THB PRE-ROMANTICS 94The above quotations underline the fact that the change in the conven-
tional idiom of Arabic poetry is, like all genuine changes in artistic expres-
sion, not simply a matter that affects the external and artificial features of
style. It presupposes a change in the whole of the poet's Weltanschauung, his
general attitude to life, man and God. What we find in these quotations is
the psychological dislocation and the spiritual turmoil and confusion which
attend the change from the relatively comfortable and comforting world of
neoclassicism with its traditional values, in which a certain measure of
agreement obtained on the major issues of life. In Confessions Shukri records
the impact of such a change on a man of sensibility. Shukri's hypersensitivity,
coupled with his vividimaginationandatendencytowardsself-dramatization
remain salient features of his poetry. On the subject of imagination we find
this interesting comment in Confessions, revealing a significantly ambivalent
attitude, the relevance of which we shall see later on:Imagination is both the paradise and the hell of our dreams. Do we not
spend our life alike in our dreams and our daydreams, alternating between
roses and thorns, between angels and demons? At times I feel as if I had
been transported to a world other than this world, where the air is
perfumed and water fragrant and people are perfect in beauty and virtue...
I see in my reveries visions so beautiful that I cannot adequately describe
them. But at other times I see black dreams of despair and sorrow, then
I fear all the disasters of life which can be pictured by the imagination in
its countless different forms. I anticipate them and feel their painful
impact ... The pain which I endure is the result of the folly of fear
engendered by imagination. (C. pp. 68—70).
Already in volume i of his Diwan, which appeared in 1909, when the poet
was only twenty-three years of age, and before his departure for England,
we notice sometimes in embryo many of the main themes which were to
characterize Shukri's subsequent poetry. It is true that we find a number of
poems dealing with topics of public interest. He wrote elegies on the nation-
alist leaders Mustafa Kamil, Qasim Amin and Muhammad 'Abduh (Diwan,
pp. 47, 53, 54, 58). He made an appeal for fund-raising in order to help
establish a secular Egyptian university, a plea for national unity and for the
sinking of differences between Copts and Muslims in the national interest, for
the unity of political factions hi an attempt to restore past glory, an exhorta-
tion to the people of Egypt to shake off their stagnation and humiliation
and to learn to be steadfast and resolute (pp. 39,40,48,69,71). Likewise he
poses as a stern rrforalist. The very first poem in the collection 'Chosroes and
the Captured Woman' opens with an address to young women, asking them
to heed the story he is about to tell, showing how a young beautiful woman
can protect her honour and overcome the importunities and threats of even