SHUKRI 93had a good deal of honesty and insight into his own character. There is no
doubt that Shukri's malaise was in part a reflection of the malaise of contem-
porary Egypt, caught as it was in the clash between traditional Islamic and
western values in a period of cultural transition. But equally Shukri's own
psychological make-up contributed to it. The book fills in various details
which either provide or explain themes treated in his poetry. He begins with
the assumption that happiness and great sensitivity are mutually exclusive,
that a man of feeling is inevitably a man of suffering (C. p. 13), that the taste
of the masses in poetry and the fine arts is corrupt and that the conventional
poetry of eulogy, elegy, satire and description of daily political and social
occurrences, in short the poetry of the Establishment at the time, is poetry
of the 'false heart' and that the true poet 'describes the passion of the soul'
(C. pp. 19—20), that the soul is full of contradictions (C. p. 74) and is'a temple
inhabited by God who illuminates it with His light, but is also Satan's cave
lit up by his fire,' (C. p. 85). On the different stages of the development of the
poet's mind we read the following:
In my childhood, I was very superstitious, seeking the company of old
women to hear stories about the supernatural to the extent that their
stories filled every corner of my mind which became a huge world teeming
with magic and demons ... Later I went through a phase of religiosity
during which I became immersed in books of devotion which described
the characteristics of wickedness as well as God's horrible punishment.
The full horrors of this unbearable punishment are so vividly depicted in
these books that whenever I dreamed about them I used to wake up with a
start...
I subsequently turned to reading books of poetry and literature, so I
became aware of the beauty of the world and my terrors which had been
inspired by religion grew less. I then passed through the stage of doubt
and quest ... I denied the existence of God with the same fanaticism as
that with which others asserted their faith in Him. Yet my denial alarmed
me without satisfying my mind, for it never explained to me what I am,
why I exist, and whither I shall be going ... I used to roam the streets of
the city at night (for night seemed to accord with my feelings of despair
and sorrow) looking at the stars, asking them about life and death, God
and man, this world and the next. But the stars merely looked back at me
as if in pity and in sadness ... and life then felt heavier than a nightmare
or a horrifying dream ...
Eventually I regained my faith, having leamt that the universe has a
huge spirit with its own life and personality and that this spirit inspires
its will to the various individual spirits and that the Fates are its subalterns.
Yet despite my strong rejection of popular beliefs I experience moments in
which I can accept anything, even magic and what violates or suspends the
operation of the laws of nature ... (C. pp. 21 —5).