NEOCLASSICISM 30people with whom he came into closer contact than he had done before in
his life. No longer the mouthpiece of the official policy of the court, he tended
to identify himself with the cause of the Egyptian people, whose nationalistic
feelings and aspirations took a more active and violent form, especially
in the 1919 rebellion. Shauqi's poems became more clearly concerned with
nationalist and social subjects. It was also during this period that he wrote
all his poetic dramas (except for his 'Alt Bayk al-Kabir, composed in 1893).
Shauqi remained active until his death in 1932 which occurredwhen he was,
as one scholar put it, 'at the height of his great poetic gifts'.^28
Shauqi published his first volume of verse, entitled al-Shauqiyydt, in 1898.
His poems, like the compositions of his contemporaries, generally appeared
first in the newspapers and periodicals of the time, such as al-Ahrdm, al-
Mu'ayyad, al-Liwd. al-Majalla al-Misriyya and al-Zuhur. Later on his collected
works were published, also under the title al-Shauqiyyat, infour large volumes,
the first two in 1926 and 1930 respectively, while the third and fourth ap-
peared posthumously in 1936 and in 1943. The first volume contains the
poems on political, historical and social themes, the second the descriptive,
amatory and miscellaneous poems, the third volume is devoted to elegies
and the last is a mixed collection including, together with poems belonging
to the preceding categories, juvenilia, fables and poems for children as well
as some humorous verse. This edition, however, does not include all of Shauqi's
poems. In 1961 Muhammad Sabri published two further volumes entitled
al-Shauqiyyat al-Majhula, although the authorship of some of the works in
them has not been established beyond all doubt.
Besides his poetry Shauqi also published a number of short prose romances
of an indifferent quality: 'Adhra' al-Hind (The Maid of India, 1897), Lddiyas
(1899), Dall wa Taiman (1899), Shaitan Bintd'ur (published in al-Majalla al-
Misriyya, 1901—2), and Waraqat al-As (1904); a work of euphuistic and
rhyming prose, Aswdq al-Dhahab, which appeared belatedly in 1932; and, of
course, his poetic dramas: 'Afi Bayk au mdhiyaDaulatal-MamdUk(1893, revised
version published as 'AH Bayk al-Kabir, Ali Bey the Great, 1932), Masra'
KUubatra (The Fall of Cleopatra, 1929), Qambiz (Cambyses, 1931), based on
the romance Dall wa Taiman, Majnun Laild (1931) a dramatization of the well-
known desert romance of Qais narrated in Kitdb al-Aghdni and translated by
A. J. Arberry (1933) — who described Shauqi's 'lyrical drama', not without
exaggeration, as 'a contribution of unique and immortal value'^29 — 'Antar
(1932), which dealt with the medieval Arabic romance of love and chivalry;
one verse comedy about a contemporary Egyptian equivalent of Chaucer's
Wife of Bath, al-Sitt Hudd, published long after Shauqi's death, and finally
one prose historical play Amirat al-Andalus (The Princess of Andalusia,
1932).