ABU SHADI 117and other reasons, he emigrated to the United States, where again he resumed
his literary activities, contributing to the Arabic literary periodical published
in America and forming the Minerva Society on analogy with his old Apollo.
Abu Shadi was a prolific poet, his volumes of verse following one another
in rapid succession. His first serious volume of verse, with the typically
romantic title The Dewdrops of Dawn, was published when he was only
eighteen. In 1924 a volume of predominantly love poems appeared under
the title Zainab, the name of the woman who in his youth aroused in him
a desperate passion which seemed to haunt him most of his life, to the extent
that one scholar could only ascribe it to a masochistic disposition.^3 In 1925
he published three volur- -s. Groans and Echoes, Poems of Passion, and Poems
about Egypt, the last of which expresses his political and nationalist aspira-
tions. The year 1926 witnessed the appearance of The Land of the Pharoahs,
which deals with the remains of the glory that was Egypt, as well as a large
volume entitled The Weeping Twilight. Then followed his The Year's Inspiration,
in which he announced his intention to publish one volume of verse a year.
In 1931 came out Light and Shade. In 1933 two further volumes came out:
The Torch and Spring Phantoms; in 1934 The Fountain, in 1935 On the Torrent.
After a pause The Shepherd's Return appeared in 1942. After his immigration
he published From the Heavens* in New York in 1949. By 1955, the year of his
death, he had already prepared four volumes for the press, which, in pro-
bability have not yet been published, although some of their contents are
included in M. A. Khafaja's book on the poet. This list may give an idea of
the amazing output of this highly productive man, to say nothing of his
translations from English poetry, including his translation of The Tempest,
from Umar al-Khayyam or Hafiz of Shiraz, or of his literary and critical
studies, of which three volumes appeared posthumously: Islamic Studies,
Literary Studies, and Contemporary Arab Poets, or of his countless scientific
publications or of his excursions into painting which resulted in an exhibition
of his paintings held in New York shortly before his death.
A curious feature of Abu Shadi's work is the very large number of critical
prefaces, studies and epilogues which most of his volumes of verse contain,
particularly The Weeping Twilight (1926) — a thing which made it swell into
1336 pages. These were written either by the poet himself or by his friends,
sympathizers and disciples, who on the whole tended to treat the poetry
rather favourably. Abu Shadi apologetically attributes this unusual pheno-
menon to the novelty of his poetry and to the need to offer some guidance to
his readers hitherto accustomed only or mainly to the very different prevalent
traditional verse, and he says he looks forward to the day when they would
no longer need such aids. However, Abu Shadi's real motive seems to be, as