HAFIZ IBRAHIM 43his lack of proficiency, he attempted a free translation of Hugo's LesMisfrables
(1903). In 1911 he was appointed to a post in the National Library and this
put an end to his financial troubles — although the fear lest he should lose
his job and once more find himself impecunious limited the scope of his
published political utterances. We are told that he wrote much political
poetry of a revolutionary nature, which he recited to friends but did not dare
to publish, with the result that some of his poetry which contained forceful
political criticism has failed to reach us.^43
The main inspiration for Hafiz Ibrahim the poet was Barudi, whom he
regarded as an exemplar even in his life. Like his master, he joined the mili-
tary academy, and like him too as an army officer he became involved in a
rebellion which only spelled disaster for him. He also turned to the ancient
Arabic heritage for his inspiration, endeavouring to model his style on the
rhetoric and the pregnant phrase of the Abbasid poets. But, although there are
times when it is even more rhetorical than Barudi's, on the whole Hafiz
Ibrahim's poetry is much simpler, and that, in part, may be explained by the
fact that his themes were more popular and his poems designed for declama-
tion at large gatherings or for publication in newspapers and were, therefore,
addressed to a wider audience. Furthermore, Hafiz Ibrahim lacked the force-
ful personality of his militant, ambitious and aristocratic master; his was a
gentler and more humorous spirit, in many ways typical of the lower orders
of Egyptian society who came of peasant stock. When it is not vitiated by
forced conceits, his poetry is melancholic, even to the point of sentimentality.
Yet in the midst of his earnest political utterances one often comes upon
lines of poetry which are moving by their irony and deep humanity.
As in the case of Shauqi, Hafiz Ibrahim's favourite reading as a youth was
al-Marsafi's book, al-Wasila al-Adabiyya, where he could read some of Barudi's
poetry, together with much Abbasid verse.^44 His main reading, however, was
largely confined to the several volumes of the well-known medieval com-
pendium of poetry and biographical information on poets, Kitdb al-Aghdnl
(Book of Songs), by Abu'l Faraj al-Isfahani, which according to his friend and
biographer Ahmed Mahfuz he had read several times over.^45 To that, together
with his extraordinarily powerful retentive memory, Hafiz owed the solid
grounding in the Arabic tradition which might otherwise have been denied
him on account of his lack of regular schooling. The extent of his indebtedness
to the classical Arabic heritage was fully realized early in the century and was
commented on a little too harshly perhaps by his younger contemporary
al-Mazini.^46 Like Shauqi, Hafiz was provincially Arabocentric in his outlook:
he believed Arabic poetry to be the greatest and most eloquent in any lan-
guage. The highest praise he could think of to confer on Victor Hugo was to