(Erasure writing). While establishing his identity and lineage (Kitmbat
al-Ma.w, 12) and asserting a list of readings that connect him to poets,
classical, postclassical, and modern, the author also denies succession on the
grounds that “writing erases the myth of origin,” for his writing is an “orphan
writing” (Ibid. 13). This writing even glosses over the heated debate about
the Free Verse Movement of the late 1940s,^19 for he looks upon poetry in
terms of a living tradition in constant debate with the Zeitgeist, as primarily
experienced by the poetic self, beyond any servile subordination to exterior-
ity. The self operates on the real as much as it responds to and challenges its
rules and conditions. As such, recognizable deviations and divergences from
conventions and norms are not neat formalities or pronouncements against
norms, and Foucault’s total set of relations may gather more potency within
his concept of the episteme before being displaced as well in a “constantly
moving set of articulations, shifts, and coincidences that are established only
to give rise to others.”^20 Both the conventional and the dynamic vie for ascen-
dancy, and the constant of today may be the fugitive of tomorrow. Yet, even
this mounting consciousness does not preclude due recognition of the
classical, because ancient poetics of the qaxldahstrongly operates as a frame of
reference, regardless of positions and terms of understanding.
The revivalistsChronologically, thematic concerns take shape in a historical context of
encounters with Arabs’ Others. This is not to say that the Arab site was
empty of innovation or progression, but it was not concerned with the West
before its encroachments, its invasions, occupations, and challenge to ways of
life and belief. First came the revivalist movement that included many names
from all over the Arab world such as Ma.mnd Smmlal-Bmrndl(d. 1904),
mfizIbrmhlm (d. 1932), and A.mad Shawql(d. 1932) in Egypt; Ma‘rnf al-
Ruxmfl(d. 1945), Jamll Xidqlal-Zahmwl(d. 1936), ‘Abd al-Mu.sin al-Kmziml
(d. 1935) and Mu.ammad Ri,mal-Shablbl(d. 1966) in Iraq; and in Lebanon
Badawlal-Jabal (the pen name of Mu.ammad Sulaymmn al-A.mad, 1907–?),
and Shaklb Arsalmn (1870–1946). This movement of the late nineteenth
century challenged the colonialist onslaught on Islamic and Arab identity, by
laying emphasis on Arabic classical language and political independence. The
whole group fits into a neoclassical movement that found perfection in
ancient poetry and aesthetics.
For the revivalists of the 1890s, rehabilitating Islam in a modern world did
not mean proposing a coherent reformist plan, but rather the regeneration of
a pristine model, pure and simple. This model is ready to accommodate
changes and appropriate science without losing sight of its Arab–Islamic
identity. Whereas poets were inclined toward European achievements in
education, science, and even statecraft, the collision with the colonizer
intensified a libratory discourse that derived its legitimacy from a glorious
POETIC TRAJECTORIES: CRITICAL INTRODUCTION