2
THE TRADITION–MODERNITY
NEXUS IN ARABIC POETICS
The essence of the matter,
Summed up in a phrase:
We have donned the husk of civilization,
Yet, our soul remains “in the age of ignorance.”
(Nizmr Qabbmn, “Bread, Hashish
and Moonlight,” 1954, p. 183)Although seemingly perpetuating an epistemological break with the
ancients, modern Arabic poetry since the 1940s has manifested an intricate
and deep engagement with Arab–Islamic tradition. Writers, critics, and
poets alike wrote on this issue, not only to preempt counter-criticism against
their ostensible deviation from tradition at large, but also to subscribe
positively to a dynamic engagement with tradition. What Vicente Cantarino
generally applies to modern Arab intellectuals as a decisive, though unac-
knowledged,^1 break with tradition invites serious qualifications in view of
the intricate, albeit complex, engagement with literary heritage. To be sure,
methodologies and readings in other cultures enhanced this complexity
and prompted some self-discovery through a tripartite process of rejection,
indecision, and a culminating reinitiation into the tradition. The latter
appears finally as an ensemble of competing discourses rather than a unitary,
authoritarian one.
A dynamic tradition
The view of a dynamic tradition has gained steadily, perhaps since the
publication of T. S. Eliot’s views on tradition, and the belated awareness of
Ezra Pound’s “loose-leaf system” which downplays the archival privilege.^2
Along with these there are other insights into the Arabic literary corpus that
come from sociologists and critics.^3 It is of great significance that T. S. Eliot’s
“Tradition and the Individual Talent” appeared in a number of translations by
scholars from different positions, including, from Egypt, Rashmd Rushdl(1951),