38

CHAPTER TWO
MODERNIST POETICS: THEMES AND TECHNIQUES

2.1. Concept of Western/Arabic Modernism

2.1.1. Western Modernism

At the outset, tracing the root of the word ‗modernism‘ in English lexicon is the

keystone in tracing the term‘s development and how it was coined and introduced as a

new concept in critical studies. Yet, modernism can be interpreted and understood more

clearly through tracing its philosophical grounds rather than tracing its semantic and

linguistic denotations or connotations. The term ‗modernism‘ is not an antonym to the

term ‗tradition‘. Linguistically, it is derived from the words ‗mod‘, ‗mode‘, and

‗modern‘, but the word ‗modern‘ seems to be relatively the main root of the word

‗modernism‘. Historically, the word ‗modern‘ was used in the 14th century to denote a

person of the present time who repudiates and renounces the conventions of the past. In

the 15th century it was used to refer to works of the modern architecture, then in the 16th

century it was used to denote a person with modern tastes and also to refer to the current

form of a language. Moderne, in the middle French language, is used to mean ‗modern‘.

The word ‗modern‘ means ‗present‘ or ‗just now‘. It goes back to the French word

‗moderne‘ which in turn goes back to Latin word modernus, which is derived from the

Latin word ‗modo‘. The respective term then took its circulation in various fields of

human activities. The phrase ‗modern art‘ appeared in 1849, and ‗modern dance‘

appeared in 1912. In his book Modernism the New Critical Idiom, Peter Childs says that

modern English is different from middle English and the modern period in literature

starts from the 16th century, although it is used to describe twentieth-century writing. The

term ‗modernist‘, according to Peter Childs, was used in the late 16th century to name a
 39

modern person, then in the 18th century was used to denote the follower of modern ways

and the supporter of modern literature over ancient. The Romanian literary critic Matei

Calinescu, in his article ―Literary and Other Modernisms‖1, explains that the label of

modernism was used for the first time by Ruben Dario 2 in the early 1890s. The various

movements in art, architecture and literature, which break with classical and traditional

forms and methods of expression, are categorized under the umbrella term modernism.

Modernism is a neologism invented by critics as a critical concept. However, the

proponents of modernism could not offer a final, definite and clear definition of

modernism. No two critics have concurred with each other on what modernism is3. The

Czech formalist, Jan Mukarovsky pinpoints that modernism is ‗very indefinite‘4.

According to the book Modernism: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies,

modernism is a critical notion that defies definition because the term ‗modernism‘

encompasses ―contested and varied nature of the intellectual terrain.‖5 For Perry

Anderson, ―modernism as a notion is the emptiest of all cultural categories. Unlike the

terms Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Mannerist, Romantic or Neo-Classical, it designates

no describable object in its own right: it is completely lacking in positive content.‖6

Critics attempt to explicate the term ‗modernism‘ by pinpointing the key features

of modernism; focusing on the historical dimension and looking at enlightenment and the

global shift. Modernism is a violation of norm. It attempts to break with the tradition.

Critics agree to regard modernism as a condition of social, artistic, economic, and

1
Tim Middleton, ed, Modernism Critical Concepts In Literary and Cultural Studies, vol. 3 (London:
Routledge, 2003) 201.
2
Ruben Dario (1867-1916) was a Nicaraguan writer and poet.
3
Steve Giles ed, Theorizing Modernism (London: Routledge, 1993) 2.
4
Ibid.
5
Tim Middleton, ed, Modernism: Critical concepts in Literary and cultural studies, vol. 1 (London:
Routledge, 2003) 1.
6
Michael H. Whitworth, ed, Modernism (Malden: Blackwell, 2007) 3.
 40

technological change. The French writer Victor Hugo articulates that modernism is the

power, which goes deeply in all directions; and there is no sentence which can give a

perfect description to its features or surround all its aspects. The German philosopher,

Jurgen Habermas says that modernism is the development of Western society and its

dependence on reason as a standard of judgments rather than its adherence to past.

This intellectual development occurs due to a notion of superiority of the

individual. In other words, the individual is considered rational, democratic and a

freethinker. Some critics, like Susan Stanford, define modernism as a global tendency in

art and literature, while other critics define modernism within specific countries. Among

them is Peter Faulkner, who confines modernism to the works of some Anglo-American

writers, such as T. S. Eliot and Ezra pound, to the works of Virginia Woolf and D. H.

Lawrence. Writers and critics present contradictory views about modernism. Some argue

that modernism rejects the traditional values and encourages creativity, innovation and

subjectivity. Others argue that modernism is a reaction to the cruel urban societies,

industrialization, and the absence of the human values which led to the world wars.

According to Michael H Whitworth, ―modernism is not so much a thing as a set of

responses to problems posed by the conditions of modernity.‖7

Still, others define modernism as ‗a new visualization of life, or a new

consciousness of the latest changes, which jump over the old constants and the old

traditional styles‘. Modernism is considered as a torrential stream, which reaches all

fields of life in its continuous growth. The modernist experiment aims at releasing the

individual from the collective. For Susan Stanford, modernism is ―the expressive

dimension of modernity‖. Sonja Samberger in his book Artistic Outlaws: The Modernist
7
Ibid.
 41

Poetics of Edith Sitwell, Amy Lowell, Gertrude Stein and H. D. he states:

Modernism can be seen as a generic term which comprises many different

international artistic and literary movements of the first half of the

twentieth century: the (so-called classical) avant-gardes whose beginnings

are usually fixed by numerous manifestos (Cubism in 1907, Futurism in

1908, Dada in 1916, Surrealism in 1924). … Modernism is a term for all

these different movements, whose common feature is the reaction to the

modernization of our world, to increasing mechanization, to Sigmund

Freud's new insights into psychology, to the First World War. This

reaction shows in different shapes in different literatures in form as well as

in content. (Samberger 19)

2.1.2. Arabic Modernism

Literally, Al-Hadathah means creating what did not exist before.8 In the Arabic

lexicons, the origin of the word ‗Al-Hadathah‘ is the root ‗Hadatha‘ from which the term

‗Al-Hadathah‘ is derived. In the lexicon of Lisan Al-Arab9, the words Hadatha,

Yahduthu, Huduthan, and Hadathah mean something that has not existed before. The

word Hadath stands as the opposite of ‗old‘. In the lexicon of Al-Qamus Al-Muheet10, the

verb Hadatha is the root of Al-Hadathah. In the modern lexicon of Al-Mu’jam Al-

Waseet11, the word Al-Hadathah is antithetical to the word ‗old‘. It also means ‗the age of

youth‘. Al-Hadathah, hence, is a new literary development in Arabic literature, and is

8
Abd Al-Majeed Zaraqet, Al-Hadathah fi Al-Naqd Al-Adabi Al-Mu’asir [Modernism in The Contemporary
Literary Criticism] (Beirut: Dar Al-Harf Al-Arabi, 1991) 195.
9
Ibn Mandhur, comp, Lisan Al-Arab [Tongue of Arabs], Beirut: Dar Sader, 2000.
10
Al-Qamus Al-Muheet is an old Arabic lexicon compiled by Al-Fayruzabadi (1329 – 1415).
11
An Arabic lexicon compiled by Ibrahim Mustafa, Al-Mu'jam Al-Waseet (Cairo: Al-Majma, 1960).
 42

mainly associated with poetry. It intertwines with other terms such as Hadith [modern],

Tahdith [modernization], Asranah [modernity] Mu'asir or Asri [contemporary], Jiddah

[novelty/newness], Jadid [new], Ibda'a [innovation], Jeel Al-Ttali'ah [avant-gardes]. The

Arabic terms Mu'asir, Hadith, and Jadid mean ‗contemporary‘, ‗modern‘ and ‗new‘

respectively. These terms sometimes are used interchangeably; they have different

literary significances. For the Arab literary critics, Mu'asir [contemporary] poetry does

not mean Hadathi [modernist] poetry because not all Mu'asir [contemporary] poetry is

characterized by the features of modernism. Furthermore, Hadathi [modernist] poetry has

been traced back in the works of some Arab poets of the last centuries.

Arab writers in their attempts to explore Arabic modernism [Al-Hadathah] had

difficulty in offering a rigorous definition to this elusive term. The Tunisian writer, Rita

Awadh defines Al-Hadathah as awareness (consciousness) of life and existence. The

Egyptian writer, Abd al-Aziz Hammouda defines it as a revolution against traditional

form that caused a cultural gap in Arab society. The Syrian poet and critic, Adonis says

that he could not easily determine what modernism is in the Arab society. In his book Al-

Thabit wa Al-Mutahawwil: Sadmat Al-Hadathah [The Static and The Changing: The

Shock of Modernism] he states that modernism artistically means radical questioning

which explores and traces the poetic language that opens up new experimental horizons

in practical writing and the creation of new styles of expression which are logically

compatible to that questioning. He adds that literary modernism is an experiment and a

vision, which develops new ways of interpreting.

For Adonis, modernism is essentially a violation of the political, ethical, and

constitutional sovereignty. In other words, it is a rejection of the idealized standards of

 43

the ancient. Other critics refer to Arabic modernism as a collection of various meanings

such as conversion, invention, renewal, revolution, question, refusal, initiation and

consciousness. For Adonis, poetic modernism is linked with humanistic modernism that

surpasses the past, the technique and the future; it connects with time and goes beyond

time12. Yusuf Al-Khal13 links modernism with innovation, and describes modernism as a

violation of poetic norms which do not belong to a specific time. Dr. Ibrahim Al-

Samarra'i14 argues that Arabic modernism is a continuation of modernisms that came

earlier. He states that Arabic modernism is every new technique associated with the

development of Arabic poetry. According to the Moroccan writer and poet, Abdul Latif

Al-Le'abi, Arabic modernism lies in the ability to change and revolt. He adds the

modernist poet is the one who subverts the sacred linguistic expression. Mohamed

Masmouli15 deals with Arabic modernism as an innovation. For Mohammad Bennis16,

Arabic modernism breaks with the past and its heritage. Abdullah Ibrahim17 defines

Arabic modernism as a new intellectual attitude and a philosophic vision that looks at the

self and the universe through different perspectives: through inherited cultural references,

and through the borrowed references from the other. Adonis says that some Arab thinkers

treat modernism as a technological achievement and consequently westernized it.

2.1.3. Interchangeability between Modernism and Modernity

The term ‗modernity‘ refers to the condition that is related to modernism.

Modernity exclusively describes the industrial and radical changes of sociology, and
12
Catherine Cbham, trans, An Introduction to Arab Poetics, Adonis (Cairo: American UP, 1992).
13
Yusuf al-Khal (1917 - 1987) is a Syrian poet and founded the magazine shi'r (poetry) in Beirut in 1957.
14
An Iraqi writer.
15
A Tunisian poet.
16
Mohammad Bennis (1948 - ) is a Moroccan poet.
17
Abdullah Ibrahim (1918 - 2005) born in Morocco, he was a famous critic.
 44

psychology of 19th and 20th centuries. In his book Modernism, Michael H. Whitworth

says:

The recognition that modernism and modernity are related but not

identical is crucial to most recent work in the area. At one time it was

possible to write of there being ‗two modernities‘, one being the

modernity of technology and social life, and the other being aesthetic

modernity; more recently, critics have used modernism for the second of

these, reserving ‗modernity‘ for the social and ideological context 18.

According to Matei Calinescu, both terms ‗modernism‘ and ‗modernity‘ go back

etymologically to the concept of la mode.19 He argues that there are five faces of

modernity and he regards modernism as one of these faces. Some writers, such as the

Spanish poet and critic Federico de Onis emphasize that there is a difference between

modernism and modernity20. For the Italian literary critic Renato Poggioli21 ―modernism

is an involuntary caricature of modernity.‖ Initially modernity started in German in the

works of the German thinkers and philosophers Kant and Hegel, Nietzsche and

Heidegger, and then it spread in Europe. Habermas discusses the issue of modernity as an

unfinished project or incomplete project. From a historical perspective, modernism is

referred to be a critical of enlightenment and to be a prelude of Postmodernism. The

modernist writers state that modernism is a critical interpretation of modernity and the

modern world because modernity caused spiritual disaster. Modernity is inevitable and

inescapable as it is related to the continuous process of changes in all aspects of human

18
Michael H Whitworth, ed, Modernism (Malden: Blackwell, 2007) 17.
19
Matei Calinescu ―Literary and other Modernism‖, Tim Middleton, ed, Modernism Critical Concepts in
Literary and Cultural Studies, vol 3 (London: Routledge, 2003) 208.
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid.
 45

life: technological, economic, social, and political. Therefore, imperialism, secularism,

democracy, technology and the conflict between socialism and capitalism, as well as the

revolutions against the aristocratic regimes, are the most important characteristics of

modernity. Modernism arose as a criticism of modernity which caused social, cultural

and artistic changes. Criticism of modernity is a general denotation of literary

modernism. In other words, modernism is essentially a philosophy of modernity that is

characterized as a literary or artistic notion, while modernity is the on-going process of

modernization. The terms ‗modernism‘ and ‗modernity‘ could be used interchangeably

by some writers to indicate the 19th and the 20th century trends, and yet, the term

‗modernism‘ does not merely refer to a period of time, but also refers to a new concept

that arose to criticize the upheavals of modernity. In his essay ―Modernity and

Feminism‖, Rita Felski, highlights the difference between ‗modernism‘ and ‗modernity‘

as she notes:

Modernity arises out of a culture of ‗stability, coherence, discipline and

world-mastery‘; alternatively it points to ‗discontinuous experience of

time, space and causality as transitory, fleeting and fortuitous‘. For Some

writers it is a ‗culture of rupture‘ marked by historical relativism and

ambiguity. For others it involves a ‗rational autonomous subject‘ and an

‗absolutist unitary conception of truth. ...The most familiar within the field

of literary studies. Unlike modernity, it can be situated in historical time

with a relative degree of precision; critics locate the high point of

modernist literature and art between 1890 and 1940, while agreeing that

modernist features can be found in texts both preceding and following this
 46

period.22

For Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane, modernism is ‗the art of

modernization‘ which ‗responds to the scenario‘ of modern chaos23. In his article ―Avant-

gard, Modernism, Modernity: A Theoretical Overview‖, Steve Giles24 says that the

theorist Harvey attempts to ‗connect the definition of a modernist aesthetic to the material

basis of modern life‘ while Habermas emphasizes the significance of distinguishing

between cultural modernity and societal modernization. According to Stave Gils,

modernism is a cultural phenomenon but anti-modern although it is located ‗within the

ambit of modernity‘. He adds that ‗modernism was pressured into existence by the

dynamics of time-space compression and separation; it can be characterized also as a

classic product of modernity‘25.Thus, modernism is interrelated with modernity, whereas

it is for some critics a product of modernity. Still other critics view ‗modernism‘ as a

subversive movement to the principles of modernity; it is also seen as an object for

denouncing and vilifying societal and cultural traditions.

