital except Kuwait.)

IRAQI ROMANTIC GROUPS AND JOURNALS:

Despite the fact that the Iraqi writers preferred to work individually, we find two literary groups:

(1) Majmū^Cat al-Ihyā' (the Renaissance group) (19?) the leaders of which were al-Zahāwī, al-Rasāfī and al-Shabībī.

(2) Jamā^Cat al-waqt al-dā'i^C (the group of the wasted time)

(1940s), which included Buland al-Haydarī, al-Sayyāb and

Al-Bayyātī. This group adopted the new literary conceptions of the Dīwān and Abūlū groups; their education was English, and they were deeply influenced by English poetry.

Arab Romanticism, mainly the poetry of the Mahjarī poets and the Abūlū Group, was very much in vogue with the Iraqi Romantic poets in the forties. Nāzik al-Malā'ikah, Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb, ^CAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bayyātī, and Buland al-Haydarī wrote many poems introducing new themes and imitating other modern Arab poets in expressing themselves without breaking the traditional form of Arabic poetry.

The most remarkable Iraqi Romantic collections are: Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb’s Azhār dhābilah (faded flowers), which was published in Egypt, by matba^Cat al-Karnak, in 1947, and Asātīr (myths), in al-Najaf, by matba^Cat al-Gharī al-hadithah, in 1950; Nāzik al-Malā'ikah’s ^CAshiqat al-layl (the lover of the night), 1947, and Shazāyā wa ramād (splinters and ashes), Baghdad, matba^Cat al-ma^Cārif, 1949; ^CAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bayyātī’s Malā'ikah wa shayātīn (angels and devils), Beirut, Dār al-Kashshāf, 1950, and Abārīq muhashshamah (broken vessels), 1954; Buland al-Haydarī’s Khafaqāt al-tīn (the throbbing of the dust), Baghdad, 1946.

The Iraqi Romantics were not only acquainted with Romanticism, but also with other literary movements in Europe, such as Symbolism, Realism, Social Realism, Surrealism, Aestheticism, Dadaism and Impressionism. Many Arab critics believe that the great poet should comprehend all literary doctrines. In an interview, in Kuwait University, in 1984, ^CAbdah Badawī asserted "Every great poet should have all literary doctrines in his poetry." al-Sayyāb, for instance, was a Romantic at the beginning of his career, in Azhār dhābilah (faded flowers) (1943). Then he became a Symbolist in Asātīr (myths) (1950), In Haffār al-qubūr (the grave digger) (1952) and in al-Aslihah wa al-atfāl (the weapons and the children) (1955). Then in Shanāshīl bint al-Chalabī (the balcony of the daughter of al-Chalabi) (1963), he became a realist. Nāzik began as a belated Romantic in her first dīwān ^CAshiqat al-layl (the lover of night), then became a symbolist in Shajarat al-qamar (the moon tree), then turned to realism in some of her poems, such as Ghaslan li-'l-^Cār, in which she raises an important issue in the Islamic tradition -- the morality of woman (see below).

NAZIK’S KNOWLEDGE OF WORLD LITERATURE:

Nāzik was born in Baghdad on the 23rd of August, 1923, in a rich and well-educated family, which was called al-Malā'ikah -- one of the most important families in Baghdad; her father, Sādiq al-Malā'ikah was a teacher of Arabic Grammar; her mother was a poet, whose dīwān is entitled Unshūdat a1-majd (the ode of glory) (1968). Her uncles are highly educated: the first is a doctor, and the second is a poet; his dīwān is entitled Irādat al-hayāt (the determination of life) (l963).⁽⁵¹⁾

Nāzik’s Arabic and Western education had a great influence on her ideology especially in the second stage of her life. Her poetry is a mirror that reflects her wide education in European literature -- English, American, French and German. In this section, we will focus on her English education more than on the Arabic, because it is the core of our subject. She studied English literature, especially poetry, academically and privately, from her youth until late age. She read the Arab Romantics, who themselves were influenced by European literature, particularly English poetry. Her acquaintance with the English Romantic poets comes from her reading of the primary and secondary sources. Her acquaintance with the French and the German Romantic poets derives from her reading of the Arabic and English versions of their works.

(1) KNOWLEDGE OF ARABIC LITERATURE:

At an early age Nāzik began reading Modern Arabic poetry, with its relationship to European literature. Among the Arab Romantics whom Nāzik read are: Iliyyā Abū Mādī, ^CAlī Mahmūd Tāhā, and Abū 'l-Qāsim al-Shābbī. In "Contemporary Poetess of Iraq" in The Isamic Review,⁽⁵²⁾ Safā' Khulūsī. mentions the names of the Arab Romantic poets who had a considerable impact on Nāzik's poetry:

".... her poetry tends at times to be fantastic and heavily laden with allegories and figures of speech; this is done by influence of the Syro-American poets: Khalil Gibran, Michael Na^Cimah, Nasib ^CAridhah and Iliyyah Abu Madhi. She has a special admiration for Iliyyah and his influence is discernible in some of her subjective poems. Another poet who shares the honour of influencing Nazik’s poetry is the Egyptian Mahmud Hasan Isma^Cil."

She derived the vocabulary of Ilā 'l-shā^Cir Kīts from al-Sayyāb’s Ri'ah tatamazzaq (see chapter 3), and the rhymes and wording of Ughniyah (a Song) [St. 1 & 4]:

اسكني يا اغاني الامل

   فالهوى قد رحل

.....................

    *    *    *

ولمن انت والمنشدون

رحلوا في سكون؟

والاسى, يا اغاني, ديون

     دفعتها عيون

(Be quiet, O songs of hope! / For passionate love has departed / * * * / And whose are you, now that the singers have departed in silence / and grief, O songs, is a debt that eyes have paid.)

from al-Shābbī’s al-Sabāh al-jadīd (the new morning) [St.1]:

اسكني يا جراح         واسكني يا شجون

مات عهد النواح        وزمان الجنون

واطل الصباح         من وراء القرون

(Be quiet, O wounds! Be quiet, O sorrows! / The epoch of lamentation and the time of madness have perished, / and morning has risen from behind the centuries.)

In an interview, in Kuwait, in 1984, Nāzik herself acknowledged the impact of the Arab Romantics on her poetry, and particularly that of Tāhā. She talked about her critical study of him, al-Sawma^Cah wa 'l-shurfah al-hamrā' (the hermitage and the red balcony), in 1965. In this book, she studied Tāhā’s poetry at two important stages of his career, finding a deep conflict of morality at the first stage, and passionate sensibility at the second. In the previous sections, we have given comparative texts from Tāhā’s and Nāzik’s poetry; in chapter 4, we will give more examples and examine the mythological names common to their poetry.

In a written communication in 1984, Nāzik was asked to give her opinion about certain other Arab, and particularly Iraqi, Romantic poets:

(Question: What is your idea about each of the following poets, and how much do you admire them?

Answer: (1) Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb; he is a unique poet;

(2) ^CAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bayyātī: he is a unique poet,

(3) Iliyyā Abū Mādī: he is a unique poet, but he lost his talent towards the end of his life,

(4) ^CAlī Mahmūd Tāhā: he is a unique poet,

(5) al-Hamsharī: he is a unique poet, who died young. He wrote little in his last days. He was influenced by Keats,

(6) Gibrān Khalīl. Gibrān: he is a creative poet, who has one poem only, al-Mawākib,

(7) Abū Shādī: he is a weak and poor poet,

(8) al-^CAqqād: he is a weak and poor poet,

(9) al-Māzinī: he is a weak and poor poet,

(10) ^CAbd al-Rahmān Shukrī: he is a reasonable poet,

(11) al-Shābbī: he is a creative poet; he wrote a reasonable amount of poetry.)

