THE GENERAL BACKGROUND 209Taha Husain and Ra'if Khuri on the subject 'Does the writer write for the elite
or for the general public?' Taha Husain's contribution to this last debate^11
ramains the most convincing and eloquent refutation of 'commitment'.
From the middle of the 1950s onwards commitment, whether moderate
or extreme, seems to have been the rule rather than the exception. Exactly
two years after his first article on the subject in Adah, Anwar al-Ma'addawi
wrote in the February 1955 issue of the same periodical, 'As for committed
literature I do not think there is any longer a need to define it'. In the writings
of most critics a work, whether a novel, a short story, a play or a poem, had to
be in one way or another committed in order to earn the stamp of approval.
The critical contribution of 'Alim and Anis, itself an expression of the domi-
nant mood of the time, exercised a profound and pervasive influence on many
of the younger generation of writers, particularly in Egypt. Young poets who
began writing in the romantic tradition were soon attracted to social or
socialist realism. Poets with obvious Marxist leanings, like the Iraqis al-
Bayyati, al-Sayyab and Kazim Jawad, had a large following throughout the
Arab world, particularly as their names became linked with what was then a
new revolutionary verse form which afforded the poet a greater freedom of
self-expression, although the new form was by no means the sole prerogative
of the Marxists. Bayyati remained loyal to his early Marxist beliefs, but
Sayyab later on recanted and in a confused paper on 'Commitment and Non-
Commitment in Arabic Literature' which he read at a conference on Modern
Arabic Literature held in Rome in 1961, he launched a venomous attack on
Marxist commitment. Traces of the influence of socialist realism are visible
in the work of most of the younger poets at the time, especially in Egypt:
Iraqis like Buland al-Haidari, the Egyptians 'Abd al-Sabur, HijazL Faituri,
and the Sudanese Taj al-Sirr Hasan, Jili 'Abd al-Rahman, although some of
them, like 'Abd al-Sabur, became increasingly interested in mysticism later
on. Even a poet such as the Syrian Nizar Qabbani, whose themes were gene-
rally confined to love and women, often treated in a somewhat romantic
adolescent manner, began in 1955 to turn to writing poetry of such frank and
biting social criticism as his poem 'Bread, Hashish and Moon' which created
a violent reaction in Syria. A basically 'romantic' poet like the Egyptian
Kamal Nash'at also tended to use more of the familiar imagery, diction and
themes of socialist realism at about the same time. Those poets who opposed
Marxism were in fact not entirely free from commitment, although they were
committed to other causes and ideals. Adunis, for instance, was at first a sup-
porter of Syrian nationalism, Hawi a champion of Arab nationalism, and
Yusuf al-Khal owed some allegiance to Lebanese nationalism, just like
Sa'id 'Aql before him.