2.1.4. Modernism as an Apt Rendering of Al-Hadathah

Arabic modernism has been translated into English in different ways as Hadatha,

al-Hadatha, and Al-Hadathah, as argued in this study. Some writers translate it as

Hadatha without the prefix ‗al‘ which functions as a definite article in Arabic and

without the feminizing suffix ‗h‘. Others translate it as Al-Hadatha with the definite

article ‗al‘ and without the suffix ‗h‘. Rendering the Arabic term Al-Hadathah into

22
Rita Felski, ―Modernity and Feminism‖, Tim Middleton, ed, Modernism: Critical Concepts in Literary
and Cultural studies, vol. 5 (London: Routledge, 2003) 195, 205.
23
Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane, ed. Modernism 1890-1930 London: Penquin, 1976) 27.
24
Steve Giles, ed, Theorizing Modernism (London: Routledge, 1993) 177-178.
25
Ibid, 181.
 47

English seems to be problematic due to the various translations offered by many Arab

writers. The Arab writers and critics have not concurred with each other not only in their

translating of the term Al-Hadathah, but also in their interpretations of it and in their

attitude towards it in general. There are three different views in translating Al-Hadathah

into English. The first opinion considers ‗modernity‘ as a translation of the Arabic term

Al-Hadathah, as in Adonis‘ book An Introduction to Arab Poetics. Under the title

‗Poetics and Modernity‘, Adonis says ―We will only be able to reach a proper

understanding of the poetics of Arab modernity by viewing it in its social, cultural and

political context.‖26 Muhsin J. al-Musawi, in his book Arabic Poetry Trajectories of

Modernity and Tradition, states:

Yet, modernity properly began with the emergence of coteries, groups,

and schools that came into contact with Russia and Europe, and developed

a new consciousness of individualism and democracy, like the Diwan

School in Egypt (1912), with a publication under this name in 1921, and

the following one Apollo (with a journal under this name, too, 1932–

1934). Soon after the Second World War, another radical change under the

rubric of the Free Verse Movement took over the poetic scene bringing

into Arabic culture a new consciousness of great complexity that

appropriated both radical politics and poetics, and approached tradition

and history anew, questioning almost every issue and generating since

then further renewals and innovations. (Al-Musawi 9)

In the same vein, the Syrian critic Kamal Abu Deeb also asserts that ‗modernity‘

is the proper translation for the Arabic term Al-Hadathah. The second point of view
26
Adonis, An Introduction to Arab Poetics, Catherine Cobham, trans (Cairo: American UP, 1992) 75.
 48

regards ‗modernism‘ as a translation of Al-Hadathah. Supporters of this translation are

the Egyptian critics Abdel Aziz Hamuudah, and Dr. Jaber Asfur (who has translated Peter

Broker‘s Modernism and Postmodernism) and Mu'yyad Hasan Fawzi who translated the

book of Modernism (1890-1930) edited by Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane, as

well as the Syrian writer and translator Issa Sum'an who translated the same book. The

third view merges modernity and modernism claiming that both terms have the same

significance. This view considers ‗modernism‘ and ‗modernity‘ as renderings of Al-

Hadathah. For instance, the Palestinian writer and poet, Salma Khadra Jayyusi in her

article ―Modernist poetry in Arabic‖ states:

Arab poetic modernity resulted from two major factors: the influence of

the Western modernist movement and the other major experiments that

preceded or accompanied it, and the state of Arabic poetry itself at the

midpoint of the twentieth century, which responded to intrinsic need for a

change towards a more ‗modern‘ apprehension of experience, aesthetic

and otherwise. … Several cultural events regarded as ‗the intellectual

basis of Modernism‘ took place in Europe prior to the rise of the

movement, which did much to shape the modernist tendency by

completely contradicting prior beliefs and concepts and introducing new

interpretations of art, history and human experience. (Badawi 132-133)

M. M. Badawi in his book A Short History of Modern Arabic Literature states:

―Arabic modernism is no longer the shocking phenomenon that it appeared to be in the

1950s and 1960s.‖27 In his book A Critical Introduction to Modern Arabic Poetry Badawi

says: ―One revealing feature of the New Poets is their very obsession with newness or
27
M. M. Badawi, A Short History of Modern Arabic Literature (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993) 86.
 49

modernity. …That modernity or newness (Al-Hadatha) has become a value in itself.‖28

Yet the Arabic term Al-Hadathah has been introduced as a translated term for both

English terms ‗modernism‘ and ‗modernity‘, but this study sticks to the Arabic term Al-

Hadathah for its appropriateness with the English term ‗modernism‘ and also to avoid

overlapped meanings of the two terms, i.e. ‗modernism‘ and ‗modernity‘.

Thus, building on the various attitudes of Arab critics towards the form and

meaning of the Arabic word Al-Hadathah and its translation into English, this study

prefers to use the Arabic word Al-Hadathah to mean ‗modernism‘.

2.2. The Prevailing Themes of Modernist Poetry

2.2.1. Theme of Alienation

Alienation is essentially a humanistic phenomenon that does not concern a

specific generation or era. It is a psychological and epistemological malaise that pertains

to the human. It is prevalent among all generations and all epochs. According to the

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, alienation means ‗the feeling that you have

no connection with the people around you‘. Linguistically, alienation is synonymous with

other words such as estrangement, disaffection, withdrawal, isolation, and separation. In

terms of psychoanalysis, alienation is a psychosocial case that thoroughly dominates the

individual and makes him/her either alienated from him or disconnected from people

around him/her and consequently makes him stay far from his social reality.

There are many reasons are behind the alienation in modern society. Some writers

say that alienation betides as a result of the conflict between the human and the

28
M. M. Badawi, A Critical Introduction to Modern Arabic Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1975) 258-
259.
 50

dimensions of his existence. There are three dimensions to determine this: the first is

credited as a concrete dimension in which the conflict between economics, social, and

political powers lead to alienation. The second is a principled dimension where the poet

searches for the ideal world, because the world in which he/she lives smashes his human

personality. The third is metaphysical dimension where the poet goes beyond the physical

world to get the truth of his existence. From a religious aspect, individual assailed by

alienation due to his separation from the belief of Allah [God]. From philosophic aspect,

alienation is a reaction to the collapse of the organic relationship between the human

being and existential experience: self/object, part/whole/ person/society, present/future.

For Marx, the social conditions evoke feelings of alienation and capitalist societies are

the culprit of this demon. Hegel argues that subjectivity, individuality, and freedom

develop through a process in which self is alienated from itself and then comes to

recognise itself in its alienation. While Marx argues that alienation is a systematic result

of capitalism. He states that a worker in the capitalist regimes is afflicted by alienation

because he/she works for others and nor for him/herself.

Other writers say that the reason of alienation is the inflation of the communities

which in turn led to conversion of the social relationship into official relationship. But the

poets possess their own reasons as well as the above mentioned reasons. When the

modernist poet finds her/himself unable to achieve her/his aim in life, she/he becomes

alienated from the society or from the self. Feelings of alienation make the poet unable to

change his social situation where he/she lives in. Some modernist poets find themselves

chained to the norm of the society and cannot go beyond conventions, therefore they feel

alienated from their society.

 51

Alienation in this study will be dealt with from a literary perspective through

analyzing the Arabic and English texts. The theme of alienation is pervasive in Arabic

poetry since the pre-Islamic period, Zuhair Ibn Abi Sulma says:

ِّ َ ‫ٔؤ‬٣ ، ‫ي‬
َ ُ ‫الً ال أرخ‬ٞ‫َٖ ك‬٤ٗ‫ؼٖ ػٔخ‬٣ ُ
ِ ْٖ َٓ ٝ ، ‫خس‬٤‫قَ حُل‬٤ُ‫ٓجٔض طٌخ‬

―I got bored of life‘s burden; and he who lives eighty years (no doubt),

will grow weary.‖29

Arab poets were afflicted by the intellectual alienation which made them isolated

from society. Abu al-Alaa Al-Maarri suffered self-imposed staying in his house for forty

years and was consequently nicknamed ‗the double prisoner‘ for he was blind too. In the

following lines Al-Maarri states that he is a triple prisoner:

٢ٗٞ‫ حُؼالػش ٖٓ ٓـ‬٢‫ ك‬٢ٗ‫أٍح‬

‫غ‬٤‫كال طٔؤٍ ػٖ حُوزَ حُ٘ز‬

٢‫ظ‬٤‫ّ ر‬ُِٝٝ
ِ ١َ‫ ٗخظ‬١‫ُلوي‬

‫غ‬٤‫ حُـْٔ حُوز‬٢‫ٕ حُ٘لْ ك‬ًٞٝ

Methinks, I am thrice imprisoned-ask not me

Of news that need no telling-

By loss of sight, confinement to my house,

And this vile body for my spirit‘s dwelling.30

Al-Maarri‘s feeling of alienation from the society led him to regard his birth as a sin

committed by his father. For this reason, he never married and requested that after his

death, his motto should be inscribed on his grave:

29
This verse quoted from Zuhair‘s poem (Muallaqah), my translation.
30
The Arabic lines taken from Al-Marri‘s collection Luzumiyyat, and the translation of these verses into
English taken from Reynold A. Nicholson in his book A Literary History of The Arabs, (Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1969) 315.
 52

‫ أكي‬٠ِ‫ض ػ‬٤٘‫ٓخ ؿ‬ٝ ٢ِ‫ ػ‬٢‫ أر‬ٙ‫ٌح ؿ٘خ‬ٛ

This wrong was by my father done

To me, but ne'er by me to one. (Nicholson 317)

Al-Maarri‘s alienation is an intellectual one due to his scholarship in philosophy.

He is called the ―philosopher of poets and the poet of philosophers‖. He used to forsake

the people to live in seclusion from his society. His self and societal alienations are part

of his intellectual alienation. Among his controversial thoughts is his rejection of

religions. Being amidst religious environment, Al-Maarri‘s controversial thoughts seem

to be abnormal. He criticized religions viewing them as mere superstitions. In the

following lines, he scoffs at religions and religious people including Islam:

ْٚ ِِ٠ٓ ّٞ‫حُٔـ‬ٝ ‫ى كخٍص‬ٜٞ٣ٝ ‫ظيص‬ٛ‫ ٓخح‬ٍٟ‫خ‬ُٜ٘‫ح‬ٝ ‫لش‬٤٘‫ل ض حُل‬ٛ

ْٚ ‫ٖ ال ػوَ ُـ‬٣‫آهـَ ى‬ٝ ٖ٣‫ى‬ ‫ ػوـَ رال‬ًٝ : ٍٝ‫َ حأل‬ٛ‫حػ٘خٕ أ‬

(Hanifs)31 are stumbling, Christians all astray,

Jews wildered, Magians far on error‘s way.

We mortals are composed of two great schools-

Enlightened knaves or else religious fools. 32 (Nicholson 318)

The theme of alienation in Arabic modernist poetry can be traced not only

through the aspects of alienation which are realized throughout the expressions of

anxiety, depression, sorrow and loneliness, but also through tracing the socio-political life

of the poets. Many Arab modernist poets were compelled to leave their homelands out of

31
The researcher replaced the translator's word (Hanafis) by the word Hanifs. Hanafis means the followers
of the Imam Abu Hanifah (699-765) and the followers of his Madhab (school) in the present day, but
Hanif, plural Hunafa, is an Arabic word used synonymously with the word Muslim, and Haniffiya is used
as a synonym for Islam. Al-Maarri in this verse refers to Muslims in general, not only to the Hanafis
32
Reynold A. Nicholson, A Literary History of The Arabs (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1969).
 53

fear of persecution and imprisonment. Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab is not the only modernist

poet who was compelled to escape from his country, but many other poets either left their

homeland willingly such as the Iraqi poet, Nazik al-Malaika, who died in Cairo, the

Syrian poet, Nizar Qabbani, who lived in Lebanon and died in London, or unwillingly,

such as the Iraqi poet, Abd al-Wahhab Al-Bayati, who spent his life in exile and

eventually died in Syria and the Syrian poet, Adonis, who settled in Lebanon after his

imprisonment in Syria for his political views, and the Palestinian poets who were forced

to live in exile like millions of Palestinian citizens who found themselves homeless. The

political alienation is an important part in the life of Arab poets. In his poem ―Min Manfa

ila Manfa‖ [From Exile to Exil], the Yemeni poet Abdullah Al-Baraduni says:

‫خؽ‬١ ١‫ي‬٣ ٖٓ ١‫رالى‬

٠‫ أؿل‬٠ُ‫ ا‬٠‫ـ‬١‫ أ‬٠ُ‫ا‬

ٖ‫ ٓـ‬٠ُ‫ٖٓ ٓـٖ ا‬ٝ

٠‫ ٓ٘ل‬٠ُ‫ ا‬٠‫ٖٓ ٓ٘ل‬ٝ

‫ ٖٓ ٓٔظؼَٔ رخى‬ٝ

٠‫ ٓٔظؼَٔ أهل‬٠ُ‫ا‬

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

َ٤‫خٍ حُـ‬٣‫ ى‬٢‫ ك‬١‫رالى‬

٠‫ل‬ُٜ ‫خ‬ٍٛ‫ ىح‬٢‫ ك‬ٝ‫أ‬

‫خ‬ٜ٤ٟ‫ أٍح‬٢‫ ك‬٠‫كظ‬ٝ

٠‫ ؿَرش حُٔ٘ل‬٢ٓ‫طوخ‬

My country is handed over from one tyrant

to the next, a worse tyrant;

 54

from one prison to another,

from one exile to another.