Nāzik has benefited not only from the Egyptian and the Lebanese Romantic poets, but also from the Iraqi pre-Romantic and Romantic poets. She echoes the titles of the poems of the Iraqi poets; al-Rasāfī's al-Nā’imah fi 'l-shāri^C (she who sleeps in the street), and al-Armalah al-hazīhah (the sad widow), are recalled in Marthiyyat Imra’ah lā qīmah lahā (an elegy of an unworthy woman); al-Sayyāb’s Haffār al-qubūr (the gravedigger) is recalled in Yuhkā anna haffārayn.... (the story is told that two gravediggers ....)

The themes of al-Sayyāb’s Qātil ukhtih (the killer of his sister) and Nizār Qabbānī’s Ilā rajulin mā (to some man) are recalled in Nāzik’s Ghaslan li-'l-^Cār. Like al-Sayyāb and Nizār Qabbānī, she discusses the morality of women, which is an important issue in the Islamic tradition. Her attitude towards this subject is liberal. Like al-Sayyāb, in Qātil ukhtih, she condemns man who allows himself to have freedom, but does not allow woman to have it [st. 2]:

ويعود الجلاد الوحشي ويلقي الناس

(العار؟) ويمسح مديته – (مزقنا العار)

(ورجعنا فضلاء, بيض السمعة احرار)

(يارب الحانة, اين الخمر؟ واين الكاس؟)

(ناد الغانية الكسلى العاطرة الانفاس)

(افدي عينيها بالقران وبالاقدار)

                املا كاساتك يا جزار

                وعلى المقتولة غسل العار

(And the wild executioner comes back, and meets people. / ‘The shame!’ and he wipes his knife – 'we have torn the shame up, / and we have returned virtuous, with spotless reputation and free. / O owner of the tavern! Where is the wine? Where is the cup? / Call the lazy and the scented-breathed prostitute. / I will sacrifice the Qur’an and the fates for her sake.’ / Fill your cups, O butcher! / and leave the washing away of the shame to the dead woman!)

In stanza 6 of Qātil ukhtih, al-Sayyāb similarly highlights the double standards of the eastern man:

رباه ... نهلك وهو متكئ        بين الكؤوس يداعب الاملا؟

يحني ... فيقتلها ... ويقتلني      ظلما – ويجهل انه قتلا؟

هيهات يجهل, لست احسبه,       لكن طرفك عنه قد غفلا!

اين العدالة, كيف تصرخ بي      (جان) وتشبع كفه قبلا!؟

(O my God ... we perish and he is lounging among the cups, jesting with hope! / He bends .... and kills her .... and kills me - unjustly -, and he does not know that he has killed!  / It is impossible that he should not know; I do not think so. But your eye was unaware of him! / Where is justice? How can you shout at me, 'criminal!' when his hand is sated with kisses?)

The atmoshpere and the general theme of the two poems are parallel to Nizār Qabbānī’s Risālah ilā rajulin mā (a letter to some man) [st. 2-5], in which he reveals the ill-treatment by eastern man of woman in his society:

يا سيدي!

اخاف ان اقول ما لدي من اشياء

....................................

فشرقكم يا سيدي العزيز

..........................

يستعمل السكين .. والساطور ..

..........................

كي يخاطب النساء ..

وشرقكم يا سيدي العزيز

يصنع تاج الشرف الرفيع .. من جماجم النساء ..

   *   *   *   *

لا تنزعج!

يا سيدي العزيز ..

..............

اذا انا كشفت عن شعوري

فالرجل الشرقي .. لايهتم بالشعر ولا الشعور

   *   *   *

معذرة ياسيدي

اذا تطاولت على مملكة الرجال

فالادب الكبير –طبعا- ادب الرجال

والحب كان دائما .. من حصة الرجال..

..................................

خرافة حرية النساء في بلادنا

فليس من حرية اخرى سوى حرية الرجال ..

(O sir! / I am afraid to tell all the things that are in my mind. / …. / For your east, my dear Sir! / …. / Uses the knife .. and the cleaver .. / …. / to talk to women .. / Your east, my dear Sir! / makes the crown of high honour .. / From the skulls of women. /   *  *  * / Do not be disturbed, / My dear sir! / …. / if I reveal my feelings; / for the eastern man does not care for poetry or feelings. / *   *   * / Excuse me, Sir! / if I criticize the kingdom of men; / for great literature is -of course- the literature of men .. / and love was, always, the province of men. / …. / The freedom of women in our society is a myth. / There is no other freedom but the freedom of men ..)

These three Arab poets protest against the eastern convention which encourages a man to kill his sister if she has a sexual relationship with another man. They are all brave and frank in arguing this matter in an eastern society, which gives freedom to men only and deprives women of it. In doing so, they imitate the American and European societies which approve of the freedom of man and woman alike.

(2) KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH LITERATURE:

Nāzik’s English Education has had a direct influence on her poetry. She translates what suits her taste (see chapter 2), she imitates the titles, themes and imagery of certain English Romantic poems (see chapter 3), and she employs the mythological names that she comes across in English poetry (see chapter 4).

The direct influence of English Romantic poetry on Nāzik comes through her wide reading, when she was a student at Baghdad and Princeton Universities. Her study for the M.A. in Literary Criticism in the U.S.A., in 1954, helped her to know other literatures, such as American, English, German and French. She is acquainted with almost all the literary movements in European literature, especially Romanticism, Symbolism, Realism and Free Verse. It is not essential to our subject to discuss Nāzik’s role in al-Shi^Cr al-hurr (free verse). Therefore, we will focus on her role in Arabic/Iraqi Romanticism and trace its sources.

In Lamahāt min sīrat hayātī wa thaqāfatī,⁽⁵³⁾ Nāzik talks about her knowledge of English literature:

(My interest in English literature began when I was a student at Dār al-mu^Callimīn al-^Cāliyyah …. In 1950 I entered a course in The British Council to study English poetry and modern drama, preparing for an examination held at Cambridge University for the Certificate of Proficiency; the level of that study was higher than the B. A. in English …. and I passed. The secret of my success was that I indulged in reading dozens of books about poetry and drama with great interest ....)

The influence of English post-Romantic poets in Nāzik’s poetry is much less than that of the Romantics. The only two whose presence is prominent are T. S. Eliot [The Hollow men and Little Gidding (see chapter 4)] and Christmas Humphreys [Avoca, in Poems of Peace and War (1941), which was translated into al-Nahr al-mughannī (the river, the singer) In 1952 [see Dīwān Nāzik al-Malā'ikah (l), Shajarat al-qamar, p. 563].

(A) THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PALGRAVE'S "THS GOLDEN TREASURY" IN ARABIC:

There are five important books which inspired the Arab poets to employ western concepts, imagery and myths in their poetry. These books are:

(1) The Lyrical Ballads by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, 1798,

(2) Biographia Literaria by Coleridge, 1814,

(3) A Defence of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written 1821 (published in 1840),

(4) The Golden Treasury by Francis Turner Palgrave, 1861,

(5) The Golden Bough by Sir James Fraser, 1911.

The impact of the first three of these books has been discussed in the previous sections; the significance of the fourth book will be discussed in the following section; the importance of the fifth book will be discussed in chapter 4.

In 1861, The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and lyrical poems in the English language was first edited by Francis Turner Palgrave (1824-l897). This book is a Romantic anthology, in that it offers a selection from all periods of English literature, but the selection is informed by a Romantic taste.

The Golden Treasury is the most important source from which English Romanticism emerged into Arabic poetry. Love poetry in this anthology helped the Arab Romantics to revive their ^CUdhrī poetry, which demonstrates how a European Romantic influence may result in the rediscovery of a native poetic tradition. This book helped to put the Arabs in touch with the English poets. They are much better acquainted with English Romantic poems, especially those included in The Golden Treasury, than with non- Romantic poems, because Romantic themes suit their taste. They read poets such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and Byron more than Shakespeare, Milton and Gray.

