NEOCLASSICISM 40With one exception, all the plays which he wrote towards the end of his career
were historical. In the foreword to the poem on Rome d,293) he tells us that
history and nature are the main sources of poetic inspiration. As is clear from
this poem and his other historical poems, to Shauqi history provided exam-
ples of the paradoxes and contradictions of human nature, and it therefore
became the source of the poet's irony. It also became the source of his moral-
izing on the human condition. To his interest in history we must relate
Shauqi's realistic view of human nature, for the poem on Napoleon's Tomb
(i,3 01), among others, reveals that Shauqi had no illusions about men. He was
fully aware that man does not change and that evil is a permanent part of
his nature; there will always be wolves ready to devour the sheep and right
prevails only when it can be backed up by might. Moreover, Shauqi's interest
in history and historical remains must be related to the influence of the
Arabic poetic tradition, particularly the pre-Islamic preoccupation with
ruins. It is also another manifestation of Shauqi's cultural nostalgia which has
already been discussed. Finally, Shauqi went to the glorious past of the Arabs
or ancient Egyptians for the obvious reason of providing effective and instruc-
tive contrasts with the sad present and deriving from it an impetus for reform,
improvement and progress. The contrast between the past glory of the Egypt-
ians and their present backwardness is a theme which is repeated ad nauseam
in the work of Shauqi and indeed of many others. It is sometimes expressed
with great irony, as in his rajaz poem on Tutankhamon and Parliament (it
197), where Shauqi imagines the Pharaoh rising from the tomb only to be
shocked by the lowly state of his country under foreign domination.
Probably because of his high birth and his wide travels Shauqi's range of
experience was much wider than that of many of his contemporaries. His
extensive travels may have resulted in his religious tolerance, which shows
itself in his respectful and even affectionate reference to religions other than
Islam, all the more remarkable since, for all his obvious lack of puritanism or
even of strict adherence to the outward forms of religion (shown, for instance,
in his love of wine), Shauqi was, in fact, a firm believer in Islam about which
he wrote many an impressive poem. The widening of his interests which
followed his return from exile was reflected in his championing the political
and social causes of the nation, such as the cause of independence or constitu-
tional democratic government, or the feminist movement or popular educa-
tion, with the result that his poetry became an impressive record of the
political, social and intellectual happenings in modern Egypt. Some of his
political comments in particular are expressed in brilliant political satires
in which the mock heroic style is effectively used.^40 His sympathy was not
confined to Egypt, however, and he was a staunch believer in Ottoman Cali-