It is colonized by the observed

invader and the hidden one ;

………………………………

My country grieves

in its own boundaries

and in other people‘s land

and even on its own soil

suffers the alienation of exile. 33

In his poem ―Limatha Nahnu fi Al-Manfa‖ [Why We Are In Exile] Abd al-Wahab al-

Bayati says:

٠‫ حُٔ٘ل‬٢‫ُٔخًح ٗلٖ ك‬

‫ص‬ٞٔٗ

‫ٔض‬ٛ ٢‫ص ك‬ٞٔٗ

Why do we die in exile

Unmourned by anybody34

Similarly, the Palestinian poet Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, in his poem ―Bawadi Al-Nafi‖

[Deserts of Exile] considers his exile as a life in a horrible desert:

‫غ‬٤‫ ٍر‬ِٞ‫ؼخ ط‬٤‫ ٍر‬٢‫ حُ٘ل‬١‫حى‬ٞ‫ ر‬٢‫ك‬

‫ٕ رلز٘خ‬ِٞ‫ ٗلٖ كخػ‬١ٌُ‫ٓخ ح‬

‫غ‬٤‫و‬ٛٝ ‫ٗ٘خ طَحد‬ٞ٤‫َٓء ػ‬ٝ

33
Translated from the Arabic by Diana Der-Hovanessian and Sharif S. Elmusa.
34
Khalid A. Sulaiman, Palestine and Modern Arab Poetry (London: Zed Books Ltd, 1984) 118.
 55

In the desert of exile, spring after

Spring passes.

What are we doing with our love

While our eyes are full of dust and rime 35

Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab experienced societal, emotional, political, geographical

and spiritual alienation.36 Al-Sayyab‘s life was brimming with agony and bitterness since

his childhood when he lost his mother at an early age, then his grandmother. In his poem

―Fi Layali Al-Kharif‖ [In the Autumn Nights] Al-Sayyab repines:

، ٖ٣ِ‫ق حُل‬٣َ‫ حُو‬٢ُ‫خ‬٤ُ ٢‫ك‬

ٖ٤٘‫ حُل‬٢ِ‫ ػ‬٠‫طـ‬٣ ٖ٤‫ك‬

َ٤‫زخد حُؼو‬٠ُ‫ًخ‬

‫َ ؛‬٣ٞ‫ن حُط‬٣َ‫خ حُط‬٣‫ح‬ُٝ ٢‫ك‬

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

‫حٍ ؛‬ٞ‫ق حُط‬٣َ‫ حُو‬٢ُ‫خ‬٤ُ ٢‫ك‬

ٖ٤ِٔ‫ طؼ‬ُٞ ٙ‫آ‬

! ٍ‫حُٔال‬ٝ ٠ٓ‫ حأل‬٢ِ‫ ػ‬٠‫طـ‬٣ ‫ق‬٤ً

In the nights of the somber autumn,

When the longing shrouds me

Like the heavy fog

In the nooks of the long road

……………………………...

In the long nights of autumn,

35
Ibid, 119.
36
Mohammed Radhi Jafar, Alienation in Contemporary Iraqi Poetry (Phase of Pioneers) (NP: Arab Writers
Union, 1999).
 56

Ah! If you know

How the grief and ennui overcome me!37

In his poem ―Ahlam al-Fares Al-Qadeem‖ [Dreams of the Ancient Knight] Abd

al-Sabur expresses his alienation from humanity and wishes to be a bough of tree or a

wing of seagull:

‫ ٗـَس‬٢ٜ٘‫ أٗ٘خ ً٘خ ًـ‬ُٞ

‫ه٘خ ٓؼخ‬َٝ‫ؼض ػ‬ٍٟ‫حُْ٘ٔ أ‬

‫ ٓؼخ‬ٟ
َ ‫حٗخ ٗي‬ٍٝ َ‫حُلـ‬ٝ

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

‫ن‬٤‫ٍّ ٍه‬ٞٗ ٢‫ أٗ٘خ ً٘خ ؿ٘خك‬ُٞ

‫ن‬٤٠ُٔ‫زَف ح‬٣ ‫ ال‬، ْ‫ٗخػ‬ٝ

ٖ‫ ًإحرخص حُٔل‬٠ِ‫ٓلِن ػ‬

If only we were the two boughs of a tree

The sun would nourish our roots together

……………………………………………

If only we were the wings of a gentle, tender

Seagull, never leaving the strait

Hovering over the ship‘s wake38

Abd al-Sabur complains all the time in the morning and in the evening. In his poem

―Aud ila ma Jara thaka al-Masa‖ [Going Back to that Evening] he says:

‫ ًُي حُٔٔخء‬٢‫ك‬

‫ ًُي حُٔٔخء‬٢‫وخ َ ك‬َٛٓ َ ‫٘خ‬٣ِ‫ً٘ض ك‬

37
My translation.
38
Mounah A. Khouri and Hamid Algar, ed and trans, An Anthology of Modern Arabic Poetry (California:
California UP, 1974) 143-145.
 57

ٕ‫ حُلَٓخ‬٢‫خ ٓخىط‬٣ ِٕ‫ٕ حُل‬ٞ‫ُؼٌِْ ال طؼَك‬

) ٢ِٗ‫ْ ك‬٤ُ ٜٞ‫ ك‬، ٙٞٔ‫حٕ ػَكظ‬ٝ(

ٙ‫خ‬٤ُٔ‫ال ح‬ٝ َٔ‫ حُو‬ٚ‫ ال ططلج‬٢ِٗ‫ك‬

‫الس‬ُٜ‫ ح‬ٙ‫ ال ططَى‬٢ِٗ‫ك‬

، ٍ‫ حُـَح‬٢‫ص ك‬ُٞٔ‫هش رخ‬ٞٓٞٓ ‫هخكِش‬

ّ‫ حُ٘ي‬، ٍ‫ حُـَح‬٢‫حألٗزخف ك‬ٝ

That evening I was sad

And was tired, that evening;

Perhaps you do not know

What sorrow means, my knightly lords. (It is not, whatever it is,

Your kind of sadness)

Mine is a sorrow that can't be Quenched with wine or water

Nor can it be dispelled by prayer,

It is a death-bound caravan

Moving in deserts wide,

Ghost-driven in lands wild,

Dogged by regret39.

For the West, alienation was an old malady which did not merely belong to

modern societies. Alienation is one among the characteristics of Eliot‘s modernism. The

anthropologist, Eric Robert Wolf, in his book Inwardness and Morality says:

Alienation is a major literary theme of the past century and a half. In T. S.

Eliot‘s early poems, for instance, alienation often takes the form of disgust

39
Translated by M. M. Enani. 27/08/2010 4: 58 <http://www.arabicnadwah.com/arabicpoetry/sabour.htm>.
 58

for the world, for the people, and for oneself as a physical being. The

characteristic ambiance is the empty, dirty, trashy, sawdusty city street at

night, under insidious fog, smoke, rain. People live in rented rooms and

one-night cheap hotels. Bed is neither rest nor refuge. Favorite adjectives

for the world, the body, and the soul are ―grimy‖, ―dingy‖, ―soiled‖. Odors

of tobacco and stale beer pervade. (Wolf 14)

Though alienation seems an old theme, it is still one of the principal themes in

modernist poetry. The theme of alienation in Eliot‘s poetry is reflected clearly in his early

poems and especially in ―The Waste Land‖. In his poem ―The Love Song of J. Alfred

Prufrock‖ the persona‘s monologue reveals alienation and weariness of the speaker:

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

…………………………………………………..

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?… (51, 70-72)

In Eliot‘s ―The Waste Land‖, the contradicting picture of ‗April is the cruelest month‘

and the negative image of the city, display the poet‘s alienation from modern life.

2.2.2. Theme of City

City is that urban place which varied assemblage of people who live together to

make that area a center of power, trade, politics and culture. It was established to be a

peaceful settlement where people can live in peace and comfort. The theme of the city is

a vast subject, but this study will deal with the theme of the city from a modernist poetic

perspective. In other words, this study will try to explore the city as portrayed by the
 59

modernist poets. Theme of the city occupies a sublime space in the world literatures

throughout history. For the ancient Arabic poetry, the Pre-Islamic poets did not deal with

the theme of city because there were no cities to be eulogized or to be censured. After the

emergence of Islam, many cities were founded, especially during the Umayyad and

Abbasid dynasties. In the Abbasid period, the poets celebrate the city and lament the fall

and the ruin of the city by the invaders. On the contrary, some Arab poets, especially

Bedouins, abhor and reject the city. Maisuna40 is a specimen of such poets who reject the

city and prefer the desert life:

The russet suit of camel‘s hair,

With spirits light and eye serene,

Is dearer to my bosom far

Than all the trappings of a queen.

The humble tent and murmuring breeze

That whistles thro‘ its fluttering walls,

My unaspiring fancy please,

Better than towers and splendid halls41

The poet‘s negative attitude towards the city is a modern motif among the Arab

romantic and modernist poets. The attitude of the Arab modernist poets towards the city

can be classified into tree trends; the first trend advocates the absolute rejection of the

city, and the best representatives of this trend are Ahmed Abd al-Muti Hijazi, Adonis,

Abd al-Wahhab Al-Bayati, and Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab. The second trend holds

40
Maisuna Al-Kalbi was a Bedouin wife of the Caliph Muawiyah Ibn Abu Sufyan (602-680), divorced due
to her verses in which she mocked her husband Muawiyah.
41
J. D. Carlyle, Specimens of Arabian Poetry from The Earliest Time to The Extinction of The Khaliphat
(Cambridge UP, 1796) 31.
 60

antithetical views of the city. The poets of this trend oscillate between admiration and

rejection of the city, among these poets are Nizar Qabbani and Salah Abd al-Sabur. The

third trend celebrates the city. Among the poets of this trend are Mahmud Darwish and

Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Maqaleh, who always extols his city Sana'a. In his collection Kitab

Al-Mudon: Jidariyyat Ghinaiyyah min Zaman al-Ishq wa Al-Safar [The Book of Cities:

Walls Lyrics from the time of Love and Travel] Al-Maqaleh eulogizes all the cities which

he has visited, among them six are Western cities and fifteen are Arab cities including his

beloved city, Sana'a. In the following verses, Al-Maqaleh verbalizes his great love to

Sana'a:

‫٘ؼخء‬ٛ

ٍٜٞ‫ حُط‬٢ً‫ٓال‬ٝ ٢‫يط‬٤ٓ

٢‫كخٍٓظ‬ٝ

٢‫ اًح ًخٕ هِز‬٢٘٤‫ٓخٓل‬

‫َى‬٤‫أَٗى ؿ‬

ٚ‫ كز‬٢‫ك‬

‫ ُلظخص‬٢‫ؤ ك‬١‫ح‬ٞ‫ط‬ٝ

َٔ‫ٖٓ حُؼ‬

‫حُـَد‬ٝ ‫ٓغ كخط٘خص ٖٓ حَُ٘م‬

٢‫ٖ حُؼَر‬١ُٞ‫يحص ٖٓ ح‬٤ٓ ‫ٓغ‬

ُٚ ‫ٍ كذ‬ٝ‫كوي ً٘ض أ‬

Sana'a

Oh my lady, my purified angel,

And my guardian
 61

Forgive me if my heart

Shared others with you in love

And for moments in life colluded

With femme fatales from the east and the west

With ladies from the Arab world

You were the first beloved 42.

To the contrary, Abd al-Wahab Al-Bayati portrays the city as a villain, unreal,

false, naked, and full of blood and crimes. Amongst the Arab modernist poets, it is Al-

Bayati who censures the city severely. In his poem ―Al-Madina‖ [The City] Al-Bayati

exposes the city as a place of crime, killing, torturing, loss, persecution, degradation,

decay and poverty:

‫٘ش‬٣‫ػ٘يٓخ طؼَص حُٔي‬ٝ

:‫٘ش‬٣ِ‫خ حُل‬ٜٗٞ٤‫ ػ‬٢‫ض ك‬٣‫ٍأ‬

‫خىم‬٤‫حُز‬ٝ ُِٜٙٞ‫ح‬ٝ ‫ٓزخًٍ حُٔخٓش‬

‫ حُٔ٘خٗن‬: ‫خ‬ٜٗٞ٤‫ ػ‬٢‫ض ك‬٣‫ٍأ‬

‫حُٔلخٍم‬ٝ ٕٞ‫ذ حُٔـ‬ُٜ٘‫ط‬

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

‫ٔش‬٣َ‫حُـ‬ٝ ّ‫ حُي‬:‫ض‬٣‫ٍأ‬

When the city uncovered

I saw in its sad eyes:

Slippers of the rulers, thieves and pawns

In its eyes, I saw: the gallows

The jails and the crematoriums are erected

42
My translation.
 62

……………………………………………

I saw the blood and the crime 43.

