"The Woman's Voice" Asks the Leaders of Thought: Dr. Bishr Faris

What shall I say of Dr. Bishr Faris after all that the Lebanese papers and magazines have written?... But the woman's pen... and her "voice"... have reaches all their own! Do you suppose I am sowing seeds of rivalry between the woman's voice... and the man's? Between her pen and his? No... there is no room here for any of that... whatever they may write, men or women... for with Dr. Faris the new never runs dry... he has enough to fill the breast of every magazine...

I met him after a poetry session of his at the American University of Beirut, at which he scattered over his audience poems... touched by the fever of symbolism... I still remember how some of them defied the taste of Dr. Anis Frayha and his "lurking" connoisseurship — and those poems remain defiant of him, to his full acceptance and contentment...

I did not ask Dr. Faris about his poetry — it is a new breath in the world of our letters... Is it not time for that literature to renew itself... to open out... to tell us what it has not told before?...

We talked of nature in Lebanon — and between nature and poetry there is a brotherhood... or say... a bond of motherhood.

Nature in Lebanon... Dr. Faris has drawn great gain from it... and this gain reached its zenith at Chtaura, which witnessed the birth of poems of his, and of a play, "From Behind the Dam," which he composed in French and which has been translated into German. He himself finished rendering it into Arabic this summer at Chtaura — which he calls the emerald.

As for the Eastern girl, our man of letters speaks of her with tenderness and hope... between her and the light hang threadbare veils... now dissolving. And to this girl he has dedicated his new poem, which the magazine al-Adib is to publish under the title "To the Girl of the Age." He said to me in the course of speaking of her: "Life does not play... but you women must not fear it... it gives to whoever asks... on condition that he toil in the asking... Frivolity makes it light... he who is faithful to it... is refined by it... No... it no longer becomes the girl among us... any girl... to sleep among the pillows... of foolishness... and folly!"

And music, in the judgment of "the poet," is his stairway to an overwhelming secret... to celestial tones... and between him and it there is an understanding friendship — or say, a wondrous love...!

The Eastern melody is dear to his heart... that melody which has been disfigured... grown flabby... and come unstrung since Sayyid Darwish... and his disciples.

We went on talking of art... Dr. Bishr Faris expressed to me his sorrow and grief over the old building in the Eastern style, which embraces us... and keeps pace with our life, our inclinations, and our Easternness... The modern building which the "modernity" of this age imposes upon us... is an intruder upon us, a stranger to us, however much we turn about on the stairways of progress or draw near to the climates of the West... and its architecture.

I asked him about his well-known hobby, of which my teacher Dr. Ishaq Musa al-Husseini had told me before... He is a collector of old Eastern vessels, especially the crystal ones... and he has a rare collection of old carpets...

This is what he said, in brief, before passing on to speak of his huge library, which holds more than three thousand volumes... Among those volumes he spends the greater part of his long working hours, and even in most of his leisure he searches and delves and arranges and composes...

Sweet indeed it is for a man to make work and play brothers within himself... this is the foundation of striving... and the cause of its success.

We returned to talk of beautiful Lebanon... After Egypt it is the dearest of countries to his heart... Is it enough for us that Chtaura is in it — and the part sometimes pleads for the whole?...

I ought to have asked Dr. Faris about his scholarly and historical activity — but what was to be done? The dome of art is vast and many-aired. In any case, perhaps the most eloquent account of this activity lies within the folds of his numerous works, the Arabic and the French alike...

Dr. Faris did not say to me, in his delightful talk, what Kipling once said — East is East and West is West — but he reminded me of it.

Yes, it is prodigality on our part to thrust away our Eastern stamp, and then our friendship for the domineering, sweeping civilizations...

And it may be that in this stamp lie the cause of our existence, the pillar of our steadfastness, and the secret of our charm...

• He was born in Egypt of parents born in Bikfaya.

• His studies: secondary schooling, Egyptian; a doctorate in letters from the Sorbonne in Paris.

• He completed his higher culture in Germany, England, and Italy.

• He has written in both Arabic and French, and works of his have been translated into German and English.

• The subjects of his literary works extend to literary criticism and fiction — he is the pioneer of the symbolist school in poetry — and the theater (he has a play, "The Crossroads," which appeared in French on the stages of Paris and in German on the stages of Austria and Germany from 1950 to 1954).

• And the subjects of his scholarly works extend to philosophy, the sociology proper to Arab civilization, and the Arabic language.

• Among his works on art: a history of Eastern art, Christian and Islamic — it won the prize of the French Academy of Fine Arts in 1954 — and then the principles of Arabic music.

• He worked in journalism, writing for al-Muqattam and al-Muqtataf for twenty years.

• He is a member of the Egyptian Scientific Institute and the Eastern member of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo.