THE RECOIL FROM ROMANTICISM 228from verse, as it were, prose is the starting point of the prose poem. Accord-
ing to its apologists Adunis and al-Hajj (both of whom are indebted to
Suzanne Bernard's book he Poeme en Prose de Baudelaire jusqu'd nosjours (Paris,
1959), to which they refer in their writings on the subject) the prose poem is
the medium best suited to the expression of modern sensibility. In his intro-
duction to his first collection of poems in this form, entitled Not (1960), Hajj
describes the prose poem as 'the highest point in language to which the poet
has so far aspired', pointing out that in French literature, where it 'occupies
its natural place', it 'represents the strongest aspect of the poetic revolution
which broke out a century ago'. He claims that the only form in which the
liberated Arab poet can fully express his modern attitudes is the free form of
the prose poem and that the author of the prose poem 'has great need to in-
vent his language continuously'. Hajj's introduction brings out in the clearest
but at times rather colourful terms the revolutionary thinking underlying
the prose poem experiment. 'The true poet of today', he says, 'cannot possibly
be a conservative', and
Facing this attachment to the official heritage, surrounded by this conflagra-
tion of tumultuous forces of reaction prevalent in Arab countries, Arab
schools and Arab authors ... we may ask: Is it possible for any young and
tender literary experiment to sustain life? My answer to this question is
certainly not. There are in fact only two alternatives open for such an at-
tempt: either suffocation or madness. Through madness the revolutionary
triumphs and can make his voice heard. He must stand in the thorough-
fare and at the top of his voice swear and curse, pour abuse and proclaim ...
Destruction is the first duty... It is vital and sacred.^48It is of course significant that the poet chose as a title for his collection the
negative particle Not (in Arabic: Ian) which denotes his general attitude of
rejection and dissent.
It should be clear by now that what we have been dealing with in this
chapter are not purely matters of the external form of verse, but questions
intimately related to attitudes taken with varying degrees of consciousness
towards traditional Arab society and culture. Leaving formal considerations
aside, however, we find that the 'new' or 'modern' poets vary considerably
in the degree of their revolt against convention. Some, like Nazik al-Mala'ika
(b. 1923) are basically writing in an extension of romantic sensibility; despite
her use of 'new' techniques, she is a conservative at heart, as her book Ques-
tions in Contemporary Poetry (1962) clearly shows.
In the recent edition of her Collected Works, her two-volume^49 Diwan of
1970, Mala'ika published for the first time her long poem Life's Tragedy which