In his fragment ―The City‖, Adonis says:

Our fire is advancing towards the city

To demolish the bed of the city.

We shall demolish the bed of the city. (Boullata 63)

As much as he hates the city, Al-Sayyab loves the country, especially his village,

Jaikur. For Al-Sayyab, Jaikur represents the ideal world. Several of his poems bear the

name of Jaikur such as ―Marthiyat Jaikur‖ [Elegy on Jaikur], ―Al-Awdah li Jaikur‖ [The

Return to Jaikur], ―Afya Jaikur‖ [Shadows of Jaikur], ―Jaikur wa Al-Madinah‖ [Jaikur

and the City], ―Tammuz Jaikur‖ [Tammuz of Jaikur], ―Jaikur Shabat‖ [Jaikur become

old], ―Jaikur wa Ashjar Al-Madina‖ [Jaikur and Trees of the City], ―Jaikur Ummi‖

[Jaikur is my Mother]. In his poem ―Jaikur wa Al-Madinah‖ [Jaikur and the City] Al-

Sayyab portrays his life in the city as a nightmare where the streets become ropes of mud

that masticate his heart:

ّ
:‫٘ش‬٣‫د حُٔي‬ٍٝ‫ ى‬٢ُٞ‫طِظق ك‬ ٝ

٢‫ـٖ هِز‬٠ٔ٣ ٖ٤‫كزخال ٖٓ حُط‬

، ‫٘ش‬٤١ ، ٚ٤‫ ػٖ ؿَٔس ك‬، ٖ٤‫ؼط‬٣ ٝ

‫٘ش‬٣ِ‫ٍ حُل‬ٞ‫ حُلو‬١َ‫ـِيٕ ػ‬٣ ٍ‫كزخال ٖٓ حُ٘خ‬

٢‫ك‬ٍٝ ‫ هخع‬٢‫ٍ ك‬ٌٞ٤‫لَهٖ ؿ‬٣ ٝ

.‫٘ش‬٤‫ـ‬٠ُ‫خ ٍٓخى ح‬ٜ٤‫ٍِػٖ ك‬٣ ٝ

The city streets coil around me:

Thongs of mud bite into my heart,

43
These lines are taken from Al-Bayati‘s collection Yawmiyyat Siyasi Muhtarif, 1970, my translation.
 63

A dull ember in it yields only clay,

Cords of fire lash naked melancholy fields,

They, burn Jaikur in the pit of my soul,

They plant in the pit ashes of rancor.44

In the following lines taken from his poem ―Ughniyah Lil Qahirah‖ [A Song to

Cairo] Abd al-Sabur declares his love for the city in spite of all its tribulations and all its

defects:

. . . . ٢‫٘ظ‬٣‫خ ٓي‬٣ ‫حى‬ٞٛ‫أ‬

‫ ٍكخري‬٢‫ أٌَٗص ك‬٢٘ٗ‫حى ٍؿْ أ‬ٞٛ‫أ‬

٢٘‫خٍ ػ‬١ ‫ق‬٤ُ‫ حأل‬١َ٤١ ٕ‫أ‬ٝ

‫ال ِٓظـؤ‬ٝ ، ٟٝ‫ ال ٓؤ‬، ‫ى‬ٞ‫ أػ‬٢٘ٗ‫أ‬ٝ

‫حري‬ٞ‫ أر‬٢‫ أَٗى ك‬٢ً ‫ى‬ٞ‫أػ‬

. . . ‫ أَٗد ٖٓ ػٌحري‬٢ً ‫ى‬ٞ‫أػ‬

I love oh my city . . .

I love you, though I have been denied in your spaciousness

And my tame bird fled from me

And I return, neither shelter nor refuge

I return to be displaced at your doors

I return to drink your torture45 . . .

In the ancient Western communities, the city represents a perfect area for a perfect

community46. It had a religious dimension and was connected to God and Heaven.

44
Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed, Modern Arabic Poetry: An Anthology (New York: Columbia UP, 1987) 432,
translated by Lena Jayyusi and Christopher Middleton.
45
My translation.
46
Hugh Magennis, Images of Community in Old English Poetry (Cambridge UP, 1996).
 64

Gradually, the concept of the city changed from a celestial signification to an earthly

concept to become eventually connected to human and community rather than God and

Heaven. S. T. Augustine (354-430) wrote a book entitled The City of God in which he

indicated the conflict between the city of God and the city of humans. Other writers dealt

with the imaginary cities and the perfect communities as in Plato‘s Ideal City, in his

utopian work Republic, Thomas More‘s Utopia (1516) and Tommaso Campanella‘s The

City of the Sun (1602). All these works are utopian philosophies dealing with the city as a

place of ideal society.

For the English romantic poets, some of them present a positive image of the city,

whereas others point out the problematics of the city. For instance in Wordsworth‘s

―Composed upon Westminster Bridge‖, Wordsworth depicts a splendid view of London:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep. (4-9)

And in his poem ―On the Extinction of The Venetian Republic‖, Wordsworth glorifies

the city of Venice:

Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty

She was a maiden City, bright and free

No guile seduced, no force could violate. (4-6)

Among the other romantic poets who view the city and its streets as a dingy and
 65

deserted place are William Blake and Byron. Blake in his poem ―London‖, portrays the

city as corrupted and cruel in which everything is confiscated, even the river. In the city,

nobody can be free. Note the double use of the word ‗chartered‘ which metaphorically

emphasizes the taking over of the impossible, i.e. the river:

I wander through each chartered street,

Near where the chartered Thames does flow,

A mark in every face I meet,

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man. (1-5)

Blake and Wordsworth are romantic poets, but they present a contrasting picture

of London city. On the other hand, Wordsworth also contradicted himself when he

presents another image of London in his poem ―The Prelude, Residence in London‖

where he criticized the crowd of London and its citizens:

To times when half the City shall break out

Full of one passion, vengeance, rage, or fear?

To executions, to a Street on fire,

Mobs, riots, or rejoicings? From these sights. (672- 675)

The Victorian poets, they held negative attitudes towards the city. For instance,

the eminent Victorian poet, Mathew Arnold, in his poem ―A Summer Night‖ presented

the city in a melancholic image where the feelings of loneliness and alienation surround

the individual in deserted streets:

In the deserted, moon-blanch‘d street,

How lonely rings the echo of my feet!

 66

Those windows which I gaze at, frown,

Silent and white, unopening down. (1- 4)

The negative image of the city emerged in the works of some romantic poets

including Wordsworth, who showed an ambivalent attitude to the city. The Victorian

poets view the city as an indicator of inhumanity and anxiety because cities in the

Victorian era were more complicated due to the social changes as people left the

countryside to begin a new life in the industrial cities. The radical transformation from

spiritualism to materialism as well as the emergence of the intellectual and scientific

theories of Marx and Darwin made the Victorian poets inveigh against the city.

In the 20th century, the cities witnessed momentous changes and development.

Meanwhile, they witnessed a savage destruction during the 1st and 2nd World War and

also during the Cold War. The common image of London city shared by the romantic,

Victorian and modernist poets is that it has always been depicted as a foggy, dim place

crammed with people. The poets dealt with the theme of city since the ancient time;

however, the theme of the city is being highly preferred by the modernist poets. They

focused on the intangible side of the city and converted the real city to become a surreal

city. For such poets, city is a manifestation of modernity and one of the significant factors

which forms the personality of the modernist poets. Also, for the modernist poets, the city

is a locus of alienation47 rather than a place of comfort and harmony; an example of

decay. According to Baudelaire, the city is a dead and disgusting world. It has a horrible

face, which arouses worry, despair, alienation, and isolation. It is a city of vice and sin

and a home of paradoxes, anarchy, ugliness and chaos. The city in T. S. Eliot‘s poetry is

47
Edward Timms and David Kelley, ed, Unreal City: Urban Experience in Modern European Literature
and Art (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1985).
 67

unreal, ghosts-ridden, shelter of death, and infertility. Like, Byron and Blake, Eliot

depicts the city covered with fog and chimney smoke.

2.2.3. Theme of Death

Death was and still is an inescapable matter that perturbs poets and all humans in

general. Since the earlier time, Arabic poetry had touched on the theme of death. Arab

poets of pre-Islamic era had a pagan and materialistic vision of life and death, however

most of the them dealt with the inevitability of death. Kab Ibn Zuhair in his poem ―Al-

Burdah‖ [The Mantle] says:

ٍٞٔ‫ آُش كيرخء ٓل‬٠ِ‫ٓخ ً ػ‬ٞ٣ ٚ‫خُض ٓالٓظ‬١ ٕ‫ا‬ٝ ٠‫ًَ حرٖ حٗؼ‬

Every woman‘s son,

long safe,

will one day be carried off

on a curve-backed bier48

Jahiliyya [Pre-Islamic] poets dealt with two kinds of death: the concrete and the

abstract death. For the concrete death or the real death, Jahiliyya poets display two

different attitudes towards it. The first attitude represented the existentialist trend of the

poets who aspired to achieve and obtain all their pleasures before death coming. When

the poets of this trend fear death, they in reality fear losing their pleasures. Among these

poets is Tarafa Ibn al-Abd who says:

ْ ٌَ ََِٓ ‫َخ رِ َٔخ‬ٍُٛ ‫ أُرَخ ِى‬٢ِ٘‫كَ َي ْػ‬

١‫َـ ِي‬٣ ‫ض‬ ٢ِ‫َّظ‬٤َِ٘ٓ ‫ْ ُغ َى ْك َغ‬٤‫كَب ِ ْٕ ًُ ْ٘ضَ الَ طَ ْٔ ِط‬

١‫ ِى‬َّٞ ‫ هَخ َّ ػُـ‬٠َ‫ى َُ ْْ أَكْ لَِْ َٓظ‬

َ ‫ َؿ ِّي‬َٝ ٌ ‫ْ الَ ػَال‬ََُٞٝ
٠َ‫ َ٘ ِش حُلَظ‬٤ْ ‫ َُّٖ ِٓ ْٖ َػ‬ٛ ‫ع‬

‫ َٓخ طُؼ ََْ رِخُ َٔخ ِء طُ ِْرِـ ِي‬٠َ‫ض َٓظ‬

ٍ ٤ْ َٔ ًُ ِ ‫ حُ َؼخ ًِال‬٢ِ‫ َُّٖ َٓ ْزو‬ْٜ٘ ِٔ َ‫ك‬
‫ص رِ ََْ٘ رَـ ٍش‬

48
―Banat Suad: Translation and Introduction‖, Michael A. Sells and M. J. Sells, Journals of Arabic
Literature, vol. 21, No. 2 (sep 1990) 140-154.
 68

Canst thou make me immortal, O thou that blamest me so

For haunting the battle and loving the pleasures that fly?

If thou hast not the power to ward me from Death, let me go

To meet him and scatter the wealth in my hand, ere I die.

Save only for three things in which noble youth take delight,

I care not how soon rises o'er me the coronach loud:

Wine that foams when the water is poured on it, ruddy, not bright,

Dark wine that I quaff stol'n away from the cavilling crowd49

The second attitude represents the poets‘ eagerness towards death due to boredom

and alienation that control their feelings. In the Jahiliyya period, poets meant abstract

death as a death of dignity and honor for humanity. Unlike the Jahiliyya poets, Muslim

poets viewed death as a next stage of life called Barzakh life, which precedes

resurrection. Islam presents a positive outlook of death; and answers all the metaphysical

questions of life after death. However, Muslim traditional poets display two different

attitudes towards death. The first attitude is represented by Muslim religious poets who

perpetually engross with Allah. Such poets are content with death whenever it comes

because they believe that this worldly life was created to test human beings while the

afterlife is the true life, that is a reward. The following verses represent this view:

٢‫َػ‬ٜٓ ‫ هللا‬٢‫ ؿ٘ذ ًخٕ ك‬١‫ أ‬٠ِ‫ػ‬ ً ‫ٖ أُهظَ ِٓٔٔـخ‬٤‫ ك‬٢ُ‫ُٔض أرخ‬ٝ

ِ َِّ ‫ ٓٔـ‬ٍٞ ِ‫ـخٍ ٗـ‬ٛٝ‫ أ‬٠ِ‫زخٍى ػ‬٣

‫ع‬ ‫٘ـؤ‬٣ ٕ‫ا‬ٝ ُٚ‫ ًحص حإل‬٢‫ًُي ك‬ٝ

I care not to die as I am a Muslim,

on which side my demise for Allah was.

It is all for God who if He wishes,

49
Reynold A. Nicholson, A Literary History of The Arabs (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1969) 108.
 69

He will bless these lacerated remains of limbs 50

The second attitude is the attitude of the licentious poets like Abu Nuwas and Abu

al-Atahiya. Abu Nuwas, before his death, wrote ascetic poems which display his fear of

death because of the sins which he has perpetrated. Such poets fear about the future after

death; therefore their ascetic poems deal with death, grave and Judgment. For instance,

Abu Nuwas says:

١ٍ‫أٗض ال طي‬ٝ َ٣َُٔ‫َ ح‬ٜ‫ظ‬ ٠ِ‫ق أٗض ػ‬٤ً ١َ‫ض ٗؼ‬٤ُ‫خ‬٣

ٍ‫حُٔي‬ٝ ٍٞ‫ؿِٔض رخٌُخك‬ ‫ق أٗض اًح‬٤ً ١َ‫ض ٗؼ‬٤ُ ٝ‫أ‬

َ٘‫لش حُل‬٤‫ز‬ٛ ‫غ حُلٔخد‬ٟٝ ‫ق أٗض اًح‬٤ً ١َ‫ض ٗؼ‬٤ُ ٝ‫أ‬

١ٌٍ‫ٓخ ػ‬ٝ َ‫ ر‬٢‫ َُر‬٢ُٞ‫ه‬ ‫ٓخ‬ٝ ‫ض‬٤‫ٔخ أط‬٤‫ ك‬٢‫ٓخ كـظ‬

١َٓ‫حهزِض ٓخ حٓظيرَص ٖٓ أ‬ ٝ‫ أ‬١‫يص ٍٗي‬ٜ‫ٕ ه‬ًٞ‫إٔ ال ح‬

١َٔ‫ ٓخ كخص ٖٓ ػ‬٠ِ‫ ػ‬٢‫أٓل‬ ‫خ‬٣ٝ ‫أطخ ٓٔخ حًظٔزض‬ٞٓ ‫خ‬٣

O would that I knew how you will fare

Unwitting upon your bed;

Or that I knew how you will fare

When [your body] is bathed in camphor and lotus blossom;

Or that I knew how you will fare

When account is made on the Morning of Assembly

What will be my defense about the things I have done?