The Arabs’ acquaintance with the English poets was largely confined to those whose poems appear in The Golden Treasury, especially at the beginning of their contact with English literature. This does not mean that they did not read these poets outside this anthology.

In Tradition and English and American Influence in Arabic Romantic Poetry,^{(54) C}Abd ul-Hai talks about the importance of The Golden Treasury in Arabic:

At this point, it is necessary to say a word about the formative influence of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury on the young generation of the Egyptian poets of the Diwan group. It was not only a textbook in Madrasat al-mu^Callimīn but also a popular anthology outside the school. Shukrī mentions it as one of the earliest sources of his knowledge of English poetry. To it, and to Byron and Shelley in particular, he attributes the importance he gave in his early poetry to emotion over artifice. This led him to the discovery of the semi-Platonic ^CUdhrī love poetry of the eight and ninth centuries. He even compiled an anthology of ^CUdhrī poetry to which he gave the title Dhakhīrat al-dhahab fī 'l-muntakhab min shi^Cr al-^CArab, that is, The Golden Treasury of Arabic Poetry: a Selection. The impact and importance of the Golden Treasury for the Dīwān group is reflected in the controversy over al-Māzinī’s plagiarizing of a number of English poems, some of which, eg., Thomas Hood’s ‘The Death Bed’, Edmund Waller’s ‘Go, lovely Rose’ and Shelley’s ‘Love’s Philosophy’ are included in Palgrave’s anthology. Pointing out these plagiarisms, Shukrī made several references to The Golden Treasury in a way which reflected its popularity among the poets and critics of his generation. Commenting on Shukrī's article, Ahmad Zakī Abū Shādī, who was in England at the time, emphasized the importance he attached to the anthology: ‘Every literary man who knows English’ , he wrote, ‘... should give the Golden Treasury a prominent place in his Library, because, in spite of its small size and inexpensive price, it anthologizes the best of English poetry ... it is widely spread wherever the English language is known.' ”

In 1982, in al-Mu'aththarāt al-ajnabiyyah fī 'l-adab al-^CArabī 'l-hadīth (the foreign influences on modern Arabic poetry),⁽⁵⁵⁾ Hilmī Badīr identifies The Golden Treasury as the only source from which the Egyptians gained their knowledge of English poetry:

" ... Because of the importance of this anthology it was put in the curriculum of some of the higher institutes in the first decades of the twentieth century .... The impact of The Golden Treasury on Egyptian literary men lasted from the beginning of the twentieth century, the beginning of its second half. Although the Egyptian writers denied the impact of this anthology on them, the Arabic versions of its poems, published in the Arabic journals and periodicals show their great interest in the poems of the English Romantic school, from which Palgrave chose more poems than from any other schools .... Although the impact of this anthology was direct, to the extent that it became the essential source of English poetry for the Egyptians, it paved the way for some of the curious literary men to go further and read more in English literature. Consequently the English long poems, like Byron’s Childe Harold's pilgrimage, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and the critical studies of Coleridge, Spenser and Kipling were known to the Arabs, among whom were Muhammad al-Sibā^Cī and al-^CAqqād. The impact of this anthology comprehended not only Arabic poetry, but also the Arabic novel, short story and play."

(B) THE INFLUENCE OF THE POEMS OF "THE GOLDEN TREASURY" ON NAZIK'S POETRY :

Like other Arab Romantic poets, Nāzik was acquainted with The Golden Treasury. in "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī",⁽⁵⁶⁾ Nāzik refers to the time of her first acquaintance with this anthooqy:

وفي الكلية بدانا نقرا الشعر الانكليزي فقرانا القسم الاول في كتاب "الذخيرة الذهبية" (Golden Treasury)  في السنة الثالثة.

(And at the college we began reading English poetry; we read the first part in The Golden Treasury. in the third year.)

In this section, we will chronologically list the translations of the poems that appear in Palgrave’s The Golden Treasury, as listed by ^CAbd ul-Hai in Journal of Arabic Literature (1976), and by Jīhān Ra’ūf in Shīlī fī 'l-adab al-^CArabī fī Misr (1970), in order to assess the extent to which the Arab Romantics were probably acquainted with The Golden Treasury.

(a) PRE-ROMANTIC POETS:

The pre-Romantic poets best represented by Palgrave are Shakespeare (34 poems), Milton (11) and Gray (8), and these are also the pre-Romantic poets best known in the Arab world. For the Arabs all three poets were assimilated within the Romantic Literary tradition. Shakespeare was regarded as the first Romantic, and Gray’s Elegy was read as an archetypal expression of the Romantic cult of melancholy. It was Palgrave, surely, who encouraged the Arab poets to read the whole history of English poetry through Romantic eyes.

(1) WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-l6l6) :

Shakespeare was well known to the Arab poets. His plays, especially Romeo and Juliet, fascinated Arab literary men. In Fusūl muqārinah bayn al-sharq wa 'l-gharb,⁽⁵⁷⁾ al-Ramādī expresses his belief that Shakespeare put the fundamentals of Romanticism into his Sonnets.

Shakespeare’s works are admired by the Arabs and have been translated many times, more than any other English literary works. 'The Arab's love of Shakespeare may be due to their belief that Shakespeare is of Arab origin. In his chapter "The Arabs and Shakespeare" in Modern Arabic Literature and the West,⁽⁵⁸⁾ Badawī discusses the claims of some Arab writers that Shakespeare is of Arab origin:

"Dr. Khulūsī …. claims …. that he solved the so-called mystery of the authorship of the plays (Shakespeare’s). His conclusions are that Shakespeare was himself an Arab or else he absorbed much of the Arab culture, and that his travels must have brought him into Egypt and much of the Mediterranean Arab world. His argument is that, apart from Shakespeare’s love of the Arabs (e. g. Othello and The Prince of Morocco) and everything Arab (like e. g. Arab horses) …. If you divest Shakespeare’s work of all Arab elements, says Dr. Khulūsī, you will be left with very little indeed."

Palgrave gives thirty four poems and sonnets of Shakespeare. ^CAbd ul-Hai lists the Arabic versions of sixteenth plays:

(1) Othello (prob. 1880),

(2) Romeo and Juliet (1898),

(3) Macbeth (1900),

(4) Hamlet (1902),

(5) Coriolanus (1912),

(6) Julius Caesar (1912),

(7) King Henry V (1913),

(8) King Henry VI (1913),

(9) The Merchant of Venice (1914),

(10) Pericles Prince of Tyre (1924),

(11) King Lear (l927)

(12) The Taming of the Shrew (1932),

(13) The Tempest (1933),

(14) As you like it (1944),

(15) Antony and Cleopatra (1945),

(16) Twelfth Night in addition to that he lists eleven Sonnets, and a single poem -- Venus and Adonis (1914).

In a written communication, In Kuwait, In 1984, Nāzik boasted of her study of all Shakespeare’s plays when she was in the U.S.A., preparing for her M. A. in Literary Criticism:

(In 1954, I worked for the Master’s degree in Comparative Literature, at Wisconsin University, in Madison, in Wisconsin state. During that time we read Shakespeare for a complete year. We did not leave any Shakespearean play unread. I had joined a course in English Literature with Madeleine Doran (?), who is a competent specialist in Shakespeare; she has the ability to understand and explain in depth.)

In "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī", Nāzik claims that she translated a sonnet of Shakespeare that she refers to as Time and love, but she did not get it published. She also informs us that she read his play A Midsummer Night's Dream: ⁽⁵⁹⁾

وفي السنة الرابعة قرانا مسرحية شكسبير (حلم منتصف ليلة صيف) وقد احببت الشعر الانكليزي اشد الحب وترجمت الى الشعر العربي (سونيتا) لشكسبير هي (الزمن والحب).

