DOCSLIB.ORG

July 1989 TRANSLATION ANI? TEXT Iii

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
July 1989 TRANSLATION ANI? TEXT Iii THE POLITICAL POETRY OF NIZAR QABBANI A CRITICAL STUDY AND TRANSLATION by ABDULLAH A-M. A. AL-SHAHHAM A thesis submitted for the Degree of Ph. D UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies July 1989 TRANSLATION ANI? TEXT iii NOTE ON THE SYSTEK OF TRANSLATION In any kind of literary translation, particularly that of poetry, the aim of the translator must be to produce an English version which is in fluent English, which reproduces the original intentions of the poet and, it is to be hoped, produces something of the same emotional impact of the original. Since Nizär Qabbäni's language is generally fairly simple, it has usually been possible to translate him quite literally. Occasionally, however, his words have had to be paraphrased, or lines rearranged to meet with the different demands of English grammar. Nevertheless we believe that we have at all times been faithful to his original intentions. iv c1) iHF7S NOTE ON THE 3S EY. OF TRANSLATION iii ...................................... 1 EXFLANATl3N TO THE READERS OF MY POETRY 1 ........................ 2 BREAD, HASHISH AND MOON 5 ........................................ 3 THE STORY OF RACHEL SCHV'ARTZENBJRG 16 ............................. 4 LETTER OF A SOLDIER ON THE SUEZ FRONT .......................... 28 5 JAYILA BU HAYRAD ............................................... 36 6 LOVE AND FE: 'ROL ................................................ 44 7 FOOTNOTES TO THE NOTEBOOK OF THE SETBACK ....................... 52 8 THE ACTORS ..................................................... 80 9 TH.E IfiTE: ROGA: ION .............................................. 100 10 FATH ........................................................... 114 11 POETS OF THE OCCUPIED LAND ............................ ......... 124 12 JERUSALEM ...................................................... 133 13 FitA'I FROCLAMA:IONS ON THE WALLS OF ISRAEL .................... 137 14 wEt'DIIG FEAST OF PALESTINIAN HORSES ............................ 169 15 INVITATION TO THE FIFTH OF JUNE TO SPEND A SUYJER HOLIDAY ...... 176 16 CONVERSATIONWITH AN ARAB WHOHAS LOST HIS HORSE ............... 182 17 A CiIKE OF HONOURBEFORE ARAB COURTS .................. ......... 192 i8 THE GOVERNORAND THE SPARROW ....................... ............ 206 is THE FILL ....................................................... 210 20 THE S: EEC . ..................................................... 220 V 21 w'A1T: N., F.ßä GQJJT 238 ............................................. 22 MJE:PH 111; 254 ....................................................... 23 rEC: -ATION OVER MADMEN'S TOMBS 256 ................................. 24 CONVERSA- Oh ITH THE KI NG OF THE MONGOLS 266 . ...................... 25 TO THE Cýh::NOwl; ARAB SOLDIER 270 .................................... 26 ONE ROAD ....................................................... 274 I- "''EIUM BURGLARS 278 ................................................ 28 NON-CLASSICAL DEFINITION OF THE COUNTRY ........................ 279 29 PERSONAL ADDRESS TO THE MONTH OF JUNE .......................... 281 30 A POEM OF APOLOGY TO ABU TAMM.AM ................................ 283 31 A! 1ALý1'4Rý Iýý^Nýi. ý? .................................. 293 32 THE FOURTH PYRAMID ............................................. 304 33 LETTER, TO AlC. )4Psb i41,, -. NA5. ß.Z 310 -M-P ....................... 34 TO HIM ON HIS BIRTHDAY ......................................... 318 35 STATEMENT BEFORE THE COURT OF JUSTICE OF POETRY ................ 327 36 FROM THE DIARY OF A DAMASCENE LOVER ............................ 348 37 GOLD INLAY ON A DAMASCENESV'ORD ................................ 357 38 OBSErVATiO S iN A TIME OF LOVE AND WAR ......................... 