What will I say to my Lord? What excuse will mine be –

For not having sought out a path of righteousness,

Or embracing the [good] I turned my back on?

50
My translation, these verses are attributed to Khubayb Ibn Adiy, a companion of the prophet Mohammed,
he recited these verses before a moments of his killing and crucifying.
 70

O for the misery of my returns –

And the pity of what was missed of my life! (Kennedy 122)

Arabic modernist poetry is imbued with the theme of death. The Tammuzian

poets51 (Al-Sayyab, Al-Bayati, Hawi, and Adonis) view death in a different perspective.

They view death as a path for a better life; significantly, they indicate struggle, revolution

and victory by employing myths about death and rebirth. Like Tammuzian poets, the

Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish extols death because it is the way of regaining his

occupied land. In his book The Myth in Al-Sayyab’s Poetry Ali Abd al-Ridha says that it

is rare to find an Arab poet like Al-Sayyab who could perceive that death lies in life and

life lies in death. He adds that rhythm of death permeates in Al-Sayyab‘s poems that

make him sound as if he is a ghost of death52. The words and images of death prevail in

Abd al-Sabur‘s poems such as corpses, bury, limbs, blood, ruin, obituary, destruction,

mourning, shrouds, coffin and crucifixion. In his poem ―Al-Nas Fi Biladi‖ [The People of

my Country] Abd al-Sabur expresses the ordinary ceremony of his uncle‘s death:

Yesterday I visited my village

Uncle Mustafa had died

They laid him to rest in the earth

He built no castles (his hut was of mud)

And behind his ancient coffin

Walked those who, like him, owned only an old cotton gown.53

51
The name of ‗Tammuzian poets‘ is given by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (1919-1994) to the modern Arab poets
who used the myth of Tammuz in their poem.
52
Ali Abdalridha, Al-Usturah Fi Shir Al-Sayyab [The Myth in Al-Sayyab‘s Poetry] (Iraq, Ministry of
Culture and Arts, 1978) 170.
53
Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed, Modern Arabic Poetry: An Anthology (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987)
124.
 71

For the Western poets, death was and still is a complicated matter. The theme of

death is present since the early modern poetry. 54 Critics say that the obsessive concern

with the mortality of human being caused states of anxiety and alienation to the

modernist poets, and their excessive contemplation of death led to a negative meaning of

life and personal identity. The attitudes of the modernist poets towards the matter of

death differ from one poet to another. For some, it is a dreadful ghost and in the eyes of

other poets, it is savior, a gift of God and the greatest blessing to human beings. The

twentieth century is described as the century of genocides because of wars. Modernist

poets dealt with both concrete and abstract death because the death of values and

principles is equivalent to the death of human himself. As the contemplation of death was

the major inclination of the modernist poets, the word ‗death‘ and the words that relate to

‗death‘ are excessively used in modernist poetry.

T. S. Eliot dealt with death as fate. Eliot‘s verses feature many words and phrases

that refer to death, such as death skull, skeleton, breastless creatures underground, lipless

grin, and dead limbs. His poem, ―The Waste Land‖ dealt with the theme of death

excessively, starting from its title ‗The Waste Land‘ which refers to the death of land and

death of its inhabitants. It may either symbolize the death of moral standards, love, peace

and freedom in the modern era and also refer to the real death of people due to the world

wars and the colonization movements. Its subtitles ‗The Burial of The Dead‘ in the first

section and ‗Death by Water‘ in the fourth section, clearly refer to the subject of death.

54
Lucinda M Backer, Death and Early Modern Englishwoman (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2003) 16.
 72

2.3. Techniques of Modernist Poetry

2.3.1. Language Techniques

W. H. Auden says ―a poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in

love with language.‖55 The modern poetry in the first half of the 20th century was written

in a new poetic diction and has been glossed as ‗modernist poetry‘ or ‗modernism‘.

Nevertheless, modernism has a vast significance in literary criticism and does not merely

concern poetry, but also other fields of art, literature, music and architecture. The

modernist poets prefer everyday language instead of the standard literary language. In his

essay ―The Function of Poetry‖ T. S. Eliot says ―Emotion and feeling, then are best

expressed in the common language of the people-that is, in the language common to all

classes: the structure, the rhythm, the sound, the idiom of a language, express the

personality of the people which speaks it.‖ On the contrary, the modernist poet does not

confine himself to a specific diction of the language. He/She may utilize the colloquial

language such as E. E. Cummings and William Carlos Williams or ordinary language

such as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, who says in his poem ―The Waste Land‖:

At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives

Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,

The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights

Her stove, and lays out food in tins.

Out of the window perilously spread

Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,

On the divan are piled (at night her bed)

55
Kevin Goldstein-Jackson, comp, The Dictionary of Essential Quotations (London: Croom Helm, 1983)
122.
 73

Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays. (220-227)

In these lines, Eliot uses the everyday language56 such as typist, tea, breakfast,

stove, food in tins, drying combination, stockings, slippers, and camisoles. Like Eliot,

Abd al-Sabur employs the everyday language as in his poem ―Al-Huzn‖ [The Sorrow]:

ٖ٣ِ‫ ك‬٢ٗ‫ ا‬، ٢‫خكز‬ٛ ‫خ‬٣

‫زخف‬ُٜ‫ ح‬٢ٜ‫ؿ‬ٝ َ٘٣ ُْٝ ، ‫ كٔخ حرظٔٔض‬، ‫زخف‬ُٜ‫ِغ ح‬١

‫ِذ حَُُم حُٔظخف‬١‫٘ش أ‬٣‫ف حُٔي‬ٞ‫هَؿض ٖٓ ؿ‬ٝ

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

َٕٝ‫ ه‬٢‫ز‬٤‫ ؿ‬٢‫َ ك‬ٜ‫ٍؿؼض رؼي حُظ‬ٝ

‫ن‬٣َ‫ حُط‬٢‫خ ك‬٣‫كَ٘رض ٗخ‬

٢ِ‫ٍطوض ٗؼ‬ٝ

Oh, friend, I am sad

Morning has risen, but I smiled not, and morning lit my face not

And I left the city searching for a daily bread

……………………………………………….

And afternoon I returned with money in my pocket

In the way, I had a tea

And I mended my shoes.57

The language of the modernist poem is at once familiar and common, but

complex and difficult. The modernist poets focus on the choice of words significantly in

their poems. The modernist poets play with the words to produce a fragmented text. They

juxtapose the words and phrase to make the reader assume the missed words in the

56
Salah Abd al-Sabur, Hayati fi Al-Shi'r [My Life in Poetry] (Beirut: Dar al-Awdah, 1977) 167.
57
My translation.
 74

verses. For the modernist poet, word choice is the landmark of the successful poet

because it is the key device to create allusions, images, myths, irony, symbols, paradoxes

and metaphors. Although traditional poets employed such literary devices in their poetry,

the modernist poets produced distinctive poetry which is different from the traditional

one. The modernist poets used the technique of poet‘s self-concealment by superseding it

by a persona; and dramatic monologue is pertinent in revealing the persona rather than

the poet.

The poetic language in both Arabic and English modernist poetry highlights the

word and its relationship to the things which it signifies. Neologisms and the lexical

inventions are two of the main features of a modernist poem. A modernist poem is

fragmented, based on images rather than words and appears to the reader as an abstruse

text. ―The reader of modernism had to learn to tolerate incomplete, unfinished,

unconnected material, as the writer defined and created his or her own medium.‖58

―Eliot‘s remarks that the poet must ‗dislocate‘ language and must be ‗difficult‘ were also

highly influential. Science and ordinary language made statements directly; poetry, on the

other hand, made them obliquely, through the use of metaphor, paradox, and irony.‖59

i. Technique of Exotic Vocabulary, Phrases and Foreign Names

Utilizing an alien and archaic vocabulary of miscellaneous cultures in poetry is

one of the features of modernist poetry. This technique commenced early in English

poetry. Shakespeare used a number of foreign personalities and places in his works. And

the English romantic poets also referred to the foreign places in their poems. A poet‘s

58
Randy Malamud, ―The Language of Modernism‖, South Atlantic Review, vol. 56, No. 1, (Jan., 1991), pp.
134-136, JSTOR. 13/06/2008 07:42 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3200163>.
59
Michael H Whitworth, ed, Modernism (Malden: Blackwell, 2007) 43.
 75

wide breadth of knowledge and his over-familiarity with cultures enable him to deploy

the primitive and exotic words in his poetry. For instance, Al-Sayyab in his poem ―Min

Ru'ya Fukai‖ [From Fukai‘s Vision] composed the first line of the poem from Chinese

language as it is shown in the following:

! ١‫ٗـخ‬ًٞ ، ١‫ٗـخ‬ًٞ .. ١‫خ‬٤ٛ

، ١‫ٖ كوَ ٗخ‬٤ُٜ‫ح‬

١‫خ‬ٜ‫م ٗ٘ـ‬ٞٓٝ

.‫ي‬٤‫ٖ هزَ ًَ ػ‬٤‫ؼؾ رخُِٔحٍػ‬٣

! ١‫ٗـخ‬ًٞ ، ١‫ٗـخ‬ًٞ .. ١‫خ‬٤ٛ

Hiai … Ko-ngai, Ko-ngai

China is a field of tea

And Shanghai market

Is teeming with farmer before every feast

Hiai … Ko-ngai, Ko-ngai.60

Al-Sayyab gathers plenty of foreign words, some of them are names of writers,

myths and places such as William Sazac61, Robespierre, Krupp, Sappho, Shakespeare,

Macbeth, Icarus, Narcissus, Tantalus, Medusa, Oedipus, Jocasta, Faust, Helen, Ulysses,

Cerberus, Ganymede, Olympus, Aeneas, Eifel, Avon, king etc. Moreover, some poems of

Al-Sayyab are entitled with foreign words such as ―Cerberus in Babel‖, ―Garcia Lorca‖,

―Min Ru'ya Fukai‖ [From Fukai‘s Vision], and ―Louis MacNeice‖.

Similarly, Abd al-Sabur deploys foreign words; he uses foreign transcription as in

the poem, ―Baudelaire‖. Abd al-Sabur draws the last line of Baudelaire‘s poem ―Au

60
My translation.
61
According to Al-Sayyab‘s notes on his poem ―Min Ru'ya Fukai‖ [From Fukai's Vision] William Sazac
was a doctor at the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima.
 76

Lecteur‖ [To The Reader]:

‫ أٗخ‬٢‫و‬٣‫ي‬ٛ ‫خ‬٣

Hypocrite lecteur

mon semblable, mon frère!

َ‫ٕ ٗؼ‬ٌُٞ‫ح‬ٝ ‫ٗخػَ أٗض‬

Like Al-Sayyab, Abd al-Sabur utilizes the foreign names in his poems such as

William Butler Yeats, Yevtushenko, and Volga. Eliot employs foreign words and phrases

from other languages such as Sanskrit, French, Greek and Italian. In his poem ―Rhapsody

on a Windy Night‖, the line 51 has been loaned from French language:

La lune ne garde aucune rancune. (51)

The above line is drawn from a poem by the French symbolist poet Jules Laforgue

(1860- 1887) entitled ―The Lament of that Beautiful Moon.‖62 Eliot‘s collection Prufrock

and Other Observation contains a poem with an Italian title La Figlia che Piange. In

Eliot‘s ―Sweeney Erect‖, he noted Nausicaa and Polypheme:

Morning stirs the feet and hands

(Nausicaa and Polypheme).

Gesture of orang-outang. (9-11)

These two mythological characters which are mentioned parenthetically refer to

the Greek epic Odyssey written by Homer.63 The concern of this study is to point out that

a modernist poet employs words and phrases from other languages which differ from his

language. In Eliot‘s ―Mr. Eliot‘s Sunday Morning Service‖, he noted this Greek text:

Superfetation of : . (6)

62
Richard Danson Brown and Suman Gupta, ed, Aestheticism and Modernism: Debating 20th Century
Literature 1900- 1960 (London: Routledge, 2005) 259.
63
James Edwin Miller, T. S. Eliot The Making of an American Poet (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania UP, 2005).
 77

Peter Childs in his book Modernism, says ―Eliot borrowed from Baudelaire,

mythology, Shakespeare, Eastern religion, paganism, music hall and a host of literary

predecessors‖.64 Such use of foreign words and phrases is considered one of the new

techniques of the modernist poetry.

ii. Technique of Repetition

Repetition in poetry comprises repetition of the letter, word, phrase and the lines

or paragraph. Repetition is a poetic device in both conventional and modernist poetry.

Nazik Al-Malaika, in her book Qadhaya Al-Shir Al-Muasir [Issues of the Contemporary

Poetry], states that repetition in poetry was known in Arabic traditional poetry since the

pre-Islamic period, but repetition became more familiar in the modern Arabic poetry.

