Will Arabic Poetry Be Freed from the Bonds of Meter and Rhyme?

There is a strong tendency toward the liberation of Arabic poetry from meter and rhyme. It is justification enough for this liberation that it is a faithful image of the spirit of the age, and of its children's repudiation of every fetter that curbs the release of the human powers in man to create what is better.

The first condition of excellence is creativity — the making of what is new and fresh in matter and form — and music... And how fitting it is for our poet to touch suggestion with a gentle touch, with the utmost simplicity and art, and to paint poetic canvases with the utmost skill, so that the reader smells the fragrance of the blossom, feels the prick of the thorn, and delights his ear with the song of a nightingale..

Society never lacks, from time to time (1), some problem that engages the attention of literary, artistic, or social circles; they turn it over, as problems are turned over, with study and analysis and an exchange of views. And there is a literary problem which has lately been ringed with a question mark, around which debate has raged, and which has been the subject of inquiry in the literary gatherings of Lebanon.. The problem is this:

"Will Arabic poetry be freed from the bonds of meter and rhyme?" What, then, are the principal views on the subject, and what is our position toward them?

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Some have said: the Arabs, by their nature, are a conservative people; the old captivates them, and the chanting of meter, with its plaintive strain, stirs them and carries them into regions of rapture and ecstasy that are not to be had in prose speech, however sweet its cadence, however wide its imagination, however brilliant its images...

Hence their definition of poetry stipulates meter and rhyme; and it is difficult to make them yield this opinion or to persuade them of its contrary, for it is part of an authentic tradition of theirs — they cling to its very hide, champion it with a stubborn faith, and will not suffer its pillars to be pulled down..

Others objected, saying: on the contrary, in classical rhymed poetry there is an artificial atmosphere that rarely possesses the constituents of poetry in its accepted modern sense — robust speech, delicate feeling, and music... As when the poet devotes his consciousness — all his consciousness — to keeping the measures exact, and expends grinding effort so that all the conditions of al-Khalil may come right for him. In this there is a turning away from the spirit of poetry to its skeleton: the word comes to rule the meaning, the fabric of the poem falls into discord, and the poet is driven against his will to use the hollow, the jarring, and the intractable word — of which true poetry is innocent — and all this in obedience to the stern rule of rhyme... Thus the poem rarely comes forth except by way of that barren versifying with which the bellies of the diwans, old and new, have been stuffed to no purpose...

And there are those who rest assured that this eruption of prose poetry is only temporary; that it has spread by contagion, as fever spreads; that it is perhaps merely one of the manifestations of artistic incapacity, and no more; and that it will not be long in dwindling, and will vanish with the passing of this age.

These are the chief opinions on the subject before us; there are still others that prefer moderation and decline to plunge into the battle... We pause here, to pass to a second branch of the inquiry.

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Since the opening of the century our poets have registered a palpable departure from the standard meter. Some did so with reserve, keeping implicitly to rhymed prose, like Rihani; others wrote prose poetry in absolute freedom, like Gibran and others besides. The poetry of these men was accounted a revolution in literature to which the eyes of readers were opened: some attacked the pioneers violently and accused them of unbelief and of literary recklessness, while others saw in this new species of poetry a curious novelty deserving a pause for reflection... And this latter party grew with the years, until it now counts scores of poets in the Arab world, each with his own artistic manner and his own poetic measure...

What, then, is the standing of this poetry, and what is its literary worth?

In fact, a large company of the writers of this age have begun to think it necessary that poetry break loose from the bonds of meter and rhyme, so that the poet may devote all his mental and poetic energies

(1) This "Talk of the Month" was delivered over the Near East Arab Broadcasting Station.

to that creative making which draws its matter from the great, pure wellspring, without restriction or condition.

And after all, what are we in the world but a small channel of the world river, from which we branch and by which we are affected? Is it within our power, alone, to stand apart and hold fast to a matter of our own, unaffected by the main courses and currents that pour into this river without respite — now tinting its water with rich beauties, now driving it on in turmoil, turbid and dust-clouded?!

I do not think, then, that we have any choice in this matter, nor do I think our poetic destiny hangs upon our will — if our poetry is fated to keep on growing and to receive its share of natural development — so long as we appease our intellectual hunger at Western tables and graft our culture, without reserve, upon a Western culture which, in its perpetual development and renewal, has never ceased to be the best model for the atomic age of surpassing speed in which we live!

From this we conclude that we are walking in the track of Western poetry. What, then, are the constituents of that poetry, and how far has it freed itself of its bonds?

