THB DIWAN GROUP 91The insistence of these poets on the need to write Egyptian literature
is in fact related to their belief in subjective poetry; poetry, that is, which is
the product of the poet's direct experience, and not the result of cold and
mechanical imitation. As Mazini constantly maintained, sincerity is of prime
importance in literature. This comes out clearly also in 'Aqqad's attempt,
which is not always successful, to write about ordinary scenes from everyday
life in Egypt, no less than in his well-known remarks in the preface to his
volume of poems on the curlew, which are obviously inspired by the various
English Romantic poems written on, or addressed to, a number of bird;
in The Golden Treasury. 'Aqqad attacks the previous Egyptian poets who
address the nightingale in their works, even though, he claims, the bird is
little heard in Egypt, and neglect the curlew utterly, because of their prefer-
ence for lifeless literary conventions to warm and concrete real experience.
One final feature of the works of these poets is their common attitude to
the Arabic language. They avoided mere verbiage and the desire to impress
their readers by the wide extent of their vocabulary, which drove most of the
neoclassicists to the use of archaic and far-fetched words, and which made
it necessary for them or their editors to provide with their poems glossaries
explaining the meaning of difficult words. 'Aqqad, Mazini and Shukri went
a long way towards simplifying the language of poetry. Yet on the whole,
their diction and rhythms and the spirit of their language bore some resem-
blence to that of the Abbasid poets, and they did not avoid the use of archaic
vocabulary altogether. Unlike the Afafcjarpoetsdhe Arab poets who emigrated
to America) they were meticulous about their Arabic, proud of the poetic
achievements of the Arabs. This is clear not only from the style of their
poetry, but also from the Introduction which 'Aqqad wrote to Nu'aima's
Ghirbal, in which he takes care to point out the difference of his own views
from those of Nu'aima on the question of the language of poetry:
The crux of the difference is that the author deems it superfluous to be
concerned with diction or language, and thinks that an author or a poet is
free to make language mistakes as long as his intention is clear and his
language meaningful, and believes that the law of evolution necessitates
that authors should be allowed to form new derivations and coin words.
These views, which may be regarded as tenable by some worthy colleagues,
are in my opinion in need of modification and correction.'Aqqad then adds the Longinian remark: 'I believe that an author may be
excused a fault, only when the fault is better, more beautiful and significant,
than the correct version.'^37
In their almost obsessive care for the spirit of the Arabic language, as it
is revealed in the heritage of the past, together with their generally conserva-