THE GENERAL BACKGROUND 205of subtle subjective and evanescent feelings and moods, and therefore
relatively incapable of conveying the shock and immediacy of harsh reality.^2
The reaction against romanticism began to make itself felt in Egypt, but it
was soon to spread in other Arab countries like Iraq, the Lebanon and Syria.
It is noteworthy, however, that towards the end of the 1940s the distinguished
Iraqi poets 'Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayyati (b.1926) and the late Badr Shakir al-
Sayyab (1926-1964), both of whom were Marxists (although the latterwas
subsequently disenchanted with the Marxist ideal) were still writing in a
romantic vein, just like other Iraqi poets of their generation such as the
interesting Buland al-Haidari (b.1926), while romanticism was being openly
condemned in Egypt.^3 In 1945 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi (b.1920), better
known for his novels (of which one has been translated into English as Egypt-
ian Soil), published a poem entitled 'The Riot of Spring' in the periodical
al-Risdla, an interesting mixture of romantic and nascent 'committed' poetry.^4
In 1946 the Marxist poet Kamal 'Abd al-Halim (b.1926) expressed his dis-
satisfaction with nature and the world of imagination in a poem with the
significant title 'To an Errant Poet', in which he wrote:
When you sing you turn to the stars, to the flowers and birds.
The god of wine has blessed you, so you sing nonsense, and seek the wine
jug-
But fold your wings in the sky of fancy, that you may drop down amidst
us and become one of us,
Leave aside the beauty of imagination, enter the caves of the millions and
tell our story to the world.
Art is but a tear and a flame — fancy and wandering are no art.s
The idea that Arabic literature in general should reflect and help to modify
social reality was not altogether new in modern Arabic thought and literary
criticism. It was one of the fundamental principles advocated early in the
century by the radical thinker SalamaMusa(1887-1958)who carried on the
work of the early Lebanese secularizers such as Shibli Shumayyil. He returned
from England full of the ideas and ideals of the Fabian society, published his
progressive review al-Majalla al-Jadida between 1929-30 and 1934—42, and
had among his disciples and followers distinguished people like Muhammad
Mufid al-ShubashL Luwis' Awad and even at one time Najib Mahfuz. Salama
Musa's socialist ideas, his belief that literature should be written for the
people, about the problems of the people, and in a language that the people
could understand, his defence of rationality and the scientific attitude, his
attack on the rhetoric and artificialities of the 'literary' style, were expressed
in trenchant prose which is itself a model of directness and clarity (though
perhaps a little too bare) in many articles, later to be collected in volumes