374 39 EVOLUTiONAri CONVERSATION WITH TARA HUSAYN r^. .................... 396 40 DECPPEEFOR THE DISMISSAL OF YHALID B. AL-VALID ................. 410 41 DAMASCUS FOLK-SONGS TO 1E MOON OF BAGHDAD ..................... 423 42 L,AYASCUS FOLK-SONG ............................................. 439 4lw -A, -.. DAD! FOIK-SONG ............................................. 443 44 :. A: I ES ': ............................................. 447 vi 45 SPANISH PAPERS ....................... 461 473 46 SORROWS IN ANDALUSIA ................. 47 GRANADA 481 .............................. 48 0 QUEEN OF THE WORLD, 0 BEIRUT....... 487 49 SEVEN LETTERS LOST IN THE BEIRUT MAIL 503 50 BEIRUT YOUR MISTRESS - BEIRUT MY 522 BELOVED .............................. 51 TO THE WOMAN BEIRUT, WITH AN APOLOGY. 536 52 BEIRUT BURNS - AND I LOVE YOU........ 540 53 I AM TIRED, MY FRIEND, OF BEING AN ARAB 564 54 QASIDAT BILQIS ....................... 581 55 THE CHILDREN OF THE STONES........... 630 56 THE ANGRY ONES ....................... 634 57 AN HONORARY DEGREE IN THE CHEMISTRY OF STONES ............................... 638 1 1. EXPLANATION TO THE READERS OF NY POETRY Foolish people say of me That I have gone into women's private quarters, and not come out. They demand that a gallows be set up for me Because I have beloved. written poetry about my r Cý; ý I have not traded - like others - in hashish, Have not stolen, Or killed ... -. .. J YI "F ý ý... , ,,., 2 But I have loved in open daylight; Do you think I have renounced my faith? t*4 Foolish people say of me 6e. GW That in my poems I have Pe. &> the teaching of Heaven. Who says that love is an attack upon the honour of Heaven? Heaven is my friend - It weeps when I weep, And laughs when I laugh. Ll 000 Sr1 ýl ýl, L ýJ4: ý 11 jr, `1.._, ý-? ý; ' c cS)ý ' X31 L, äº Ui vl JU ýý. 1; alt j. u , oý ý. v! 1ý.,. z .. ý`. ý 3 And its stars shine more brightly If one day I fall in love. What of it, if I sing the name of my beloved And plant her in every capital city Like a forest of chestnuts? ff I shall continue to make a practise of love Like all the prophets. I shall continue to make a practise of childhood, innocence And purity, 0 .0 .09 .01 Jj Z.-. O 0 v jv-I t "c ý1ýe1ý11 4 I shall continue to write about my beloved's concerns Until I melt her golden hair in the gold of evening, While I am - and I hope I shall remain the same - A child scribbling as he wishes on the wallrof the stars Until love in my country becomes like the air And I become a dictionary for students of love And become, on their lips, An A and a B. J "0 "i" 1,l LaS Ii I- Ui _ t'' j>J c3 c5ylI f ýLý l_... c11 ... 5 I When the moon is born in the East And the white roofs doze Beneath piles of flowers The people leave the shops, and go in droves To meet the moon, ýý 1 1I , -ýI LiJ.!. i alp., G.L: t ; lýylýJ 6 Carrying bread and gramophones to the top of the mountains And equipment for drug-taking And sell and buy fantasy And images, And die when the moon lives. _ . 7 II What is it that a disc of light Does to my country? To the country of the prophets And the country of the simple people Chewers of tobacco, and traders in drugs? i JJ1. " `t 433 .. ) g- Y :ý t 3 L-uI ýýyý 8 What is it that the moon does among us So that we lose our pride And live to implore Heaven? What is it that Heaven has For lazy, weak people Who turn into dead men when the moon lives " I; i 'a. 0LJI i .. 0 Ul. And shake the saints' graves In the hope that they will give them rice, and children, The saints' graves, And spread elegantly-knotted carpets Consoling themselves with an opium which we call fate And destiny In my country. In the country of the simple people? 99 00, J00J %, As. 0., -li F j nki: ýý 10 III What weakness and decadence Overcomes us when the light gushes So that carpets, thousands of baskets Cups of tea And children Occupy the hills In my country Where the naive people weep And live in the light which they do not see r "ds 1. Lp (.