(And in the fourth year, we read Shakespeare’s play "A midsummer Night’s Dream". I loved English poetry very much, and I translated into Arabic verse a Sonnet of Shakespeare called "Time and Love")

A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Time and Love do not appear in The Golden Treasury. According to ^CAbd ul-Hai, A Midsummer Night's Dream had been translated into Arabic, by Sayyid ^CAlī Hasan, in the first volume of Abūlū in 1933. Nāzik came across these works in Dār al-mu^Callimīn al-^Cāliyah and later in her higher studies in America, as she asserts in her biographical notes "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī" (see above), and Lamahāt min sīrat hayātī wa thaqāfatī:⁽⁶⁰⁾

اما الادب الانكليزي فقد بدات عنايتي به وانا طالبة في دار المعلمين العالية يوم كنا نقرا شعر شكسبير sonnets

(My interest in English Literature began when I was a student in Dār al-mu^Callimīn al-^Cāliyah, on the day when we were reading the poetry of Shakespeare (The Sonnets). )

(2) JOHN MILTON (1608-1674):

To the Arab Romantics, Milton’s place comes next to Shakespeare. He was first introduced to Arab readers as early as 1886, in an anonymous article in al-Muqtataf, with translations of a few lines from Paradise Lost. In this article, Milton's blindness and his Paradise Lost are compared to al-Ma^Carrī's blindness and his prose fantasy Risālat al-ghufrān (the message of forgiveness).⁽⁶¹⁾

There are eleven poems of Milton available in The Golden Treasury. ^CAbdul-Hai lists versions of ten of Milton’s poems:

(1) "On Shakespeare",

(2) Sonnet vii,

(3) Sonnet viii,

(4) Sonnet xvi,

(5) Sonnet xix,

(6) "On Time",

(7) "On the Death of a fair Infant of a Cough", Stanza 1,

(8) Paradise Lost [Book 1],

(9) Lycidas. Lycidas is the only poem that appears both in The Golden Treasury and in ^CAbdul-Hai's list. Paradise Lost is in ^CAbdul-Hai's list, not in The Golden Treasury. Nāzik became acquainted with Paradise Lost when she was a student in Dār al-mu^Callimīn al-^Cāliyah:⁽⁶²⁾

وفي تلك الاثناء كنت اقرا المطولات الانكليزية مثل (The Prelude)  لوردزورث ومثل (Paradise lost) لميلتون و (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage) لبايرون وسواها وقد احببتها ورحت اتحدث الى اخي نزار حول رغبتي في نظم مطولة عربية وقد احب نزار فكرتي وفي عام 1945 بدات انظم مطولة "ماساة الحياة" ....

(At that time, I was reading the English long poems: Wordsworth’s The Prelude, Milton's Paradise Lost and Byron’s Childe Harold … and the like. I loved them and told my brother Nizār about my wish to compose a long poem; and he loved my idea. In 1945, I began composing my long poem Ma'sāt al-hayāt.)

This suggests that Arab literary men’s knowledge of Milton’s poems was not confined to the poems listed in The Golden Treasury it came also from other sources: text books, Arabic versions of English poems, etc.

(3) THOMAS GRAY (17l6-177l):

In The Golden Treasury, there are eight poems of Gray. ^CAbdul-Hai lists two of them only:

(1) nine versions of the Elegy, and

(2) one version of "On the death of Mr. Richard West".

Gray’s Elegy was translated into Arabic more than ten times. The melancholy spirit and the theme of death in this poem attracted modern Arab poets, because it was more suited to their taste than other themes (see chapter 2).

Two of Gray’s poems have a significant presence in Nāzik’s poetry; Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard, and Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. The first has clearly much more importance for Nāzik than the second; it has had a considerable impact on her poetry. In chapter 4, we will give an example of Nāzik’s borrowing the theme of the final two lines of the second poem. In the following chapter, we will study Nāzik’s version and other Arabic versions of Gray’s Elegy. We will also trace the influence of this version on Nāzik’s early poetry.

(b) THE ROMANTIC POETS:

In The Golden Treasury, Palgrave represents the poems of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Byron: 2 poems of Coleridge, 41 poems of Wordsworth, 11 poems of Keats, 22 poems of Shelley and 8 poems of Byron. Most of these poems have been rendered into Arabic.

Nāzik read Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and Byron at the age of l9.⁽⁶³⁾ Her early poetry is very much influenced by the poetry of Keats, Shelley, and Byron.

(1) SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834):

There are fewer versions of Coleridge’s poems in Arabic than of those of Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley; the Arab critics concentrate on his philosophical ideas on imagination more than on his poems (see above).

Palgrave selects only two poems of Coleridge:

(1) Love,

(2) Youth and Age.

          ^CAbd ul-Hai does not include these poems; he lists 6 poems, two versions of:

(1) Kubla Khan,

(2) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner;

and single versions of:

(1) Work without hope

(2) Dejection: an Ode,

(3) Epitaph,

(4) Sonnet to the Moon.

We have not found much trace of Coleridge’s philosophical concepts in Nāzik's poetry or critical studies. His poems have less presence in her poetry than the poems of other English Romantic poets. In chapter 4, we will study the similarity between Coleridge’s Kubla Khan and Nāzik’s Salāt ilā Blāwtus: ilāh al-dhahab (a prayer to Plutus, the god of gold).

(2) WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850):

Wordsworth is known among the Arabs as the poet of nature; his philosophical notions in the preface to The Lyrical Ballads were adopted by them.

"Wordsworth’s Arabic reputation probably depended mainly on Palgrave’s Golden Treasury in which he was represented by more poems than any other poet in the anthology. However, he was considered more of a 'bard' than a great romantic lyric poet. 'He was a thinker, 'says an Apollo contributor, 'a philosopher who receives his inspiration from Nature and glories, and reveals the mysteries locked in her treasuries.' As 'the poet of nature' (Shā^Cir al-tabī^Cah), the pantheistic element in his poetry was read in terms of a mysticism concerned primarily not with nature in itself but with nature as a visual manifestation of a divine spirit, or God."⁽⁶⁴⁾

The Arab Romantics' view of wordsworth, as a pantheist and a mystic of nature, ^CAbd ul-Hai believes, derives from the late Victorian critics, such as Stopford A. Brooke’s essay "Wordsworth the Poet of Nature".⁽⁶⁵⁾

Forty-one poems of Wordsworth are included in The Golden Treasury; ^CAbd ul-Hai gives the Arabic versions of 22 of them: single versions of:

(1) "She dwelt among the untrodden ways",

(2) Written in Early Spring,

(3) Scene in Venice,

(4) Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle,

(5) To a Butterfly,

(6) The Solitary Reaper,

(7) London 1802,

(8) "The World is too much with us",

(9) To Toussaint L' Ouverture,

(10) The Tables Turned,

(11) Yarrow Visited,

(12) Nature and the Poet,

(13) The Education of Nature;

2 versions of (1) To the Cuckoo, (2) Sonnet: "It is a beauteous evening, calm and free", (3) "She was a Phantom of delight";

3 versions of: (1) Lucy Gray, or Solitude, (2) Ode on Intimations of Immortality, (3) and composed Upon Westminister Bridge; and 4 versions of The Daffodils.

In al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī,⁽⁶⁶⁾ Nāzik admits that she wrote her long poem Ma'sāt al-hayāt in emulation of the English long poems, among them Wordsworth’s The Prelude (see above) and The Excursion.

(3) JOHN KEATS (1795-1821):

Keats is well known in the Arab literary world, but his reputation is less than Shelley’s.

"A similar, though faint, mystical strain was read into Keats’s poetry. This seems to have been the only element that redeemed his reputation among the Arab Romantics in the thirties. Endymion, perhaps because of its proximity to Shelley’s Alastor, was rather popular; though the two lines which were often cited, outside their context in 'Ode on a Grecian Urn', the poem in which they occurs were: 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' Beauty (al-Jamāl) as an essential attribute of Truth (al-Haqq) in Islamic mysticism won Keats the title of shā^Cir al-haqq wa 'l-jamāl."⁽⁶⁷⁾

In The Golden Treasury, Palgrave presents 11 poems of Keats. ^CAbd ul-Hal lists 6 of them; single versions of:

(1) "Bards of Passion and of Mirth",

(2) "In a drear-nighted December",

(3) Happy Sensibility, and

(4) Ode to Autumn;

he also refers to many versions of the same poem, such as: (1) three versions of "Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art",

(2) three versions of Ode to a Nightingale,

(3) two versions of La Belle Dame sans Merci.

