THE PRE-ROMANTICS 84bulky than the other three, there are hardly more than half a dozen short
poems which embody what can be described as a fresh vision (pp. 56,243,
3 3 7, 3 42,3 51,3 62). Narrative verse seems to have disappeared, except for two
not very distinguished attempts (pp. 83, 106). There is a brief momentary
resurgence of the poetic impulse (p. 56), but it is now virtually dead. The
best poem in it is significantly enough one in which the poet, as it were, bids
farewell to the Muse (p. 337).
What happened to prevent Mutran from developing his new style any
further? Some have explained this sad phenomenon by saying that it was
a result of the opposition with which his new style of writing was received.
This explanation is to some extent supported by a statement made by
Mutran himself in an article published in November 1933 in the periodical
al-Hilal:
The circumstances of my early background forced me to avoid shocking
people by expressing all that came to my mind, particularly to avoid
shocking them by the form in which I would have preferred to express
myself had I been completely free. I therefore followed the ancient forms
as far as it was possible for me to do so.^23Mutran's reversion to more conventional poetry has been ascribed not only
to lack of sympathy in the reading public who preferred more traditional
forms, but also to his poor health and to the need to make a living which
allowed him little time or energy for more demanding 'creative' writing.^24
A more likely explanation is that Mutran's inspiration simply dried up in
his forties. That he continued to write verse regardless is, as he himself
put it in his 'Farewell to the Muse', to be ascribed to his almost puritanical
fear of being idle (iv,338).
The Diwan Group
The tension between the old form and the new content in the poetry of
Mutran can also be seen in the works of Mutran's younger contemporaries
al-Mazini, Shukri and al-'Aqqad, who, in spite of the important role they
played in the development of Arabic poetry, were less gifted poets than
Mutran.
Ibrahim Abdul Qadir al-Mazini (1890-1949) was born in a middle-class
Egyptian family, his father being a lawyer. He received his education first
in the secular schools, and then at the Teachers' Training College, from which
he graduated in 1909. He started his career as a teacher of translation in a
secondary school in Cairo, then as a teacher of English. He later gave up
teaching to become a freelance journalist, devoting his energies to politics