ý lug i k 11 In ny country Where people live without eyes Where the naive people weep Pray Fornicate And live in reliance on God Since they first existed Living in reliance on God L ., a z 12 And call upon the crescent moon, "0 crescent, 0 spring which rains diamonds Hashish and drowsiness 0 marble, suspended Lord 0 unbelievable thing May you remain, for the East, for us, A bunch of diamonds For the millions in whom the senses have ceased to function". J->ul-U:J3ýj y{ "I, I' cß- .1ß. t11I tJ lý, .. _u Jac 13 Iv In the nights of the East, when the full moon reaches completion The East is denuded of all nobility And struggle And the millions who run without shoes And believe in four wives And the Day of Resurrection, The millions who do not meet with bread, except in fantasy, And who dwell at night in houses of coughing Never having known what medicine looks like Fall down like corpses beneath the light. t 4-'' V cJ' car" 1"J L$ J JL 10 .0 ýI tlº `J lý I. .. j. 1c ýI i E. t a L 14 In my country, where the foolish people weep And die of weeping Whenever the face of the crescent moon appears before them And weep even more Whenever they are moved by a lowly lute, and "LayEll That death which we call in the East "Layäli", and singing. JAI ti 0 0J1,. 5.9 . ,. U-9 0 0` ill ý.! .. (jv f41 Li , ec.-u . vý11 ul 'A type of modern Arab song describing the sufferings of lovers in the night. Among the best known is Umm Kulthiim's w hßä Layl. 15 In my country, the country of the simple people Where we ruminate over long tawisb' That consumption which kills the East, the long tawashih, Our East, which ruminates over history, idle dreams And empty legends Our East, which looks for every heroism In Ab; Zayd2 al-H11ä11. 'aýºlzJý =ý) v5.11 J:. JI . .. -'; '- %ýof v. t: l 'Reiigious poems recited by groups of people on such occasions as Laylat al-Oadr, the birth the Prophet of and the beginning of the Islamic year. They are composed in a stanzaic form similar to that of the Andalusian muwashshahät. -Hero the of popular verse epic entitled Sirat Abi. Zayd al-HilälI, and symbol of Arab valour and victory. :,, AL 16 3.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • On Taha Muhammad Ali and That's My Lourn 137
    On Taha Muhammad Ali and That's My lourn 137 Having found Taha Muhammad Ali's store on Casanova Street in the old quarter of Nazareth empty, I sat on one of the low, wicker- topped stools and let my eyes roam about the shop. The shelves running up to the vaulted ceiling were crammed with imitation pearl-studded scabbards, ceramic bowls of various shapes and sizes, colorful kaffiyehs, olive-wood camels, inlaid boxes, narghiles, post- cards of the legendary church rising above the shops at the end of the narrow street. )igest It 157 This wasn't exactly what I had expected. Some months ear- lier, when I'd first tried to translate two of Taha Muhammad Ali's poems, I had been told by a friend, who was then editing an anthol- ogy of Palestinian poetry, that the poet was a dealer in antiquities. Muhammad Ali was born and raised, my friend had explained, in the village of Saffuriyya, located on the site of what had once been the ancient town of Sepphoris, and at the age of seventeen was forced to leave with his family for Lebanon, after his village was attacked by the Israeli army in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. A year later he and his family slipped back across the border and, finding 97 the village destroyed, eventually settled in Nazareth. Muhammad Ali, I now realized, was the proud owner of a sou- venir shop. The only objects that might have passed for antiquities were some old farming implements and, leaning against the wall in one corner of the room, the waist-high jug once used by villagers i for storing grain.