Keats’s poems have a significant presence in Nāzik’s poetry. In an interview, in 1984, Nāzik admits her admiration of Keats’s poetry, and her preference of Keats to Shelley.

In chapters 3, we will study the presence of Keats’s odes:

(1) Ode to a Nightingale,

(2) Ode on Melancholy,

(3) Ode to Psyche,

(4) Ode to Autumn,

(5) Ode to Apollo,

(6) Ode on Indolence; as well as his poems:

(1) Endymion,

(2) Hyperion,

(3) Lamia,

(4) Eve of St. Agnes,

(5) Sleep and Poetry, and

(6) Why did I laugh Tonight?   in Nāzik’s poetry. In chapter 4, we will study the common myths in the poetry of Keats and Nāzik.

(4) PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-l822):

Shelley’s reputation in the Arab world was at its peak in the thirties; thereafter it declined, because of the increase in the number of Arab students of modern poetry and critical theories in European and American Universities. The Arab attitude is encapsulated in the following quotation: "Shelley is a skylark wrapped in celestial light singing its unpremeditated song of unearthly passion."⁽⁶⁸⁾

In Shīlī fī 'l-adab al-^CArabī fī Misr (Shelley in Arabic literature in Egypt),⁽⁶⁹⁾ Jīhān Ra'ūf regards Luwīs ^CAwad's  Brūmithiyūs Talīqan (Prometheus Unbound), in 1947 as:

"the best book written about Shelley’s position in Arabic literature; the author, who is a specialist in English literature, gives a complete introduction to Shelley, English Romanticism, and the myth of Prometheus; he has translated successfully Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound: it was part of his study in England. He has also translated Adonais and Shelley’s introduction to the poem. The two versions are distinctive with their short and precise comments on Shelley’s relation with the Ancient Greek myths, which the Arabs knew little about."

In this book,⁽⁷⁰⁾ Jīhān Ra'ūf includes a list of the Arabic versions of ten poems of Shelley that appear in The Golden Treasury. She notes single versions of:

(1) Invocation or Song,

(2) Stanzas written in Dejection near Naples; 2 versions

of:

(1) "Music, when soft voices die",

(2) The poet's dream,

(3) Lines to an Indian Air or the Indian Serenade,

(4) "One word is too often profaned",

(5) A Lament,

(6) To the Night and

(7) The flight of Love,

(8) To the Moon; 4 versions of Lines written in the Euganaean Hills.

^CAbd ul-Hai lists:

(1) a single version of "A widow bird sate mourning for her love";

(2) two versions of "Music, when soft voices die", and of To the Night;

(3) three versions of Ode to the West Wind;

(4) four versions of To the Moon,

(5) nine versions of To a Skylark, and of Love’s Philosophy.

Jīhān Ra'ūf lists the journals that contain translations of Shelley’s poems: al-Sufūr(1919), al-Siyāsah al-Usbū^Ciyyah (1926), al-Risālah (1933), Abūlū (1933), al-Adīb, and Majallat al-^Cāmilīn fī 'l-naft (1966).⁽⁷¹⁾

Shelley’s mythological references in Queen Mab, The Witch of Atlas, Adonais, A Hymn to Apollo, and On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci recur in Nāzik’s poetry more frequently than Keats’s. The counterpart of Shelley’s Witch’s in Nāzik’s poetry is the Jinniyyah, who is the dominant mythical character in her poetry. His Ode to the West Wind has a strong presence in her Ughniyah li-'l-insān (a song to man) (1) (see chapter 3). His mythological poems have a considerable impact on Nāzik’s poetry (see chapter 4).

(5) GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON (1788-1824):

For Arab Romantics, Byron comes in the third position after Shelley and Keats. The Arabic versions of his poems are fewer than those of Shelley and Keats. Byron’s poetry expresses satanic rebellion and religious doubts.

In The Golden Treasury, we find eight poems of Byron; ^CAbd ul-Hai lists the Arabic versions of six of them: 4 versions of "When we two parted", 2 versions of "The Prisoner of Chillon", single versions of:

(1) "There be none of Beauty’s daughters",

(2) Don Juan,

(3) "And thou art dead, as young and fair",

(4) "She walks in beauty" and

(5) "Oh! snatch’d away in beauty’s bloom". In ^CAbd ul-Hai’s list, we notice certain cantos and stanzas of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, especially, Canto the fourth, and the stanzas on the ocean (see chapter 2).

Byron’s poems have less presence in Nāzik’s poetry than those of Keats and Shelley. Her reading of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage inspired her to write her long poem Ma'sāt al-hayāt, as she states in her diary (see above). She translates the passage on the ocean of the fourth canto (see chapter 2). Byron’s mythological names in Cain and The Age Bronze are represented in Nāzik’s poetry (see chapter 4).

(3) KNOWLEDGE OF AMERICAN LITERATURE:

Nāzik started her education in American Literature when she was chosen by the American Rockefeller Association to study literary criticism for a year. In Lamahāt min sīrat hayātī wa thaqāfatī (glimpses of my biography and education), Nāzik talks about her study at Princeton University; she prides herself on being the only woman in an American male university:⁽⁷²⁾

وكانت هذه الرحلة تمتد عاما وقد اوفدتني اليها مؤسسة روكفلر الامريكية واختارت لي ان ادرس النقد الادبي في جامعة برنستن في نيوجرزي بالولايات المتحدة, وهي جامعة رجالية ليس في تقاليدها دخول الطالبات فيها, ولذلك كنت الطالبة الوحيدة, وكان ذلك يثير دهشة المسؤولين في الجامعة كلما التقى بي احدهم في اروقة المكتبة او الكليات. وقد اتيحت لي في هذه الفترة الدراسة على اساطين النقد الادبي في الولايات المتحدة مثل ريتشرد بلاكمور, والن تيت, ودونالد ستاوفر, وديلمور شوارتز وكلهم اساتذة لهم مؤلفات معروفة في النقد الادبي كما عرفوا بابحاثهم في مجلات الجامعات الامريكية وسائر الصحف الادبية .... وكان سفري الى وسكونسن عام 1954 واستغرق اعداد الماجستير في الادب المقارن سنتين كتبت خلالها مذكرات ادبية كثيرة سجلت فيها ملاحظاتي على الكتب التي قراتها والاشخاص الذين تعرفت اليهم وعشت بينهم في تلك الفترة كما احتوت على ارائي المفصلة المركزة في المراة الاميركية. ومع هذا كله, كنت في مذكراتي اغوص غوصا عميقا في تحليل نفسي ....

(That trip lasted a year. The American Rockefeller Association sent me on it to study literary criticism at Princeton University in New Jersey in the United States of America. It is a male university, and it is not in its traditions to admit female students; I was therefore the only female student. This surprised the people in charge of the university, whenever one of them met me in the corridors of the library and the colleges. At that time, I had the opportunity to be taught by scholars of Literary Criticism in the United States of America, such as: Richard Blackmur, Alan Downer, Donald Stauffer and Delmore Schwartz. All of them were scholars who wrote well-known books on literary criticism; they were also known by their studies which were published in the journals of the American Universities .... And my journey to Wisconsin was in 1954.... It took me two years to prepare for the Master’s degree in Comparative Literature. There I wrote much of my literary biography, in which I recorded my notes on the books I read and the people I met in that period. It also included my detailed opinions on the American woman. In addition to all this, I was engaged in deep analysis of myself in my autobiography ....)

