NOTES TO PAGES 14-28 267CHAPTER 2: NBOCLASSICISM
1 See MustalaLutfial-Manfalutl,AfM*toarafa/-MaM/fl;ufi (Cairo, 1912), p. 108.
2 See Jurjl Zaidan, TarajimMashahir al-Sharqfi'lQarn al-Tasi' 'Ashar, vol. n (Cairo,
1903), p. 191.
3 Ibid. vol. n, p. 206.
4 These were Nafljat al-Raihan (1864), Fakihat al-Nudama (1870) and Thalith al-
Qamarain (1883).
5 See 'Isa Mikha'il Saba, Al-Shaikh Nasifal-Yaziji (Cairo, 1965), p. 95.
6 See especially the poetry in his 'al-Ramliyya' maqama.
7 It is interesting to note that BarudI, although apparently he knew no European
language (see Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid, Egypt and Cromer, London, 1968, p. 9), was, like
the vast majority of the eminent Egyptian poets of the modem renaissance
movement, a product of the new secular education. From now on the Azhar
seems to have ceased to produce great poets.
8 Barudfs ambition, no less than his intelligence, was commented on by English
observers like Wilfred S. Blunt and Alexander M. Broadley. See Mounah A. Khouri,
Poetry and the Making of Modem Egypt (Leiden, 1971), p. 15.
9 All the quotations from the preface, which are translated here, come from the 1915
edition of the poet's works, Diwan al-Barudi, ed. Mahmud al-Imam al-Mansuri
(Cairo, n.d.), henceforth to be referred to as Diwan. Likewise the references between
brackets in this section are all to this edition.
10 T. S. Eliot, Selected Essays, (London, 1948), p. 14.
11 It is interesting in this context to note the manner in which he learned the craft
of poetry, and in which he resembled the earliest Arab poets. Instead of receiving
the philological training which was common at this time, and which might have
warped his poetic nature and driven him to the artificiality and verbal and
rhetorical ingenuities which were the accepted norms, Barudi went directly to the
early poets and completely immersed himself in reading their great works. (See
Shauqi paif, al-Barudi Ra'id al-Shi'r al-Hadith, Cairo 1964, pp. 98ff.) In this he is a
perfect example in Arabic literature of the application of the well-known Horatian
(and subsequently neoclassical) precept on literary formation.
12 Barudi's mastery of the technique and form of traditional Arabic verse was recog-
nized at once by his contemporaries and immediate successors. See e.g. Khalfl Mutran,
Marathial-Shtt'ara'', Matba'at al Jawa'ib al-Misriyya (n.d.), p. 25.
13 See e.g. Diwan n, 249 where the use of terms like ma"ail ashib at once puts the
reader in mind of Abu Tammam's 'Ammuriyya poem, or even more obviously n,
446, where nearly a whole half line from a mU allaqa.fala'yan 'arafia'l dara ba'da
tarassumi, is quoted. See Zuhair ibn abi Sulma's mu'allaqa, 1.4.
14 For instance the use of ya nura 'aim and Shubra in t 168.
15 See Shauqi Daif, al-Barudi, p. 76.
16 See Diwan, I, 18.
17 See, e.g. Diwan 1123, 142,152,153, and u, 519, 532.
18 Ibid, 21,49, 57,211.
19 Some of this criticism was quietly suppressed by his editor, as has been shown in a
recent study of the poet. See 'AH Muhammad al-Hadidi, Mahmud Sami al-Barudi
(Cairo, 1967).
20 See, e.g. Diwan, J. 184-5, 186 and it 207-266.
21 See, for instance, Diwan, 1,63.
22 See, for instance, his poem about the railway in Manahij al-Albab al-Misriyya ft
Mabahij al-Adab al-Asriyya, 2nd edn. (Cairo, 1912), pp. 126-8.
23 Yahya Haqqi, 'Marathi Shauqi', al-Majalla (Cairo), no. 144 (Dec., 1968), 64.
24 Ahmad Shauqi, al-Shauqiyydt n (Cairo, 1948), p. 243.