    [Show full text]
  • The Arab Poet and the City: Modernism and Alienation Ahmad ~Hbo(1L
    THE ARAB POET AND THE CITY: MODERNISM AND ALIENATION AHMAD ~HBO(1L 'Moderni m' i' "one of the mo t fru. tratingly unl\pe 'ific of all 'i In '''',1 Different ~ocieties can ha\'e their 0\\ n nlOdernil\l11s, which need to be appreciated \\ ithin their hj~t()rical, cultural and political contexts, including debt to, and interaction with oUhide intluencel\, Thi5 tudy \'iew~ 'moderni.I11' and the city in relation to ,\rabic so j ty, culture and literature, with special focus on the \\ ork of contemporary Arabic poet·. It is under tood simply as a trend or mo\'cment embodying a new \'i, ion of reality, ae!othetic innovation and a will to ask new ques­ tions and challenge old way.. :Y1odernisl11 ha. its 0\\ n diversity within the rabic cultural context: in term of poition, method, orientation, range of intere, t~, breaks in form and attitudes to the city. h,.,ue· of inno\'ation and \\ hat '!11oderni Ill' can mean in the Arab context have preoccupied Arabic writers 'ince the late nineteenth century, It is possible to identif)' an earlier 'moderni.m' in Arabic po try and intellectual outlook as 0 iated \\ ith ninth-century Baghdad.- This \\ as represented by such leading poet. a: ,\bu i\'tl\\as (75,- J 1) and Abu Tamlllam (7R - +5), with their daring innovations in poetic form and imag-ery, their intere't in detail of urban daily life and the assimila­ tion of 11('\\ Iy Arabised philosophical ideas, Both poet rejected many literary comcntion:>, \Vhile highly csteemed by in:ightful critic and generationl\ of poetry lover, to this day.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Download
    3 2 1 Indian Journal of ijll2 ARTICLE LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS VIEW RE ARTICLE RESEARCH Review on the Child in Modern Iraqi Poetry DOI: 10.34256/ DOI: a, * Muna Salah Hasan a Department of Arabic, College of Education for Girls, Kufa University, Iraq. *Corresponding author Email: [email protected] DOI: https://doi.org/10.34256/ijll2123 Received: 30-05-2021, Revised: 27-06-2021; Accepted: 28-06-2021; Published: 30-06-2021 Abstract: The image of the child in its various shades is one of the common images in Arabic poems from the pre- Islamic era to the modern era, but it did not receive the attention of scholars, and it was not studied in depth showing its connotations and symbols. Hence came my study entitled "The Child in Contemporary Iraqi Poetry", which is an attempt to clarify the symbols of the word (the child) and what it indicates according to the context in which they are mentioned, as well as the statement of the aesthetic aspects of how to employ these symbols through the selection of poetic texts of modern poets in which the image of the child was mentioned Where this image was linked to the intellectual and political framework of the trends of Iraqi poets to create with it multiple connotations that were in harmony with the successive conflicts and revolutions that the poet employed to express intellectual, political and artistic positions. Modern Iraqi poetry by this expression means what many poets wrote in a non-traditional or traditional (classical) poetry curriculum in the literature of their languages.
    [Show full text]
  • REVIEWS KABBANI, NIZAR, Arabian Love Poems
    REVIEWS KABBANI,NIZAR, Arabian Love Poems: Full Arabic and English Texts. Trans- lated by Bassam Frangieh and Clementina R. Brown. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers; 1999. Table of contents, preface, introduction, selected poems and their translations. Pp. xiii + 225. Nizar Qabbani requires no introduction to any serious student of contemporary Arab culture. His remarkable popularity as a poet throughout the Arab world has spanned decades, just as his poetic output reached fifty volumes of poetry (1). The fact, then, that this volume, which first appeared in 1993, was and is the first book-length work of translations of his selected poems into English took this reader by surprise. The preface of this second edition indicates that Nizar Qabbani's death in April 1998 occasioned the revision and reissuing of the volume. Bassam Frangieh and Clemen- tina Brown have done us all a great service by collaborating to create this bilingual volume directed primarily at the English reading audience. The poetic texts are pre- sented in parallel English/Arabic versions on facing pages, with the more enviable feature that the Arabic is a reproduction of the poet's own handwritten text of the selected poems, indicating the collaboration of the poet in the project as well. Bassam Frangieh's generous introduction places Qabbani's poetic production in the context of the poet's life and the larger framework of events in the twentieth- century Middle East. The information on Qabbani's family and personal history are helpful suggestions for what may have contributed to his poetic development. Frangieh cites several of Qabbani's most important poems as markers of this poetic development, in order to point to his important role in Arabic intellectual culture in all its political and social aspects.