The influence of American poetry on Nāzik’s poetry is less than that of English. We have only found four examples: from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem she borrows the mythological name 'Hiawatha'; she employs this name in Li-nakun asdiqā' (let us be friends) [st. 5] as a symbol of salvation (see chapter 4). She imitates the rhymes of Edgar Allan Poe's Ulalume in a al-Jurh al-ghādib (the angry wound). She may take the name Eldorado from his poem of that name; she employs it in Suwar wa tahwīmāt amām adwā' al-murūr (images and drowsiness in front of the traffic lights) (see chapter 4) as a symbol of hope and perfection. She perhaps uses Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea as a source for the fish in La^Cnat al-zaman as a symbol of time and her fear of experiencing sexual desires (see chapter 4).

In "Safahāt min mudhakkaratī",⁽⁷³⁾ Nāzik refers to Arthur Miller’s play Death of a salesman. She studies comparatively the characters of Willie Loman in Miller’s play, Mr. Solness in Ibsen’s play Bygmester Solness (The Master Builder), and Oreste in Sartre’s play Les Mains Sales (The dirty hands) (see below). Loman differs from Solness and Oreste in that he is an ordinary person; he is not creative and ambigous like Solness, nor is he a saviour like Oreste. All he wants is to make his family happy and to feel that he has relationships with other people. Nevertheless, he fails. She takes pity on him when he plants the seeds in the garden at night, because this scene reminds her of her poem al-Khayt al-mashdūd fī shajarat al-sarw (the thread fastened to the cypress tree):⁽⁷⁴⁾

لقد تالمنا اشد التالم ونحن نرى ويللي يزرع حبوبا في الحديقة ليلا. ماذا في هذا ولماذا يبكينا؟ لانه رمز لعدم قدرته على أي شيء اخر. لقد استفاد المؤلف من هذا العمل التافه في تلك اللحظة الدرامية. عندما وهذا يشبه ما صنع بطل قصيدتي (الخيط المشدود في شجرة السرو) سمع ان حبيبته قد ماتت. لقد شغل ذهنه بخيط تافه مشدود في شجرة.

(We have been greatly distressed, seeing Willie planting seeds in the garden at night. What is wrong with this? Why does this make us cry? Because this is a symbol of his inability to do anything else. The author has turned to good account of this trivial job at that dramatic moment. And this resembles what the hero of my poem "The thread fastened to the cypress tree" does; when he hears that his beloved has died. He occupies his mind with a trivial thread, which is fastened to a tree.)

(4) KNOWLEDGE OF FRENCH LITERATURE:

The presence of French writers in Nāzik’s poetry and critical works is much less than that of the English and the American. She studied French in 1953, in the Iraqi Institute, and privately with her brother. In Lamahat min sīrat hayātī wa thaqāfati,⁽⁷⁵⁾ Nāzik boasts of her knowledge of French:

(And in 1949, I began to study French, at home, with my brother …. we studied French without a teacher, depending on a book which taught this beautiful language; we persevered in learning it until we were able to read books of poetry, criticism and philosophy. In 1953, I joined a course at the Iraqi Institute, in which we read texts from French literature, such as Daudet, Maupassant. and the plays of Moliere; however, my pronunciation of this langauge has remained poor to this day.)

She developed her ktowedge of French in her higher studies in comparative literature, in the U. S. A.:⁽⁷⁶⁾

واتاح لي موضوع الادب المقارن ان استفيد من اللغات الاجنبية التي اعرفها خاصة الانجليزية والفرنسية

(And the subject of Comparative Literature allowed me to make use of the foreign languages I knew, especially English and French.)

In an interview, in 1984, Nāzik claimed that she wrote many critical studies on French writers, but unfortunately they are unpublished, except that on Sartre’s play Les Mains Sales. In the second volume of her Dīwān, in her collection, Shajarat al-qamar (the moon tree) [st. 1], in 1952, she translates Prosper Blanchemain's [?] poem الشيخ ربيع (Old man spring):

إنه الشيخ ربيع

ذلك الشيخ المرح

ذو الثياب الخضر والوجه البديع

والجبين المنشرح

كلما طافت خطى نيسان بالدنيا اطلا

من كوى غرفته عذبا طروبا

هاتفا: (اهلا, وسهلا ...

مرحبا نيسان! قد حان لنا ان نظهرا

ونجوب الارض وديانا وبيدا وسهوبا

في رداء اخضرا.)

(It is the Sheikh spring, / That cheerful Sheikh / With green clothes, a wonderful face / And a joyful forehead; / Whenever the steps of April wander round the world, he appears / From the little windows of his room -- sweet and merry, / Calling: "Welcome! … / Welcome April! It is time for us to appear / And wander round the earth -- valleys, deserts and plains / In green gowns.)

In her chapter "Mahādhīr fī tararnat al-fikr al-gharbī" in al-Tajzī'iyyah fī 'l-watan al-^CArabī (words of warning about translating western thought),⁽⁷⁷⁾ Nāzik warns Arab translators not to translate every literary work they come across. She asks them to be careful to select literary works which are suitable to the Arabic taste. Otherwise, the translator will bring alien values to Arab culture. She gives many examples of Arabic translations from French literature, which include trivial philosophical notions about life. She quotes short statments from Andre Malraux’s novel La Condition Humaine (the human condition), Albert Camus’s novel L’etranqer (the outsider) and Jean Paul Sartre’s play Les Mouches (the flies). These statments are considered by her as offensive to Arab thought. Malraux, in La Condition Humaine, believes that "Man can always find horror in the depths of his soul, whenever he needs to see deeply". Oreste in Sartre’s Les Mouches addresses his god, saying: "You are God and I am free". These phrases reveal the western Individual’s new attitudes towards social values. These attitudes are not suitable to the Arab Individual. In "Safahāt min mudhakkarātī",⁽⁷⁸⁾ in her notes on Sartre’s play Les Mouches (the flies) , she only quotes the dialogue between Jupiter, Oreste and Electra because she finds it quite interesting.

(5) KNOWLEDGE OF GERMAN LITERATURE:

Although Nāzik claims that she knows German grammar, certainly her knowledge of German literature comes largely through English and French translations. In "al-shi^Cr fī hayātī", she boasts of her knowledge of many languages: Latin, French and German:⁽⁷⁹⁾

وكنا انا ونزار صديقين نقرأ الشعر الانكليزي معا. وقد درسنا اللغة اللاتينية واللغة الفرنسية وقواعد اللغة الالمانية معا

(And Nizar and I were friends, reading English poetry together. We studied Latin, and French, and German grammar together.)

In her introduction to Ma'sāt al-hayāt,⁽⁸⁰⁾ she acknowledges the influence of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy of life and death on her early poetry:

وسرعان ما بدات قصيدتي وسميتها: (ماساة الحياة) وهو عنوان يدل على تشاؤمي المطلق وشعوري بان الحياة كلها الم وابهام وتعقيد. وقد اتخذت للقصيدة شعارا يكشف عن فلسفتي فيها هو هذه الكلمات للفيلسوف الالماني المتشائم (شوبنهاور): (لست ادري لماذا نرفع الستار عن حياة جديدة كلما اسدل على هزيمة وموت. لست ادري لماذا نخدع انفسنا بهذه الزوبعة التي تثور حول لا شيء؟ حتام نصبر على هذا الالم الذي لا ينتهي؟ متى نتذرع بالشجاعة الكافية فنعترف بان حب الحياة اكذوبة وان اعظم نعيم للناس جميعا هو الموت؟), والواقع ان تشاؤمي فاق تشاؤم شوبنهاور نفسه, لانه -كما يبدو- كان يعتقد ان الموت نعيم لانه يختم عذاب الانسان.

