A Critical Introduction to Modern Arabic Poetry

SHABBI 159

or Scandinavian. He reviews the treatment of nature in Arabic poetry, both

pre-Islamic and Islamic, compares it with the European treatment as revealed

in two examples from Goethe and (inevitably) Lamartine, and finally con-

cludes that:

Arab poets have not expressed such deep poetic feeling because their atti-

tude to nature lacked reverence for its sublime life: they only looked at it

as they looked at a beautifully ornamented garment or pretty embroidery.

Their response to it was no more than crude admiration (p. 67). Poetic

imagination according to him is the product of deep emotion, while the

Arabs, he claims, 'did not feel the current of life flowing in the heart of

nature, except in a crude and superficial manner, devoid of keen sensibility

or imaginative ecstasy'. Shabbi does the same thing with the Arab attitude

to woman, which he finds superficial and limited to the world of the senses

(p. 91). Here his condemnation is even more extreme:

The attitude of Arabic literature to woman is base and ignoble, and sinks

to the lowest depths of materialism. It only sees in woman a body to be

desired and one of the basest pleasures in life to be enjoyed.

As for that noble view which combines love and reverence, fondness and

worship, as for that deep spiritual attitude which we find in the Aryan

poets, it is totally or almost totally absent from Arabic literature (p. 72).

Shabbi goes on to point out the irrelevance of old Arabic literature:

Arabic literature no longer suits our present spirit, temperament, inclina-

tions or aspirations in life ... We must never look upon Arabic literature as

an ideal which we have to follow or whose spirit, style and ideas we have

to imitate, but we must consider it simply as one of those ancient

literatures which we admire and respect and no more... (pp. 105ff).

The reasons why Shabbi considers Arabic literature irrelevant are significant:
'Everything the Arab mind has produced in all the periods of its history', he
writes, 'is monotonous and utterly lacking in poetic imagination', superficial
and 'does not penetrate into the reality of things'. The two chief characteristics
of the Arab spirit are oratory and materialism. Materialism stops at the level
of the senses, while oratory and keen sensibility generally do not go together.
The effect of these two tendencies of the Arab spirit is that 'the Arabs did
not view the poet as we now do, namely as the prophet or messenger who
brings life to the children of the world lost in the paths of time; they did not
distinguish between him and the orator who defended his tribe and protected
its honour with his tongue' (pp. 12 Iff.).
As is to be expected this rebelliousness against traditional values, which
was also manifest in Shabbi's other writings, aroused a good deal of indigna-