Repetition adds not only a rhythm, but also a psychological dimension to the poem.

According to Nazik Al-Malaika, repetition of a letter is utilized much in modern Arabic

poetry. Al-Sayyab employs all kinds of repetition in his poetry. In his poem ―Unshudat

Al-Matar‖ [Rain Song], Al-Sayyab utilizes the repetition of the letter, word, phrase and

paragraph. The instance of the paragraph repetition is discernible in the following lines:

I cry to the Gulf, ―O Gulf,

O giver of pearls, shells and death.‖

The echo comes back

Like sobs,

―O Gulf,

O giver of shells and death‖.

……………………………

64
Peter Childs, Modernism: The New Critical Idiom (London: Routledge, 2000) 99.
 78

I cry to the Gulf, ―O Gulf,

O giver of pearls, shells and death‖.

The echo comes back

Like sobs,

―O Gulf,

O giver of shells and death.‖ (Boullata 8-9)

Similarly, Abd al-Sabur employs the technique of repetition. In his poem

―Ughniyah Lil Shitaa‖ [A Song to Winter], Abd al-Sabur repeats the words of winter,

die, evening, alone, and he repeats some phrases such as ―tells me‖, ―I shall die alone‖ :

The winter tells me I shall die alone

One winter just like this, one winter

The evening tells me I shall die alone

One evening just like this, one evening

That my past years were all in vain

That I live in a naked world.

The winter tells me that my soul

Shivers with the cold.

……………………...

The winter tells me that my body is sick

The winter tells me

That one winter just like this

I will die alone

Die alone
 79

One winter. (Jayyusi 125- 126)

iii. Nagging and Resentful Language

The language of the modernist poet is a language of resentment and complaint

because most of the modernist poets were alienated and were obsessed with death.

Therefore, modernist poetry has a critical tone and displays a complaint about sorrow,

urban decay and boredom. Several of Al-Sayyab‘s poems bear titles that imply

unpleasant feeling such as ―Ri'ah Tatamazaq‖ [A Lung is Lacerating], ―Malal‖

[Weariness], ―Madinah Bila Matar‖ [A City without Rain], ―Madinat Al-Sarab‖ [City of

The Mirage], ―Gharib Ala Al-Khalij‖ [A Stranger by the Gulf], ―Risalah min Maqbarah‖

[A Message from Graveyard], and ―Ya Ghurbat Al-Ruh‖ [O Alienation of the Soul]. In

his poem Jaikur and the City, Al-Sayyab says:

The city streets coil around me:

Thongs of mud bite into my heart,

A dull ember in it yields only clay,

Cords of fire lash naked melancholy fields,

They burn Jaikur in the pit of my soul,

They plant in the pit ashes of rancor. (Jayyusi 432)

In his poem ―City of Sindbad‖ Al-Sayyab says:

Hungry in the tomb without food,

Naked in the snow without a cloak,

I cried out in winter:

Bestir, O rain

The beds of bones and snow and particles of dust,

 80

The beds of stone. (Khouri 93)

Similarly, Abd al-Sabur, who is also called ‗the sad poet‘, in his poem ―Al-Huzn‖ [The

Sorrow] complains about his sadness:

ٖ٣ِ‫ ك‬٢ٗ‫ ا‬، ٢‫خكز‬ٛ ‫خ‬٣

‫زخف‬ُٜ‫ ح‬٢ٜ‫ؿ‬ٝ َ٘٣ ُْٝ ، ‫ كٔخ حرظٔٔض‬، ‫زخف‬ُٜ‫ِغ ح‬١

Oh, friend, I am sad

Morning has risen, but I smiled not, and morning lit my face not.65

In his poem ―The people of My Country‖ Abd al-Sabur says:

The people of my country wound like falcons

Their songs are like the chill of winter in the rain's locks

Their laughter hisses like flame through firewood

Their footsteps dent the firm earth

They kill, steal, drink belch. (Jayyusi 123)

iv. Technique of Conversational Language

Using conversational language in Arabic poetry began with the birth of Arabic

poetry itself. The conversational style whether it is dialogue or monologue was used in

Arabic traditional poetry. For example, the pre-Islamic poet, Imru al-Qays begins his

famous poem Muallaq with a dialogue when he says:

َٓ َ ٍٞ‫َٖ حُ َّيه‬٤‫ ر‬ُِِّٟٞ‫ ح‬٢‫و‬

ِ ْٞ‫كل‬ ِ ِٔ ‫ر‬ ٍِ٘ٓٝ ‫ذ‬٤‫ كز‬ًًَِٟ ٖٓ ‫هلخ ٗزي‬

Let‘s halt ! And on the‘ abode of loved ones weep

Where ‗tween‘ ―Dukhool‖ and ―Hawmal‖ sands pile deep.66

65
My translation.
66
Translated by Dr. Ibrahim A. Mumayiz, 28/08/ 2010
<http://www.tatweer.edu.sa/En/EMagazine/Pages/Mu%E2%80%99allaqatImru%E2%80%99ulQays.aspx>.
 81

In the above-lines, there is an external dialogue between the poet and two others,

either illusory or real. In Arabic traditional poetry, the dialogue occurs either between the

poet and him/herself and in this case it is called internal (monologue) or between the poet

and his companion, his beloved, nature, horse etc. In his poem Muallaqa, Antara Ibn

Shaddad addresses his beloved in dramatic monologue:

٢ِٔ َِْٓ ‫ح‬َٝ َ‫زَخ َكخ ً ىَح ٍَ َػ ْزَِش‬ٛ

َ ٢ِّٔ ‫ ِػ‬َٝ ٢ِٔ ٌََِّ َ‫ح ِء ط‬َٞ ‫َخ ىَح ٍَ َػ ْز َِـشَ رِخُ َـ‬٣

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

٢ِٓ ‫ ْ٘ ِي طَ ْوطُ َُ ِٓ ْٖ َى‬ِٜ ُْ ‫ُ ح‬ٞ٤ِ‫ر‬َٝ ٢ِِّ٘ٓ ِ ُ‫َُوَ ْي ًَ ًََْ ط‬َٝ

ٌَ ِٛ ‫ح‬َٞ َٗ ‫حُ َِّ َٓخ ُف‬َٝ ‫ي‬

ْ‫ى ح ُْ ُٔظَ َزٔ ِِّـ‬

ِ َِ ‫م ػَ ْـ‬ ْ ‫َُ َٔ َؼ‬
ِ ‫ض ًَ َز‬
ِ ٍ‫خ‬ ‫خ‬َٜ ََّٗ‫ف أل‬ٞ‫ُـ‬
ِ ٤ُّٔ ُ‫ ََ ح‬٤‫ص طَ ْو ِز‬
ُ ‫ ِى ْى‬َٞ َ‫ك‬

O Ablah‘s dwelling in Jawa, do speak to me;

may your mornings be blessed,

and may you be protected from harm

………………………………………

I remembered you when spears dipped into my body,

drinking deep; sharp, flashing swords dripping with my blood

How I desired then to kiss the swords,

because they sparkled like your smiling mouth.67

Compared to Arabic traditional poetry, Arab modernist poets effectively deploy

the techniques of monologue and dialogue; especially interior monologue which is

considered a sort of stream of consciousness. Al-Sayyab is the first Arab modernist poet

who uses the dramatic monologue technique in his poetry. In his poem ―Al-Nahr wa Al-

Mawt‖ [The River and Death] Al-Sayyab addresses a small river in Al-Basra city called

Buwayb:
67
Translated by Mahmoud Abbas Masoud, <http://www.saolt.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6670>.
 82

―Buwayb ah Buwayb‖

……………………..

Are you a river or a forest of tears ?

…………………………………....

And you Buwayb . . .

I want to drown in you, gathering shells ,

building a house with them, where the overflow

from stars and moon.68

The following lines, which are drawn from Abd al-Sabur‘s poem ―Ughniyat Al-

Lail‖ [Night Song] demonstrates another example of the use of monologue:

"‫َس‬٤‫ش حأله‬٤ِ٤ُِ‫ حُٔخػش ح‬٢‫"ك‬

"ٟ‫ حُ٘ي‬٢ِ٘‫ز‬٣ ٕ‫ أهخف أ‬٢ٗ‫ كب‬، ‫ض‬٤‫ حُز‬٠ُ‫ ا‬٢ٌٗ‫"ه‬

٢‫زخؿ‬ٛ‫د أ‬ٌٝ‫"ط‬

"٢ٜ‫ؿ‬ٝ ‫ هزق‬ٝ‫زي‬٣ٝ

―In the late- night hour‖

―Take me home, I fear that dew moistens me‖

―And the make-up melts

Then my face looks ugly‖69

In Abd al-Sabur‘s poem ―Hadith fi Mqha‖ [Talk in a Café], the dialogue is

incomplete, the poet leaves blank lines in the conversation as it is shown in the following

lines:

‫ ؟‬٢‫ظ‬٣‫َ كخؿؤطي رلي‬ٛ

68
Translated by Lena Jayyusi and Christopher Middleton, Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed, Modern Arabic
Poetry: An Anthology (New York: Columbia UP, 1987) 435-436.
69
My translation.
 83

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

‫ٔخ ٓ٘ي ؟‬٣ًَ ٕ‫خطي ًخ‬ٜٗ‫ا‬

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

‫زخ ػ٘ي‬٣َ‫ ُٔض ؿ‬٢ٌُ٘

‫زخ ػ٘ي‬٣َ‫ُٔض ؿ‬

Did I surprise you with my talk?

…………………………………

Your listening was generous of you

………………………………………

But I am not a stranger to you

I am not stranger to you.70

In his book Dramatic Monologue, Glennis Byron explores that dramatic

monologue was highly employed in Victorian poetry. however, dramatic monologue is

regarded as one of the devices of the modernist poem. The conversational technique is

employed in many Eliot‘s poems.

v. Techniques of Paradox and Juxtaposition

Paradox as a poetic device was not only employed by the modernist poets, but

also by the traditional poets. The pre-Islamic poet, Imru al-Qays, in his Muallaqah says:

َِ ‫ َُ ِٓ ْٖ َػ‬٤ْ َّٔ ُ‫ُ ح‬َّٚ‫ ْو ٍَ َكط‬ٛ

َ ‫ْ ِى‬ُٞٔ ُِْ ‫ًَـ‬ ً ‫ـَ َٓؼــخ‬
ٍ ‫ِٓ ٌَـ ٍَّ ِٓلَـ ٍَّ ُٓ ْو ِز ٍَ ُٓ ْي ِر‬

Now wheeling, now charging, advancing, retreating,

All at once,

Like a mighty boulder the torrent has washed

70
Ibid.
 84

Down from the heights.71

In his poem ―Al-Awdah li Jaikur‖ [The Return to Jaikur] Al-Sayyab uses the paradox

when he says:

Death struggle

No death.

Speech

No sound.

Labour

No birth72

In his poem ―Mudhakkirat al-Malik Ajib ibn al-Khasib‖ [Memoirs of the King Ajib ibn

al-Khasib] Abd al-Sabur ironically presents paradoxical verses:

ٖ٤٘‫ ؿخرش حُظ‬٢‫ ك‬٢‫َ أر‬ٜ‫ه‬

ٖ٤‫حُٔئىر‬ٝ ٖ٤‫حُٔلخٍر‬ٝ ٖ٤‫ؾ رخُٔ٘خكو‬٠٣

My father's palace, in the dragon's forest

Is stuffed with hypocrites, warriors and polite 73

The metaphysical poet John Donne is regarded to be the first English poet who

utilized the device of paradox in English poetry. According to Abram‘s A Glossary of

Literary Terms, ‗The paradox is used occasionally by almost all poets, but was a

persistent and central device in seventeenth-century metaphysical poetry‘. The American

critic, Cleanth Brooks states that, the language of poetry is the language of paradox.

However, the element of paradox is regarded as a feature of poetic modernism. Jonathan

71
The translation taken from The Mute Immortals Speak Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual, a
book by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, P. 254.
72
My translation.
73
Ibid.
 85

Culler in his book Literary Theory A Very Short Introduction, says:

For new critics (Cleanth Brooks, John Crowe Ransom, W. K. Wimsatt),

the task of criticism was to elucidate individual works of art. Focusing on

ambiguity, paradox, irony, and the effects of connotation and poetic

imagery, the New Criticism sought to show the contribution of each

element of poetic form to a unified structure. (Culler 122)

vi. Language of Fragmentation and Discontinuity

Modernist poem is discerned as a fragmented and broken text. However, the

technique of fragmentation does not widely pervade the poetry of Al-Sayyab and Salah

Abd al-Sabur as it is seen in poems of Adonis and other Arab modernist poets. In his

poem ―Madinah Bila Matar‖ [A City without Rain] Al-Sayyab expresses his indignation

against the regime through the masques of Tammuz and Astarte. According to Dr. Abd

Al-Rahman Al-Qaud, the fragmentation of Al-Sayyab‘s poem ―A City Without Rain‖

was due to Al-Sayyab‘s fear of the regime. 74 In this poem Al-Sayyab says:

A fire with no flames keeps our city awake at night.

Its lanes and houses have fever. When the fever goes

And sunset colors it with all the clouds it carried.

A spark is about to fly, its dead are about to rise

―Tammuz has awakened from his muddy sleep under the grape bowers,

Tammuz has awakened, returned to green Babel to care for it‖ (Boullata 3)

The American poet and writer, Tony Hoagland remarks that fragmentation in

poetry is used as psychological expression and perceptual impression to imply the

74
Abd Al-Rahman Mohammed Al-Qaud, Al-Ibham fi Shir Al-Hadathah [The Vagueness in the Poetry of
Modernism] (Kuwait: Assiyasah Press) 216.
 86

fracture and disorder of modern life.