(I soon began on my poem, which I called Ma'sāt al-hayāt; its title indicates my absolute pessimism and my feeling that life is all pain, obscurity and complexity. I took as an epigraph for the poem, to reveal my philosophy in it, these words of Schopenhauer, the German pessimistic philosopher: "I do not know why we should raise the curtain on a new life, whenever it is lowered on defeat and death. I do not know why we deceive ourselves with this hurricane that rages round nothing. How long shall we endure this endless pain? When shall we arm ourselves with sufficient courage to confess that the love of life is a lie and that the greatest blessing for all mankind is death?", In fact, my pessimism is more than that of Schopenhauer himself, because, it seems, he believed in death as a blessing which puts an end to man’s anguish.)

In fact, her pessimism is quite different from that of Schopenhauer himself. For her, there is nothing which is more tragic than death; she has held this attitude towards death from her early youth to late age.

Nāzik may derive her knowledge of Schopenhauer from the Arabic critical studies of Schopenhauer’s philosophy. Examples of these are the articles of Yūsuf Hannā in al-Siyāsah al-usbū^Ciyyah, entitled "Sharh falsafat Shūbinhūr li-'l-^Callāmah Urwin Udmān" (explanation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, by the scholar Orwen Odman [?]). These articles sum up Schopenhauer ‘s philosophy.⁽⁸¹⁾

In "Safahāt min mudhakkarātī",⁽⁸²⁾ she talks about Nietzsche's philosophy of pain and happiness:

قال نيتشه:

الالم عميق ولكن الفرح اعمق واعمق. لماذا؟ لان القدرة على الفرح قدرة مبدعة واسعة تشمل الوجود كله. اما القدرة على الحزن فهي دائما فردية.

(Nietzsche says: "pain is deep, but happiness is deeper and deeper. Why? Because the power of happiness is a creative and wide power that contains the whole of existence, whereas the power of sorrow is always individual.")

In "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī", in her comments on Shazāyā wa ramād, justifying her preference for emotion over virtue, Nāzik cites Nietzsche:⁽⁸³⁾

"ما قيمة فضيلتي ان كانت لم تستطع ان تجعل مني انسانا عاطفيا؟"

(What is the value of my virtue if it cannot make me an emotional person?)

(6) KNOWLEDGE OF GREEK AND LATIN LITERATURE:

As well as her English, French and German Education, Nāzik studied Greek and Latin literature, She studied them at Ma^Chad al-Funūn al-Jamīlah (the institute of fine Arts), and developed her knowledge of them in her higher studies in America, and later privately. She even claims that she speaks and reads Latin fluently (see chapter 4). In Lamahāt min sīrat hayātī wa thaqāfātī, she boasts of her knowledge of Latin: ⁽⁸⁴⁾

(And I joined the Latin class and began to memorize with enthusiasm those endless lists of nominal cases and their declensions, verbal conjugations and the like; this is regarded as one of the hardest things for the students of language departments to know. The love of Latin is still in my blood to this day. I still buy books of Latin poetry and try to read whenever I am free. I remember that two months after I began to study this language, I started writing my diary in Latin, to the tune of the famous song At The Balalaika. Naturally the ode was primitive and simple in form, since I was still an elementary student. I continued studying Latin for many years privately by myself without a teacher, with the help of dictionaries. Then I joined a class in Latin at Princeton University in the United States in which we studied texts of the Roman orator Cicero... Actually I found a magic in Latin itself that attracts my whole being. I do not know the secret of this infatuation with a language which is usually disliked and very violently eschewed.)

In this autobiography,⁽⁸⁵⁾ Nāzik talks about her admiration of Catullus:

وقد اعجبت اشد الاعجاب بشعر الشاعر اللاتيني كتالوس وحفظت مجموعة من القصائد له ما زلت اترنم بها احيانا في وحدتي فأجد سعادة بالغة في ترديدها.

 (I greatly admired the poetry of the Latin poet, Catullus and I memorized a group of his poems. I still recite them occasionally and I find happiness in doing so.)

The conflict of love and hatred in Nāzik’s poetry is similar to that of Catullus’s poem "odi et amo" (I hate and I love), which is one of the most famous of all his love lyrics. She yearns for a passionate love but her educational upbringing prevents her from experiencing this kind of love. This creates a conflict of heart and mind in her inner self. Her overweening attitude in love is probably the main reason for her frustration. This frustration produces two contradictory feelings in her; she loves and hates at the same time [St. 1]:

أحب .. أحب .. فقلبي جنون     وسورة حب عميق المدى

..........................

وأكره أكره قلبـــي لهيب         وسورة مقت كبير كبير

(I love .. I love .. my heart is madness and vehemence of deep-extending love. / .... /  I hate, I hate, my heart is a flame and vehemence of great, great hatred.)

She instinctively responds to love but she denies it. She speaks about her passion and herself as two separate things [st. 3 & 4]:

أريد وأجهل ماذا أريد          أريد وعاطفتي لا تريد

                        *   *   *

........................

أريد وأنفر, أي جنون          حياتي؟ أي صراع رهيب؟

(I want and I do not know what I want; I want and my passion does not want. / * * * /  ....  / I want and reject. What madness is my life? / What horrible conflict?)

compare:

Odi et amo: quare id faciam fortasse requiris.

       nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

  (I hate and love / Well, why do I, you probably ask /

I do not know, but I know it’s happening and I am tortured.)

In chapter 4, we will study Nāzik’s Greek and Roman mythology in detail.

(6) KNOWLEDGE  OF  SCANDINAVIAN  LITERATURE:

In Scandinavian literature, Nāzik read the English versions of Henrik Ibsen’s plays Gengangere (Ghosts), written in 1881, and Bygmester Solness (The Master Builder), written in 1892. In "Safahāt min mudhakkarātī",⁽⁸⁶⁾ she writes notes on the main characters in these two plays. From the first play, she mentions a single character only -- Manders; she talks about him very shortly, quoting his ideas about happiness:

إن حنين الناس الى السعادة في هذه الحياة علامة تدل على روح التمرد

(The longing of people for happiness in this life is a sign which suggests the spirit of rebellion.)

From the second, she talks about the innocence, frankness and bravery of Hilde Wangel, the fear of Mr Solness and the negative side of his wife Aline, and the relation between the three characters; she also mentions two other characters in the play, Rafner and Kaya.

In chapters 2, 3 and 4, we will study comparatively the poetry of Nāzik, Keats, Shelley and Byron. We will also discuss where necessary any other possible influences of English, American and Arab poets on Nāzik’s poetry. In the following chapter, we will discuss the significance of the Arabic translations of English poems, and their role as a first step to influence.

NOTES:

(1)  Harvey, P. The Oxford Companion to English Literature (4th. ed.), p. 706.

(2)  Jost, F. Introduction to Comparative Literature, p. 105.

(3)  Lu'lu'ah, ^CA. Mawsū^Cat al-mustalah al-naqdī, p. 161.

(4)  Ra'ūf, J. Shīlī fī 'l-adab al-^CArabī fī Misr, p. 21-2.

(5)  Furst, L. Romanticism (2nd ed.), p. 3-4.

(6)  al-Hāwī, I. al-Rūmānsiyyah fī 'l-shi^Cr al-Gharbī wa 'l-^CArabī, p. 11-12.

(7)  al-Ramādī, J. Fusūl muqārinah bayn adaby al-sharq wa 'l-gharb, p. 92.

(8)  ibid., p. 93.

(9)  Al-Malā'ikah, I. "Ta'ammulāt fī 'l-rūmānsiyyah", al-Aqlām, Baghdad, vol. 8, March 6, 1970, p. 26.

(10) ibid., p. 25.

(11) a written communication from Nāzik al-Malā'ikah, in Kuwait, 12/4/1984.

(12) Al-Malā'ikah, N. al-Tajzī'iyyah …., p. 161.

(13) ibid., p. 160-1.

(14) Preminger, A. Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (enlarged edition), pp. 663 & 717.