    [Show full text]
  • Middle East Resources
    Middle East Resources Novels At the core of Middle Eastern literature, is the art of storytelling. Many stories have circulated through the Middle East and North Africa for hundreds of years and remain pertinent to understanding the region’s historical context and cultural heritage. Middle Eastern literature is often characterized by its social and political commentary, comedy, poetic nature, and suspenseful plot lines. ● The Thousand and One Nights (also called The Arabian Nights) by Anonymous ● Arabic Short Stories translated by Denys Johnson-Davies ● Silence for the Sake of Gaza by Mahmoud Darwish ● A River Dies of Thirst: Journals by by Mahmoud Darwish ● The Harafish by Naguib Mahfouz ● The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz ● Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz ● Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany ● I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti, ● The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk ● My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk ● The Map of Love by Adhaf Soueif ● My Michael by Amos Oz ● Pillars of Salt by Fadia Faqir ● Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh ● The Stone of Laughter by Hoda Barakat ● The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson ● The Lemon Tree by by Sandy Tolan ● Native: Dispatches from an Israeli-Palestinian Life by Sayed Kashua ● Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Sari Nusseibeh ● Once in a Promised Land: A Novel by Laila Halaby ● Taxi by Khalid Al Khamisi ● All the Rivers by Dorit Rabinyan ● The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini ● A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini ● Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa ● Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi ● The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq by Hassan Blasim ● The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat ● The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak ● Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury ● Yalo by Elias Khoury ● Revolution for Dummies: Laughing Through the Arab Spring by Bassem Youssef Poetry Arabic poetry is the earliest form of Arabic literature.The Arabic language is a unifying symbol of cultural and historical identity in the Middle East.
    [Show full text]
  • Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition
    ARABIC POETRY Since the late 1940s, Arabic poetry has spoken for an Arab conscience, as much as it has debated positions and ideologies, nationally and worldwide. This book tackles issues of modernity and tradition in Arabic poetry as manifested in poetic texts and criticism by poets as participants in transformation and change. Arabic Poetry studies the poetic in its complexity as pertaining to issues of: ● Selfhood ● Individuality ● Community ● Religion ● Ideology ● Nation ● Class and ● Gender This book also studies in context, issues that have been cursorily noticed or neglected, like Shi’i poetics, Sufism, women’s poetry, and expressions of exilic consciousness. It employs current literary theory and provides comprehensive coverage of modern and postmodern poetry from the 1950s onwards. Arabic Poetry is essential reading for those with interests in Arabic culture and literature and Middle East studies. Muhsin J. al-Musawi is Professor of Middle East and Asian Studies at Columbia University and University Professor at the American University of Sharjah. He has published 24 books in English and Arabic, including Scheherazade in England and The Postcolonial Arabic Novel. He is the editor of Journal of Arabic Literature. In 2002 he received the Owais Award in literary criticism, the most prestigious nongovernmental award in the Arab world. ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN MIDDLE EASTERN LITERATURE Editors James E. Montgomery University of Cambridge Roger Allen University of Pennsylvania Philip F. Kennedy New York University Routledge Studies in Arabic and Middle Eastern Literature is a monograph series devoted to aspects of the literatures of the Near and Middle East and North Africa, both modern and pre-modern.
    [Show full text]
  • Marxist Social Realism in the Selected Poetry of Nazim Hikmet Aadil Ahmed*
    Scholars International Journal of Linguistics and Literature Abbreviated Key Title: Sch Int J Linguist Lit ISSN 2616-8677 (Print) |ISSN 2617-3468 (Online) Scholars Middle East Publishers, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Journal homepage: https://saudijournals.com Original Research Article Marxist Social Realism in the Selected Poetry of Nazim Hikmet Aadil Ahmed* Research Scholar, Department of Humanities, COMSATS University, Islamabad, Pakistan DOI: 10.36348/sijll.2021.v04i07.004 | Received: 06.06.2021 | Accepted: 09.07.2021 | Published: 17.07.2021 *Corresponding author: Aadil Ahmed Abstract This research article attempts to explore the socialist and revolutionary elements as portrayed in the selected poetry of one of the most renowned poets of Turkey, Nazim Hikmet. Nazim‟s poetry embodies the echoes of his fellowmen where the people of his country do not seem to conform the dictating ruling class and display their protest against the authoritarian rulers. Marxist theory of Social Realism has been employed so as to illustrate the essence of social reality from the selected poetry of Nazim Hikmet. Social Realism holds that every reality is directly associated with society and literature cannot be separated from the social threads. Nazim in his poems challenges the then system of his country and expresses his urge for revolution to transform the downtrodden society from the shattered position to an uplifted and a newer one. His poetry is a promise to human reality and showcases the human rights plea in broader sense. Keywords: Social system, Nazim Hikmet, Turkish society, Literature, Marxist Realism. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s): This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial use provided the original author and source are credited.
