The Survival of Romanticism in Modern Arabic Poetry with a Special Reference to Farouk Shoosha

Abstract

Due to contacts with the Western cultural milieu, new concepts and ideas were adopted by many European-educated Arabic poets who had been given a chance to read and translate English and French verse. The result was new generations who, influenced by the Western modernism, revolted against their accustomed literary traditions. Being influenced by the Western modernism implies an influence by its “Neo-romanticism”. It is 'new romanticism' because it represents a revival of the European romantic spirit which had informed the work of the Apollo Group in the 1930s. From Eliot, the Arabic poets took the theme of the ‘city’ (the ‘unreal city’) and from other modernists a variety of themes that this paper finds a continuation of the English Romantic movement. This paper tries to prove this in a number of poetic images in modern Arabic poetry with a special reference to poetry of Farouk Shoosha.