NEOCLASSICISM 38In the preface to his poem on Rome Shauqi writes that the main springs
of poetry are two: history and nature (i,292). Of Shauqi's preoccupation
with history more will be said later. It might be more useful here to try first
to define Shauqi's attitude to nature, which he regards as one of the main
sources of poetic inspiration. As is clear from the poem al-Rabi' wa wadi'l
Nil (Spring and the Nile Valley) Shauqi views nature from outside and in
terms of civilized society. His description is very detailed, and the overall
impression is not altogether dissimilar from that of mosaic or tapestry,
although now and again an observation in the form of an image, a simile
or a metaphor reveals deep feeling or pathos. Underlying the whole poem,
as indeed is the case with much of Shauqi's poetry, including his nature
poetry, is an attitude to life which views it and its pleasures as a fleeting
moment in time. We constantly find Shauqi likening nature to human beings
in a civilized context: in this, of course, Shauqi is writing within the classical
Arabic poetic tradition. In one poem (describing a Swiss landscape) the
fields are seen as 'green garments' (n,39), and in another shrubs are viewed
as women or female slaves wearing bracelets and ankle bands (n,43); palm
trees also are likened to women with plaited hair (n,56), and when their tops
are hidden in the clouds they are seen as brides wearing white mantles
(n,l 54). The brook running in the green fields is likened to a mirror inside
an ornamental frame (n,44). The grove is seen 'wearing a necklace and ear-
rings made of the golden rays of the setting sun' (n,63). Once more we read
about trees like women 'with bare legs' (n, 123), and Spring is likened to a
prince (n,240). This 'civilized' view of nature —so different from the romantic
vision which far from man civilizing nature sees a bond of spiritual signi-
ficance between nature and man — can be seen in Shauqi's poetry often
coupled with hard, clear and sharply defined imagery, reminiscent of
Imagist poetry as, for example in the lines on a scene of'Palm Trees Between
Muntaza and Abu Kir':
I see trees now hidden in the sky, now breaking through
the horizon — a wondrous sight.
Minarets rising here and there,
with branches for their topmost stairs,
From which no muezzin calls out for prayers, but
only crows sing.
Amongst them one tall tree sprung from
the sand, growing in the shade of the hillock.
Like a ship's mast, an obelisk or a lighthouse
beyond the billows.
Growing now longer, now shorter behind the
hillock as the wind bends it to and fro.