TAHA 137metre form he tended to write short pieces, probably in an attempt to avoid
padding and such devices that might make it declamatory. On the whole
Naji was successful in his freer handling of the formal features of Arabic
verse. Despite the exceedingly limited range of his poetry, unlike Shukri,
Naji managed to avoid creating the effect of monotony, and that is probably
partly because he succeeded in describing different and wider aspects of love,
the joys as well as sufferings of lovers, their desperate longing and their
anxious waiting, partly because he has a remarkable sense of humour and
considerable charm - amply illustrated in such poems as 'The Night Shirt'
(p. 76), 'A Hair' (p. 112), 'At a Lentil's Party' (p. 206), and even in his rather
malicious satire on an unpleasant blind man married to a beautiful woman
(p. 189). He was capable of writing frivolous verse and even an "Elegy on a
Puppy' (p. 312) which, however, is not entirely devoid of pathos. But, clearly,
what he called his poet's heart, which enabled him to see the suffering behind
the gay appearance of the dancing girl in 'A Dancing Girl's Heart' (p. 267),
did not utterly crush his sense of humour — a valuable asset in a romantic
poet who is often a rather solemn creature whose vision tends to be one-eyed.Taha
Unlike Naji, whose poetry impresses us primarily by its intensity of emotion,
Taha is chiefly a cunning artist, who, like ShauqL is gifted with a highly
developed sense of music. And indeed a comparative study of these two poets
on their use of verse music would be exceedingly useful in shedding light
on the interesting stylistic differences between neoclassical and romantic
poetry. Such a study would reveal how more akin is Shauqi's verse to
rhetorical declamation. The music of Taha's verse, on the other hand, is
pitched at a lower key, and produces its effect on the level of suggestion,
through a carefully chosen diction.^63 For romantic poetry soon developed its
own poetic diction, no less than the neoclassical — although, of course, very
different from it.
'Ali Mahmud Taha (1902 -49)M was born in the town of Mansura in Lower
Egypt, where he received his early education in modem schools. He did not
receive a university education, but after finishing his primary school he
entered the intermediate School of Technology and qualified as an architect
in 1924. As we have already seen in Mansura he became friends with
Hamshari, Jaudat and Naji, all of whom were to become distinguished poets.
They all later moved to Cairo, where Taha held a number of posts in the
Ministry of Commerce and in the House of Parliament. He published some
of his work in the Apollo magazine whose editor gave him much encourage-
ment. Shortly before the Second World War, in 1938, he was drawn to