(15) Harvey, P. The Oxford Companion to English Literature, p. 706.

(16) Sherwood, M. Undercurrent of Influence …., p.13.

(17) Ra'ūf, J. Shīlī fī 'l-adab al-^CArabī fī Misr, p. 33.

(18) Semah, D. Four Egyptian Literary Critics, p. 14-5, quoting from ^CAbbās Mahmūd al-^CAqqād's Sā^Cāt bayn al-kutub (3rd.), Cairo, 1950, p. 510.

(19) al-Malā'ikah, N. al-Tajzī'iyyah …., p. 160.

(20) ibid. , p. 165.

(21) ibid. , pp. 167-8.

(22) ibid. , p 168.

(23) Shelley, P. B. A Defense of Poetry, edited by A. S. Cook, pp. 34, 45 & 46.

(24) See also Keats’s poem " Tis the witching time of night"

(25) ^CUsfūr, J. "Ramziyyat al-layl; qirā'ah fī shi^Cr Nāzik al-Malā'ikah", Nāzik al-Malā'ikah: dirāsah fī 'l-shi^Cr wa 'l-shā^Cirah, edited and compiled by ^CAbd ^CAllāh al-Muhannā, p. 515.

(26) ibid.

(27) ibid.

(28) Shukrallah, Kh. The Poetry of ^CAbd al-Wahhab al-Bayyati [Ph. D. thesis], p. 46.

(29) ibid. p. 47.

(30) ibid.

(31) ^CAlwān, ^CA. Tatawwur al-shi^Cr al-^CArabī ….,  p. 364.

(32) Semah, D. Four Egyptian Literary Critics, p. 8.

(33) ibid., p. 17, quoting from Biographia Literaria, vol. 2, edited by J. Shawcross, O. U. P. London, 1965, pp. 10 & 16, and Muhammad Badawī . Coleridge … Cairo, Dār al-Ma^Cārif, 1958?, pp. 158-9.

(34) ^CAlwān, ^CA. Tatawwur al-shi^Cr al-^CArabī ...., p. 364.

(35) Coleridge, S. T. Biographia Literaria, vol. (1), edited by J. Shawcross, p. 202.

(36) ibid.

(37) Shelley, P. B. A Defence of Poetry, edited by A. S. Cook, p. 2.

(38) Rollins, H. The Letters of John Keats (1814-1821), p. 184.

(39) Wordsworth, w. The Lyrical Ballads, edited by Alun Jones and William Tydeman, p. 36.

(40) Al-Malā'ikah, N. "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī", al-Majallah al-^CArabiyyah li-'l-thaqāfah, vol. 4, March, 1983, year 3, p. 189.

(41) ead. al-Tajzī'iyyah...., p. 160.

(42) Al-Jayyusi, S. Trends and Movements...., vol. 1, p. 181.

(43) ibid., vol. 1, p. 182.

(44) ibid. p. 190.

(45) ibid. pp. 189 & 191.

(46) ibid., vol. (2), pp. 472-3.

(47) ^CAlwān ^CA. Tatawwur al-shi^Cr al-^CArabī ..., pp. 399-404.

(48) Semah, D. Four Eqyptian...., p. 56.

(49) al-Dasūqī, ^CA. Jamā^Cat Abūlū ..., pp. 341-4.

(50) Al-Malā'ikah, N. "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī", al-Majallah al-^CArabiyyah li-'l-thaqāfah, vol. 4, March, 1983, year 3, p. 192.

(51) Al-Muhannā, ^CA. (ed.) Nāzik al-Malā'ikah: dirāsah fī 'l-shi^Cr ..., p. 696, quoting from Tabānah, Ahmad Badawī. Adab al-mar'ah al-^CIrāqiyyah, Cairo, 1948, p.69.

(52) Khulusī, S. "Contemporary poetess of Iraq", The Islamic Review, vol. 38, June, 1950, p. 40-5.

(53) al-Malā'ikah, N. Lamahāt min sīrat hayātī wa thaqāfatī, (holograph), p. 8.

(54) ^CAbdul-Hai, M. Tradition_and English …., p. 5.

(55) Badīr, H. al-Mu'aththarāt al-ajnabiyyah, p. 152-154.

(56) al-Malā'ikah, N. "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī", al-Majallah al-^CArabiyyah li-'l-thaqāfah, vol. 4, March, 1983, p.187.

(57) al-Ramādī, J. D. Fusūl muqārinah ..., p. 92.

(58) Badawī, M. Modern Arabic Literature and the West, p. 191-2 (Badawi does not mention the titles of Khulūsī’s articles on Shakespeare: he only gives the numbers of the journals these articles were published in: Ahl al-naft, 1955, al_Ma^Crifah, nos. 38-43.

(59) al-Malā'ikah, N. "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī", al-Majallah al-^CArabiyyah li-'l-thaqāfah, vol. 4, March, 1983, year 3, p. 187.

(60) ead. Lamahāt min sīrat hayātī wa thaqāfatī (typescript), p. 8.

(61) ^CAbdul-Hai, M. Tradition and English …., p.24.

(62) Al-Malā'ikah, N. "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī", al-Mjallah al-^CArabiyyah li-'l-thaqāfah, vol. 4, March, 1983, year 3, p. 188.

(63) an interview with Nāzik in Kuwait, in 1984.

(64) ^CAbdul-Hai, M. Tradition and English ..., p. 34.

(65) ibid., 35.

(66) Al-Malā’ikah, N. "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī", al-Majallah al-^CArabiyyah li-'l-thaqāfah, vol. 4, March, 1983, year 3, p. 187. p. 188.

(67) ^CAbdul-Hai, M. Tradition and English ..., pp.37-8.

(68) id. "Shelley and the Arabs: an Essay in Comparative Literature", Journal of Arabic Literature, vol. iii, 1972. P. 81.

(69) Ra’ūf, J. Shīlī fī 'l-adab al-^CArabī fī Misr, pp.406-8.

(70) ibid.,  pp. 414-421.

(71) ibid.,  p. 74.

(72) al—Malā'ikah, N. Lamahāt min sīrāt hayātī wa thaqāfatī, (typescript), pp. 8-9 & 10.

(73) ead. "Safahāt min mudhakkarātī", in al-Ahrām (newspaper), Friday, August 5, 1966, pp. 13.

(74) ibid.

(75) ead. Lamahāt min sīrat hayātī wa thaqāfatī, (holograph), pp. 7-8.

(76) ibid.

(77) ead. Al-Tajzī'iyyah …., p. 154.

(78) ead. "Safahāt min mudhakkarātī", in al-Ahrām, Friday, August 5, 1966, p. 13.

(79) al-Malā’ikah, N. "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī", al-Majallah al-^CArabiyyah li-'l-thaqāfah, vol. 4, March, 1983, year 3, p. 187.

(80) ead. Dīwān (1), p. 6-7 (the introduction).

(81) Hannā, Y. "Sharh falsafat Shūbinhūr 1i-'l-^CAllāmah Urwin Udmān", al-Siyāsah al-usbū^Ciyyah;                  no. 223, year 5, Saturday, June 14, 1930, p. 14;

     no. 226, year 5, Saturday, July 5, 1930, p. 9;

     no. 230, year 5, Saturday, August 2, 1930, p. 9;

     no. 232, year 5, Saturday, August 16, 1930, p. 4.

(82) al-Malā’ikah, N. "Safahāt min mudhakkarātī", al-Ahrām, August 5, 1966, p. 13.

(83) ead. "al-Shi^Cr fī hayātī", al-Majallah al-^CArabiyyah li-'l-thaqāfah, vol. 4, March, 1983, year 3, p. 191.

(84) ead. Lamahāt min sīrat hayātī wa thaqāfatī, (holograph), p. 7.

(85) Ibid., 7.

(86) ead. "Safahāt min mudhakkarātī", al-Ahrām, August 5, p. 15.