THE RECOIL FROM ROMANTICISM 236results as we can see for instance in the interesting work of the Egyptian poet
Muhammad 'AfifT Matar (b.l935).M But that the results can at times be
disastrous can be readily admitted by any impartial reader of the many effu-
sions published in his journal Mawaqif. As we have seen, not even a major
poet like Bayyati has escaped this influence.
In Adunis's early poetry such as The Earth Has Said the revolutionary con-
tent is clear: the poet urges the young to rise against the established stagnant
order. It is full of optimism and contains many direct statements, although
the obvious interest in natural phenomena and the sensitive handling of the
language, together with the occasional originality of imagery, point to the
later symbolist poet of First Poems. It is here, in this later volume, and not in
the work of Bishr Faris (d. 1963) or even of Sa'id 'Aql, who is generally re-
garded as the first major symbolist poet, that we find Arabic symbolist poetry
of a very high order. Consider this brief poem: 'The Frontiers of Despair':
On the frontiers of despair my house stands.
Its walls like yellow foam.
Hollow and disjoined like clouds,
My house is lattice work of dough.
My house consists of holes.
It is shaken by the wind until the wind grows tired,
And is then relieved by the gale.
My house is deserted by the sun, despite its nearness;
It is deserted even by sparrows.
My house has been turned by its convulsions
Into something invisible, transcendental.
Fixed beyond the invisible world.
In it I sleep and around me the world
Lies asleep, with voice muted and choked. (i,24)Here the complexity of structure is such that the purely subjective elements
of the experience are completely fused with the impersonal comment. It is
difficult to discard the symbol altogether once we have arrived at what we
regard as the meaning, for the symbol itself has become an essential part of
the meaning.
The poet's passionate concern for his generation is no less obvious in the
next volume Leaves in the Wind, for instance in the poem that bears this title
and particularly in the powerful poem 'Emptiness' (i,227,241) written in
Damascus in 1954 when Adunis was engaged in political action. According to
the poet, it is 'Emptiness' which drew Yusuf al-Khal's attention to Adunis:
in it we find a diagnosis of the ailments of modern Arab society in mercilessly
frank terms, but also at the same time the hope for the revolution to be led by