    [Show full text]
  • A Comparative Study By
    The Thematic and Technical Correspondences between Percy Shelley and Mahmoud Darwish: A Comparative Study أوجه التشابه بين الشاعرين بيرسي شيلي ومحمود درويش شكﻻً ومضمونا ً دراسة مقارنة By: Fatima T. Al-Doa’r Supervised by: Prof. Tawfiq Yousef A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Master of Arts Degree in English Language and Literature Department of English Language and Literature Faculty of Arts and Sciences Middle East University Dec., 2015 II III IV Acknowledgment My deepest thanks and gratitude are to Allah, the grestest, who gave me the patience and strength to do this research. My special appreciation and thanks are to my supervisor Professor Tawfiq Yousef who has been a tremendous mentor for me. I would like to thank him for supervising my research and for allowing me to grow as a researcher. His comments, guidance, and advice on my research have been helpful. Special thanks also are given to my parents. Words cannot express how grateful I am to my parents for all the sacrifices that they have made on my behalf. Also, I would like to thank my brothers (Wael , Nael , Samer, Fadi, Walid and Ahmad) and sisters (Faten and Asma) who stood by my side during the period of preparing the thesis. Finally, I would to thank all my friends ( Noura Sharabati, Alaa' Qtishat, Lana Kobri and Lina Mohsen) because believe in me when even when I stop believing in myself. I start believing in myself only because you believed in me. Thanks for everything. V Dedication إلى أُم البدايــــــات والنهايـــــــات إلى من أجلهــــا تهون الحيــــآة ، إلى من أجلهــــــآ تستحـق الحيـــآة .
    [Show full text]
  • Re-Historicizing the Six-Day War: the Counter-Poetics of Nizar Qabbani
    Re-historicizing the Six-Day War: The Counter-Poetics of Nizar Qabbani Saddik M. Gohar This paper critically examines the war poetry of the prominent Syrian poet, Nizar Qabbani in order to re-historicize the Six-Day War (1967) and dismantle the myths that provided the sparks for the war. Charged with the need to bear witness and responsibility for war, the poems, analyzed in this paper, constitute one of the first extensive narratives of trauma and defeat in modern Arabic literature. As a suppressed tradition of poetic texts production representing the consciousness of the contemporary Arab intellectual, Qabbani's poetic discourse defended the individual against the tyranny and persecution perpetuated by tyrannical Arab governments. Denouncing a network of stagnant institutions that gave rise to the war, Qabbani criticized the Arab official system questioning Arab culture and traditions. Due to its challenge of the hegemonic narratives disseminated by the defeated regimes, Qabbani's counter war rhetoric was censored and excluded from school curricula and Arab press. Undermining narratives which enhanced the rationale of amnesia and castigating military regimes who conspired to obscure the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, Qabbani's counter-poetics underlined the crippling impact of the 1967 war on the collective memory of a nation shattered by recurrent defeats and cursed by successive dictatorial regimes. Key words: war, defeat, trauma, counter-poetics, dictatorial regimes. Toward a Poetics of Disclosure: Re-narrating the 1967 War Tale The defeat of the Arab armies in the 1967 war and its catastrophic ramifications introduced into the study of Arabic literature an awareness of the impact of mass trauma on the collective memory of the nation, an awareness minimally confronted in the Arab world even during the era of colonization.