Element of discontinuity is discernable in Arabic traditional poetry, however

Arabic traditional poem is still characterized by its harmonious and coherent construction

of language. While discontinuity in a modernist poem is not merely due to variation in

subjects and fragmentation in the text, but due to the lack of coherent sentences and

ideas. Eliot's poems display discontinuity when Eliot goes from one subject to another

utilizing allusions and fragmentation.

2.3.2 Technique of Irony

Irony has been deployed in the ancient Arabic poetry since the Pre-Islamic period.

However, the modernist poem often draws upon irony and implies discrepancies between

the literal meaning of the text and its actual meaning. In his poem ―Unshudat Al-Matar‖

[Rain Song] Al-Sayyab ironically criticizes the situation in Iraq when he says:

There is famine in Iraq:

People watch the corn harvests thrown

To the crows and locusts

And grinders pounding

Grains and stones in the fields

Rain . . .

Rain . . .

Rain75 . . .

In his poem ―Al-Mukhbir‖ [The Informer] Al-Sayyab ironically speaks on behalf of the

informer and says:

75
Translated by Abdullah al-Udhari, Modern Poetry of the Arab World (Middlesex: Penguin, 1986) 31.
 87

َ٤‫ أٗخ حُلو‬: ‫أٗخ ٓخ ط٘خء‬

َ٤ٔ٠ُ‫ ح‬ٝ ّ‫ رخثغ حُي‬ٝ ، ‫ش حُـِحس‬٣ٌ‫زّخؽ أك‬ٛ

‫ أٗخ حُـَحد‬. ٖ٤ُٔ‫ُِظخ‬

! ‫ أٗخ حُوَحد‬، ٍ‫ أٗخ حُيٓخ‬. ‫وظخص ٖٓ ؿؼغ حُلَحم‬٣

ّ
‫ أؿ٘لش حٌُرخد‬ٝ ، ٢‫أػق ٖٓ هِز‬ ٢ّ ‫ٗلش حُزـ‬

! َ٤‫ أٗخ حُلو‬. . . ‫ ًٔخ ط٘خء‬. ١‫ي‬٣ ٖٓ ‫ أىكؤ‬ٝ ٠‫أٗو‬

I am what you want: I am base

A shoe polisher for the invaders

And a vendor of blood and conscience

For tyrants. I am a crow

That feeds on the corpses of birds. Destruction I am

I am ruination!

A whore's lip is more chaste than my heart,

And flies' wings are purer and warmer than my hands.

As you wish... I am contemptible!76

In his poem ―The People of My Country‖ Abd al-Sabur is ironic when he says:

The people of my country wound like falcons

Their songs are like the chill of winter in the rain's locks

Their laughter hisses like flame through firewood

Their footsteps dent the firm earth

They kill, steal, drink, belch,

But they have their human worth and are good. (Jayyusi 123)

Similarly, in English poetry, irony as a literary technique is discernable in the Old

76
My translation.
 88

and Medieval English poetry. Muecke 77 states that irony is significantly present in the

works of the major writers among them Homer, Aristophanes, Plato, Cicero, Horace,

Chaucer, Shakespeare, Swift, Pope, Byron, Henry James, Chekhov, Shaw, Proust,

Thomas Mann and Kafka. Claire Colebrook, in her book Irony: the New Critical Idiom

says ―until the Renaissance, irony was theorized within rhetoric and was often listed as a

type of allegory.‖78

2.3.3 Technique of Unconventional Metaphor

Traditional metaphor in poetry is a figurative expression through which the poets

imply another meaning. Utilizing this linguistic phenomenon in Arabic poetry as a

literary device has begun early since the pre-Islamic period. Metaphor in Arabic is called

Istiarah which literally means ‗borrowing‘. Ibn al-Athir (1160-1233) in his book Al-

Mathal Al-Sa'er Fi Adab Al-Katib Wa al-Sha'er [The Current Model for the Literary

Discipline of the Writer And Poet] states that this figure of speech is named ‗Istiarah‘

because the origin of figurative metaphor is drawn from its literal meaning ‗loan‘. The

poet borrows an expression- that literally denotes a specific meaning- and utilizes it for

another expression which is not related to its literal meaning; for instance ‗the sky cries‘

the word ‗cries‘ has been borrowed for ‗rains‘. Metaphor was analysed by ancient Arab

critics such as Al-Jahiz (781-868), Ibn Qutayba (828- 889), Ibn al-Mu‘tazz (861-908),

Abu Hilal Al-Askari (920- 1005), Abd Al-Qahir Al-Jurjani, and Al-Khatib Al-Qazwini

(1268-1338). In Arabic traditional poetry, metaphor is logically drew on analogy. For

instance the following line contains a lot of conventional metaphors:

‫ حُؼ ّ٘خد رخُزَى‬٠ِ‫ض ػ‬٠

ّ ‫ػ‬ٝ , ‫ٍىح‬ٝ ‫ٓوض‬ٝ ْ‫أٓطَص ُئُئح ٖٓ َٗؿ‬ٝ

77
D. C. Muecke, Iron and the Ironic (London: Methuen, 1986) 3-4.
78
Claire Colebrook, Irony (London: Routledge, 2004) 7.
 89

She rained pearls of narcissus and watered

Roses, and bit on the jujube by her hails 79

In this verse, the poet likens the ‗tears‘ to the ‗pearls‘, the ‗eyes‘ to ‗narcissus‘,

the ‗cheeks‘ to ‗roses‘, the ‗fingers‘ to ‗jujube‘ and the ‗teeth‘ to ‗hails‘ without utilizing

the words ―as‖ and ―like‖. In this verse, metaphor is based on comparison; the poet

metaphorically compares the beauty of a lady to the beauty of ‗pearls‘, ‗narcissus‘,

‗roses‘, ‗jujube‘ and ‗hails‘. Such metaphors are prevalent in Arabic traditional poetry;

however, in the Abbasid period, Arab poets like Abu Nuwas, Bashar ibn Burd, Abu

Tammam and al-Mutanabbi contravened the norm of metaphor and created exotic

metaphors in their poems. In his book Al-Badi , Ibn al-Mu‘tazz is the first Arab critic

who delved into figures of speech and attempted to distinguish metaphors of the old

poetry (Qadeem) and metaphors of the modern poetry80 (Mohdath) by quoting examples

of old metaphors and modern metaphors. For instance he quoted Abu Dhuayb Al-

Hudhali‘s verse for the typical old metaphor in which Abu Dhuayb says:

‫ٔش ال ط٘لغ‬٤ٔ‫ض ًَ ط‬٤‫أُل‬ ‫خ‬ٍٛ‫ش أٗ٘زض أظلخ‬٤ُ٘ٔ‫اًح ح‬ٝ

When death sinks its claws in, you will find all amulets of no avail.81

According to Wolfhart Heinrichs, the word ―claws‖ signifies a beast to qualify the

word ‗death‘. The Abbasid poets starting with Muslim Ibn al-Walid and Bashshar Ibn

Burd, and ending with Abu Tammam are credited with extending the use of metaphor.

They contravened the norm of metaphor and created exotic metaphors in their poems.

79
My translation, some attribute these verses to Yazid Ibn Muawiyah (645-683) and others attribute them to
Al-Wa'wa' Al-Dimashqi (d. 595).
80
S.P. Stetkevych, ―Toward A Redefinition of ‗Badi‘ Poetry‖, Journal of Arabic Literature XII, 12(1981),
1-29.
81
The translation of this verse from Arabic is taken from ―Paired Metaphors in Muhdath poetry‖, an essay
by Wolfhart Heinrichs, p. 3
 90

Therefore, Adonis regards Arabic modernism as an ongoing process whose pioneers in

the classical period were many starting with Muslim Ibn al-Walid and later Abu

Tammam82. The following verse is among the examples of Abu Tammam‘s verses that

show his exotic metaphor:

٢‫ذ هي حٓظؼٌرض ٓخء رٌخث‬ٛ ٢٘ٗ‫ ٓخء حُٔالّ كب‬٢٘‫ال طٔو‬

Do not pour me the water of blame, for I am

a man in love, I have come to find the water of my weeping sweet.83

In his essay ―Paired Metaphors in Muhdath Poetry‖, Wolfhart Heinrichs claims

that there are three general features of the muhdath metaphor which discerns from old

metaphor: the first is generating mechanism of istiara, the second is the influx of ‗new‘

metaphors into the formation of ‗old‘ metaphors, the third is the combination of one

istiara with another, or with other figures of speech, such as antithesis and repetition as

the case of Abu Tammam‘s previous line in which he writes ‗water of blame‘ in contrast

to his ‗water of weeping‘. As the English metaphysical poets created fanciful ‗conceit‘,

Arab poets of the 8th and 9th centuries created exotic metaphors. In his book An

Introduction To Arab Poetics, Adonis says:

Metaphor (Istiara) itself is the highest stage of this figurative language. An

image has no power to agitate or provoke unless a similarity is established

between two things which differ in kind. The more extreme the distance

between the two things compared, the stranger the image appears and the

more delight it arouses in the soul. An image is admired when through it a

person can see two things as like and unlike, harmonious and divergent.

82
Muhsin J. Al-Musawi, Arabic Poetry Trajectories of modernity and tradition (London: Routledge, 2006)
60.
83
My translation.
 91

Metaphor performs a magic operation, ‗bringing a harmony to the

unharmonious as if shortening the distance between East and West,

making opposites agree, and uniting life and death, fire and water‘84.

(Adonis 46)

Arab modernist poets showed great interest in metaphor and made its usage

complicated and exotic by using unusual and fanciful metaphors. Looking at Al-Sayyab‘s

following lines, unconventional and exotic metaphors are discernible as the poet likens

the ‗eyes‘ to ‗palm groves‘, and to ‗terraces from which the moon recedes‘:

Your eyes are palm groves refreshed by dawn‘s breath

Or terraces the moon leaves behind.

When your eyes smile the vines flower

And the lights dance

Like the moon‘s reflections on a river

Gently sculled at the crack of dawn

Like stars pulsating in the depth of your eyes

That sink in mists of grief like the sea

Touched by the evening's hands. (Al-Udhari 29)

In Arabic and English traditional poetry, metaphor was used as an ornamental

device. It began as conventional concept to mean a figure of speech that implies

comparison between two unlike entities.85 Traditionally, metaphor is used in an analogy

between two things, and to substitute one word with another. According to M. H.

84
Al-Jurjani, Asrar Al-Balagha (Cairo, 1959) 116-118.
85
Encyclopedia Britannica.
 92

Abrams, there are four prominent views about metaphor86: i) the similarity view which

postulates that metaphor is a shifted from literal use of language to a give a new meaning,

involving an implicit comparison between two disparate things; ii) the interaction view

which is deemed to be among the important theories of metaphor. It focuses on the

interaction and refutes the substitution and comparison views; iii) the pragmatic view

which claims that there is no distinction between the metaphorical meaning and the literal

meaning. It rejects the similarity and interaction views 87 and claims that understanding

the metaphor is based on the ‗speaker‘s utterance meaning‘; iv) the cognitive view which

is considered a new view of metaphor.88 In his book Metaphor: A Practical Introduction,

Zoltan Kovecses states:

A new view of metaphor that challenged all these aspects of the powerful

traditional theory in a coherent and systematic way was first developed by

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in 1980 in their seminal study:

Metaphors We Live By. Their conception has become known as the

―cognitive linguistic view of metaphor.‖ Lakoff and Johnson challenged

the deeply entrenched view of metaphor by claiming that (1) metaphor is a

property of concepts, and not of words; (2) the function of metaphor is to

better understand certain concepts, and not just some artistic or esthetic

purpose; (3) metaphor is often not based on similarity; (4) metaphor is

used effortlessly in everyday life by ordinary people, not just by special

talented people; and (5) metaphor, far from being a superfluous though

86
M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th Ed, pp. 155-157.
87
John Searle along with Donald Davidson are the leading proponent of pragmatic view of metaphor.
88
Max Black, in his book Models and Metaphors, postulated three views of metaphor: substitution view,
comparison view and interaction view. He rejected the substitution and comparison views and approved the
interaction view.
 93

pleasing linguistic ornament, is an inevitable process of human thought

and reasoning. (Kovecses viii)

In his essay ―Studies in Contemporary Criticism‖, T. S. Eliot argues: ―Metaphor

is not something applied externally for the adornment of style, it is the life of style of

language.‖89 The metaphysical poets are known for their unusual images due to their use

‗conceits‘. According to Abrams90 ―a number of modern poets exploited this type of

figure. Examples are T. S. Eliot‘s comparison of the evening to ‗a patient etherized upon

a table‖ The modernist poets go beyond the familiar images therefore, metaphors in their

poems are beyond logic and comprehension.

2.3.4 Technique of Peculiar Imagery

Poetic imagery is as old as poetry itself however, it enjoys a very privileged status

in modernist poetry. The famous Arab prose writer, Al-Jahiz says that poetry is a craft, a

sort of weaving and kind of depicting. 91 Many Arab critics such Qudamah Ibn Jafar Abu

Hilal Al-Askari and Abd al-Qahir Al-Jurjani made efforts to elucidate the subject of

imagery. Arabic traditional poetry is rich in imagery especially that of metaphors,

similes, metonymy, synecdoche and irony, but the peculiar and bizarre imagery are the

main distinguishing features of the modernist poetry. The exotic imagery is due to an

over use of unconventional metaphors and similes as well as the incongruous words.

Poetic imagery are essentially word-pictures which add significant meaning to the poem.