It is a question of far-reaching breadth and depth, and space falls short of encompassing it as it should be encompassed. Yet whoever has had occasion to follow the modern poetic renaissance surely perceives that it is one manifestation of that total, all-embracing "liberation" which plainly marks every department of their life alike: the artistic, the literary, and the social.

The arts, for example, have broken loose from their classical bonds, heedless of the protest and condemnation which the conservatives hurl at them with vehemence. It is as though these artists walked alone in the clear light, while the world behind them floundered in the tumult of artistic consciousness!.. It is no idle thing, in my view, this confidence of the contemporary artist in the worth of his production — else why has he cut his chains with such extraordinary boldness, and soared like the eagle in his free skies?!

Among the poets of France and America — did we but know it — there is an enormous number, brilliant and of world renown... and I defy anyone to find in their collections a single trace of meter or rhyme! It is as though their poetic consciences had come to refuse, utterly, whatever curbs their freedom and their flight.

And consider the furniture in our modern houses — how it inclines, in the design of its lines, toward simplification and clarity and escape from all complication and confusion... Even our fashions — what a great turn there is in them toward liberation, which the creators of fashion take as their guide for whatever contents modern taste and sets it at ease!

It seems to me that these manifold manifestations, all moving in one direction, are but the natural expression of people's state of mind — the mind of one who has come out of two world wars, having suffered from their scourges every kind of hardship and privation, and who therefore demanded freedom on every plane as a reaction to what had befallen him... And it was natural that his soul, athirst for freedom, should be reflected in every work that issues from him: artistic, literary, or social...

I would not have it understood from my words that the matter is settled — that Western poetry has been liberated once for all, and that no one remains to string rhymes and attend to meters. No: these will, in every time and place, have those who look toward them and sing of nothing else.. I myself am one of those brought up to relish metered poetry and to thrill to it. My task here is no more than an attempt to set forth a reality and to analyze our position toward it, in the measure of that reality's close bearing on the characteristics of the age on the world plane — whose example we follow, and by whose influences we are influenced.

In the light of the foregoing, it appears to me, among the probable estimates, that there is a strong tendency toward the liberation of Arabic poetry from meter and rhyme. It is justification enough for this liberation that it is a faithful image of the spirit of the age, and of its children's repudiation of every fetter that curbs the release of the human powers in man to create what is better.

It remains for me to affirm that it is by no means easy for prose poetry to attain those qualities which raise it to the rank of metered poetry. There are definite artistic conditions without which it is mere fallen speech — and hence most prose poetry until now has been accounted neither good nor deserving of esteem. Let no one suppose, then, that everyone

who has set down prose lines is thereby writing poetry!

As for the conditions of excellence, the first of them is creativity — the making of what is new and fresh in matter and form — and the expression of the felt experience in living, pulsing flashes that snatch the reader up, so that he loses himself in the poet's regions, sharing his sensations and the stirrings of his heart...

And the inner cohesion of the poem is, in prose poetry, among its most essential constituents; without it, neither the splendor of its impact nor its effect upon the soul is secure. Here we call attention to that looseness and slackness, and the like, from which most published poems suffer — as when the poet resorts to prolongation without enlarging the thought, or by way of repetition and padding, which destroys the splendor and cuts short the thread of the reader's rapture...

And grievously does the prose poet go astray if he deliberately affects symbol and obscurity, so as to delude his readers with the power of his inspiration and his nearness to the miraculous; for in such attempts lie bankruptcy and failure, both complete. How fitting it is for our poet to touch suggestion with a gentle touch, with the utmost simplicity and art, and to paint poetic canvases with the utmost skill, so that the reader smells the fragrance of the blossom, feels the prick of the thorn, and delights his ear with the song of a nightingale...

Nor shall we belittle the importance of the element of music in prose poetry: without music the poem passes, without question, into the domain of prose — this besides due regard for the ordering of words, and the choosing of the one word and the one letter to the exclusion of all others, and the like.

The craft of prose poetry, then, is not easy, as some imagine — for all that it accords with nature and native instinct more than metered poetry does.. Like every other literary form, it passes through the stages of birth, and submits to polishing under the supervision of authentic taste and conscious practice.

Our Arabic poetry, as I see it, is on the road to its liberation from meter and rhyme. As for fixing the value of this poetry, that is beyond our power now; the future alone may judge for it or against it... Will survival be written for it, or will it go, with many another novelty of the age, dust into dust?