    [Show full text]
  • Nizar Qabbani - Poems
    Classic Poetry Series Nizar Qabbani - poems - Publication Date: 2004 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Nizar Qabbani(1923 - 1998) Qabbani was revered by generations of Arabs for his sensual and romantic verse. His work was featured not only in his two dozen volumes of poetry and in regular contributions to the Arabic-language newspaper Al Hayat, but in lyrics sung by Lebanese and Syrian vocalists who helped popularize his work. Through a lifetime of writing, Qabbani made women his main theme and inspiration. He earned a reputation for daring with the publication in 1954 of his first volume of verse, "Childhood of a Breast," whose erotic and romantic themes broke from the conservative traditions of Arab literature. The suicide of his sister, who was unwilling to marry a man she did not love, had a profound effect on Qabbani. Thereafter, he expressed resentment of male chauvinism and often wrote from a woman's viewpoint and advocated social freedoms for women. He had lived in London since 1967 but the Syrian capital remained a powerful presence in his poems, most notably in "The Jasmine Scent of Damascus." After the Arab defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, he founded the Nizar Qabbani publishing house in London, and his became a powerful and eloquent voice of lament for Arab causes. Qabbani was a committed Arab nationalist and in recent years his poetry and other writings, including essays and journalism, had become more political. His writing also often fused themes of romantic and political despair. Qabbani's later poems included a strong strain of anti-authoritarianism.
    [Show full text]
  • Rusafi's and Farokhi Yazdi's Poetry
    International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online) Vol. 4 No. 1; January 2015 Copyright © Australian International Academic Centre, Australia A Comparative Study of Anti-Colonialism in Ma‘ruf al- Rusafi’s and Farokhi Yazdi’s Poetry Abbas Ganjali Hakim Sabzevari University, Iran Asghar Moulavi Nafchi (Corresponding author) Hakim Sabzevari University, Iran E-mail: [email protected] Raziyeh Maskani Birjand University, Iran Seyyed Iman Bassir Velayat University, Iran Received: 18-07-2014 Accepted: 08-09-2014 Published: 01-01-2015 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.1p.216 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.1p.216 Abstract Colonialism is one of the phenomena that have had a harsh impact on the east. Due to the cruel treatment of the colonized by the colonizers, many classes of the people within the oppressed nations have risen against the oppressors. Among the Arab and Persian freedom fighters, one can refer to the remarkable struggle of such poets as al-Rusafi and Farokhi Yazdi, respectively. These two poets have entered this battlefield with their pens and poems, and have opened a new chapter in the book of struggle against colonialism. The present article attempts to study and highlight the nature of this poetic struggle by comparing the poems of Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi and Farokhi Yazdi. Colonizers resort to any accessible tool to incite discord among people, make false promises, stage deceitful agreements, suppress public education and awareness, attempt to obliterate the indigenous identity and national pride and history of the colonized nations, establish dummy parliaments, appoint puppet politicians as members of the parliament and as ministers, and all these devious measures and acts aim at establishing the colonizers’ position in their colonies.
    [Show full text]
  • Selected Poems of Nizar Qabbani
    Selected Poems of Nizar Qabbani Nizar Qabbani (1923 - 1998 / Damascus / Syria) A Brief Love Letter My darling, I have much to say Where o precious one shall I begin? All that is in you is princely O you who makes of my words through their meaning Cocoons of silk These are my songs and this is me This short book contains us Tomorrow when I return its pages A lamp will lament A bed will sing Its letters from longing will turn green Its commas be on the verge of flight Do not say: why did this youth Speak of me to the winding road and the stream The almond tree and the tulip So that the world escorts me wherever I go? Why did he sing these songs? Now there is no star That is not perfumed with my fragrance Tomorrow people will see me in his verse A mouth the taste of wine, close-cropped hair Ignore what people say You will be great only through my great love What would the world have been if we had not been If your eyes had not been, what would the world have been? A Damascene Moon Green Tunisia, I have come to you as a lover On my brow, a rose and a book For I am the Damascene whose profession is passion Whose singing turns the herbs green A Damascene moon travels through my blood Nightingales . and grain . and domes From Damascus, jasmine begins its whiteness Page 1 of 76 Selected Poems of Nizar Qabbani And fragrances perfume themselves with her scent From Damascus, water begins .
    [Show full text]