Poetry in its essence is imagery92, and poetry cannot be poetry without images. The

89
Michael H. Whitworth, Reading Modernist Poetry (Blackwell, 2010) 108.
90
M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th Ed, (NP: Heinle, 1999) 43.
91
Al-Jahiz, Kitab Al-Hayawan [Book of Animals] p. 328
92
Abdulhameed Al-Husami, Modernism in Yemeni Contemporary poetry 1970- 2000 (Sana‘a: Ministry of
Culture and Tourism, 2004).
 94

modernist poetry is usually characterized by employing images and symbols vividly to

produce a complex image through combining them in an abnormal style. Ahmed Hasan

Al-Zayyat93 in his book Defense of Eloquence says that imagery brings out the mental or

the concrete meaning in a picture. Imagery combines the devices of simile, metaphor,

metonymy and beauty of expression. A good imagery lies in its ability to communicate

ideas and passion. Imagery is the external expression about an internal condition.

Egyptian critic Abd al-Qader al-Qot, in his book Al-Ittijah al-Wijdani fi al-Sha'ir al-

Arabi al-Muasir (Emotional Trend in Contemporary Arabic Poetry), says that imagery is

a form of expression used by the poet in context to express one aspect of the poem by

using the power of language and its devices such as structure, rhythm, reality,

synecdoche, synonyms, antonyms, comparison, analogy and other devices of the artistic

expression. Jaber Asfur says that imagery is a special style of expression and its

significance lies in its influence on the meaning.

The poetic image is regarded as a linguistic structure. It depends upon

embodiment, personification, analogy, and metaphor. It enables a poet to depict

sentimental and mental imaginary meaning in order to make the meaning lucid for the

reader. Image is a devise used by a poet to express his experience. Image is the best

device to express because it portrays the experience of the poet as an essential artistic

device of expression. Implication, unconventional metaphor, myth and allusion are

among the reasons behind the renewal of poetic image in Arabic modernist poetry. The

new image in the modernist poetry has become the landmark which differentiates the

modernist poem from the traditional one. Image can be realized through its elements such

as simile, metaphor, symbol, myth and personification. Poet replaces the ordinary words
93
Egyptian writer and Editor.
 95

by the image in order to form a picture in the mind of the reader. The images of

alienation, city, and death have been depicted by the modernist poets enormously. In his

poem ―Jaikur wa al-Madinah‖ [Jaikur and the City] Al-Sayyab portrays his abhorrence of

the city and his deep affinity to his village, Jaikur:

The city streets coil around me:

Thongs of mud bite into my heart,

A dull ember in it yields only clay.94

Al-Sayyab‘s poems are rich in mythical and unconventional metaphors. In his

poem ―Marthiyyat Jaikur‖ [An Elegy for Jaikur] Al-Sayyab builds his poetic images on

the religious and historical figures such as the Christ, the Greek poet, Homer, Al-Shimr

(killer of Husain), as well as the myth of Hercules. In the following lines Al-Sayyab

creates a poetic image which is used never before in Arabic poetry:

‫ق أُوخى ظال‬٤ُٔٔ‫ذ ح‬٤ِٛ ‫خ‬٣

‫ي‬٣‫خثَ ٖٓ كي‬١ ٌٍٞ٤‫م ؿ‬ٞ‫ك‬

‫ى‬ٝ‫ حرظالع حُوي‬٢‫ ًخُوزَ ك‬ٝ ُِٕٞ‫ ح‬٢‫خ ُظَ ًظِٔش حُوزَ ك‬٣

Oh, Messiah‘s cross, I meet thee shadow,

Over Jaikur you are a bird of iron.

What a shadow! Like a darkness of a grave in colour,

And like a grave in its swallowing the cheeks 95

Similarly, in his poem ―Ruya fi Aam 1956‖ [Vision in 1956] Al-Sayyab employs the

exotic images such as:

ٕ‫ٖ رال أؿلخ‬٤‫ػ‬

94
Translated by Lena Jayyusi and Christopher Middleton, Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed, Modern Arabic
Poetry: An Anthology (New York: Columbia UP, 1987) 432.
95
My translation.
 96

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

ٕ‫ٗيم رال أٓ٘خ‬

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

‫ ًخُلخص‬ٙٞ‫ؿ‬ٝ ٖٓ ‫ ك٘ي‬١‫أ‬

ّ ٖٓ
‫أًق ًخُظَحد‬

‫زخد‬٤ُ‫ ح‬ٍٝ‫الً ًخأل‬ٞ‫ حُل‬ٝ َّ ‫ؿ‬٥‫خ ح‬ٜ‫ٗزظ‬

Eye without lids

………………..

Mouth without teeth

…………………….

What a crowd of gloomy faces,

Of hands like dust

Its plants are bricks and steel like the waste land 96

Western critics have many definitions for image for instance; it is defined by Ezra

Pound as ―an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.‖97 In English

poetry, Ezra Pound and T. E. Hulme are the pioneers of English imagism which was

regarded as a prelude to English modernism. The difference between the traditional

image and modernist image lies in using the image.

2.3.5. Technique of Myth

Mythology emerged as a subject of Study in the early decades of the nineteenth

century. In Arabic traditional poetry, there is a scant use of myths, but in the 20th

96
Ibid.
97
Mark Wollaeger, Modernism, Media, and Propaganda : British narrative from 1900 to 1945 (Princeton:
Princeton UP, 2006) 81.
 97

century, Arabic poetry became imbued with myths. Al-Sayyab says:

An important aspect of modern poetry is the resort to legends, myths and

symbols. The need for symbols and myths has never been as urgent as it is

today. For we live in a world that has no poetry about it- I mean that the

values that are dominant in it are non-poetic, the final word in it is for

matter not for spirit. The things that the poet was able to say and make part

of himself have begun to break down one by one or to withdraw to the

margin of life. Therefore, direct expression of hat is no poetic will not be

poetry. So what is the poet to do? He has returned myths, to legends,

which still retain their warmth because they are not part of this world; he

has returned to them to use them as symbols and to build up from them

worlds with which to defy the logic of gold and steel. On the other hand,

he has started to create new myths-although his attempts at creating this

type of myth are few so far.98

Many Arab modernist poets use the myth of Sisyphus as a symbol of agony. In his

collection Aghani Mihyar, Adonis employs the myth of Sisyphus:

‫م حُٔخء‬ٞ‫أهٔٔض حٕ حًظذ ك‬

‫ق‬٣ِ٤ٓ ‫حهٔٔض حٕ أكَٔ ٓغ‬

‫ٔخء‬ُٜ‫ ح‬ٚ‫وَط‬ٛ

I swore to write on the water

I swore to carry with Sisyphus

His rock.

98
Issa Boullata, ―The Poetic Technique of Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab (1926-1964)‖, Journal of Arabic
Literature vol. 2 (No. 1, 1971) 104 -115.
 98

In comparison, the use of myth arose early in English poetry. Edmund Spenser,

Shakespeare and John Milton used it and Romantic and the Victorian poets as well. The

English modernist poets such as Eliot, Pound, Auden and Yeats used the myths in their

poetry and some modernist poets reject the use of myth because they consider modernism

as a radical break with the past. This study will focus on the modernist poets who assert

the use of myth. Eliot‘s masterpiece ―The Waste Land‖ blends description of

contemporary life with literary allusions, religious symbols and ancient myths such as

vegetation and fertility Gods. The first part of the poem The Burial of the Dead refers to

several myths of fertility rites in ancient Egypt, Greece and Western Asia such as Osiris,

Adonis, Tammuz and Attis. Water is used as a symbol of rebirth. It purifies souls.

2.3.6. Techniques of Allusions and Ambiguous Meanings

Allusion was used in Arabic traditional poetry, but it is used extensively in the

modernist poetry. Al-Sayyab employs the technique of allusions widely amongst the

Arab modernist poets. He alludes to figures from east and west for instance, in his poem

―Thikra Liqa‖ [Memoirs of a Meeting], Al-Sayyab alludes to John Keats. In his essay

―The Poetic Technique of Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab‖, Issa Boullata remarks that Al-

Sayyab, in his poem ―Min Ru'ya Fukai‖ [From Fukai's Vision], alludes to the Chinese

myth ‗Conghai‘ and alludes to Cain, Abel, Jenghis Khan, Christ, St. John, Ariel, Carcia

Lorca, Shakespeare‘s The Tempest and Edith Sitwell‘s Lullaby. In his poem ―For I am

Stranger‖, Al- Sayyab alludes to the story of Mary in Quran: ((And shake towards thyself

the trunk of the palm-tree: It will let fall fresh ripe dates upon thee))99. Al-Sayyab says:

If I shake the branches

99
The Holy Quran, trans. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Surah of Mary no.19, Ayah 25.
 99

Only decay will drop from them

Stones

Stones ‫ـــــ‬not fruit. (Khouri 89)

In his poem ―Sifr Ayyub‖ [Book of Job] Al-Sayyab alludes to the prophet Ayyub

[Job] who suffered from calamities, but did not repine, because of his patience. As Al-

Sayyab also suffered from incurable disease, he was inspired by image of the prophet

Ayyub. He also alludes to Ayyub in his poem ―Qalu Li Ayyub‖ [They Said to Job].

In the poem, ―Al-Mumis Al-Amya‖ [The Blind Harlot], Al-Sayyab alludes to

Johann Goethe‘s play Faust Al-Sayyab mentions in his notes on this poem that after

Faust accepted to sell his soul to the devil, the devil restored Faust‘s youth and granted

him the pearls and the worth, and showed him the ghost of Helen. In the following lines,

Al-Sayyab alludes to many things: to the legend of Faust and Mephistopheles, to

Goethe‘s play Faust and to Helen, the daughter of Zeus according to the Greek myths.

‫٘ش‬٣‫طخٕ حُٔي‬٤ٗ

‫٘ش‬٤ٜٓ ‫َ أؿٔخى‬٤‫ رـ‬، ٕ‫خ‬َُٛ‫ٌح ح‬ٛ ٖٓ ، ‫لع‬٣ ُْ

‫٘ش‬٣ِ‫ش ك‬٤٘‫ي أؿ‬٤‫ؼ‬٣ ٖٜ‫ أػٔخه‬٢‫ٓض" ك‬ٝ‫"كخ‬

‫ي‬٣‫ٓض" حُـي‬ٝ‫ ٍد "كخ‬، ‫٘ش‬٣‫طخٕ حُٔي‬٤ٗ ، ٍ‫حُٔخ‬

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

ٖ٤ٌُِ‫ حُٔظ‬ٙ‫ي‬٤‫حألٓٔخٍ كع ػز‬ٝ ِ‫حُوز‬

، ‫حُ٘زخد‬ٝ ‫خ – ال حُالُت‬٣‫ُع ٖٓ ػطخ‬ٞ٣ ‫ٓٔخ‬

"ٖ٤ِٛ" ‫ْٓ حُؼـلخء – ال‬ُٞٔ‫ح‬ٝ

From this wager, city devil100procures

100
According to the German myths, the Lord debates with the devil and challenges him, that devil cannot
lead astray the Lord's servant 'Faust'. The devil declares that Faust is like the all people; and asks the Lord
 100

Nothing, but despised bodies.

In their profundity, ―Faust‖ repeats a mournful song

Worth and city devil are Faust's new Lord.

…………………………………………….

Bread and rags are his humbled servants' portion

Of the distributed grants- not the pearls and youth,

And gaunt harlot- not ―Helen‖101

Similarly, Abd al-Sabur employs the technique of allusions in his poetry and alludes to

historical and mythical figures.

The ambiguous meaning of the modernist text can be ascribed to the

fragmentation of the content and the use of juxtapositional and paradoxical sentences. It

also caused by using unconventional metaphor, exotic imagery, foreign words, allusions

and ancient myths as well as the incomplete sentences. The following verses are taken

from Eliot‘s ―The Hollow Men‖ as an example of the incomplete verses:

For Thine is

Life is

For Thine is. (92-94)

to give Faust to him for some time. The Lord accepts the wager. The devil offers Faust to restore his youth
and serves him as a slave. Faust agrees to sell his soul to the devil for sake of youth and pleasures, and
begins to indulge in sensual pleasures. After transforming Faust into a handsome young man, the devil
informs Faust that henceforth, every woman whom he meets will see him as handsome as Helen. Faust
indulges in sexual relation with Margaret and kills her brother. Margaret gives birth a baby and kills him,
and then she dies. The devil thinks that he won his wager with the Lord because Faust has sinned much.
The devil claims the soul of Faust but the angels descend and take Faust's soul to heaven.
101
My translation.
 101

2.3.7. Technique of Free Verse

Free verse is a new technique of versification by using a new metrical unit based

on the single foot instead of multi-footed traditional verse. Nazik Al-Malaika, in her book

Qadhaya Al-Shi’r Al-Mu’asir [Issues of Contemporary Poetry] mentioned that there was

an attempt to break the rules of Arabic traditional prosody since the 8th century such as

Abu Al-Atahiyah and since the rise of the Andalusian Muwshahat. Al-Sayyab is

celebrated to be the first Arab poet to use free verse as an acceptable technique in modern

Arabic poetry.In English poetry, the attempt to write free verse began in the 19th century

by poets like William Blake and Matthew Arnold. However, Walt Whitman is celebrated

to be the first English free-verse American poet.

Arabic and English modernisms both popularized free verse. In his book

Modernism, Peter Childs says that modernism in Britain began with the imagism

movement, which popularized free verse. Al-Sayyab states that free verse is more than a

prosodic renewal: ―Free verse is more than a variation of the number of similar feet in

different verses. It is a new technical structure, a new realist trend that came to crush

romantic limpness, the literature of ivory towers, and the rigidity of classicism.‖102 Arab

modernist poets followed Al-Sayyab and abandoned the traditional prosody. The revolt

against the traditional prosody is in variably linked to the social, political and cultural

upheals which occurred in the Arab world in the 20th century that demanded such type of

ingenious change and renewal.

102
Ibid.