The Woman's Voice Questions Leaders of Thought — With Mr. Youssef al-Khal

Mr. Youssef al-Khal is no stranger to our readers. He is among the first who nourished the magazine with the fruit of his mind, open as it is to poetry and letters... He has a diwan of poetry, "Liberty," and a play, "Herodias."

He returned to Lebanon at the beginning of this year from the United States, after an absence of seven years, during which he joined the United Nations and then headed the editorship of the New York newspaper "al-Hoda." He has kindly consented to answer the questions put to him by the editorial staff:—

Q — Surely, Mr. Youssef, these seven years you spent in America have won you a wide and rich experience. There is your close contact with United Nations circles, your work in the Arabic press of the Mahjar, and there is your constant attention to the currents of contemporary literature and poetry — here and in the West. What, then, are your impressions of America as the greatest power in the world?

A — To speak of America's greatness is to state the obvious, as it is to speak of the virtues of its people, which have raised it, in the space of a century and a half, to the place of precedence among the peoples of the earth. Whatever satire may be leveled at that people, this truth remains standing: the rise of the American people rests not on the shortcomings it may be reproached with, but on the virtues it enjoys, which stem from its belonging to the authentic European heritage of civilization, founded on faith in action, in natural law and Christianity, and in modern science. Were it not for that, that natural wealth would never have submitted, obedient and humbled, to man's will and resolve.

Q — And American literature — what is its standing in your eyes?

A — American literature, on the whole, is less deep than the literatures of Europe. That is a long story. Suffice it to mention here that the most prominent side of this literature is the story.

Q — And American poetry — what is your opinion of it?

A — Contemporary American poetry is not the most prominent side of the literature. Nor does it lead world poetry — unless we count T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound as Americans. The first, as you know, madam, forsook America for London from his earliest youth; and the second has lived most of his days in Europe, in revolt against everything American. In the last century, however, American poetry had, thanks to Edgar Allan Poe, a far-reaching influence on the French realist-symbolist movement whose path was opened by Charles Baudelaire.

Q — Then you are not an admirer of American poetry.

A — I do not say that... What I hold against most of this poetry at the present time is its immersion in mechanical verbal craftsmanship at the expense of feeling and spirit. And this tendency, of which we find a counterpart in the art of painting, reflects the monotonous industrial-human current

that is sweeping over modern societies.

Q — And Arabic poetry — where does it stand in all this? Do you sense in it a new direction that promises well?

A — Arabic poetry is still half a century behind contemporary world poetry. It has stopped at the Romantic movement that reigned over Europe in the last century, and at the symbolist-pictorial movement that arose in France with Albert Samain, Mallarmé, and Verlaine. Yet I do sense a new direction, at its most prominent in Iraq. It is influenced by the modern current launched by T. S. Eliot a quarter of a century ago. And like every new movement, it is not free of shortcomings, nor is it spared obstacles. The shortcomings are reflected in the movement's lack of poetic talents of the first rank, capable of carrying it out of the stage of anxiety and perplexity into the stage of concentration, stability, and deep, authentic experience. The obstacles have their source in the difficulty of bending the rules of classical Arabic and training them to deep, vital, existential expression, and in the obstinacy of al-Khalil's meters and their resistance to the breaking of the unity of the single verse and its replacement by the unity of the poem.

Q — Does this new direction have representatives among the poets of Lebanon? And is it a sound direction, destined to succeed?

A — Yes. And I think this direction is on the road to success. It is destined to reign over Arabic poetry in the next ten years, for it reflects the yearning to break loose from the fetters of the old poetic manner and to express human experience with realism and authenticity. Its bitterest enemy is the hollow, formal, romantic, oratorical strain that has characterized Arabic poetry down to this day. And I believe this direction is blessed, in that it is a necessary stage, within the frame of the rules of classical Arabic, toward reaching the true stage we seek — the accommodation of those rules to the development that life has wrought upon the tongue of the people.

Q — It is said that you are devoting yourself these days to a large poetic work. May we know its subject? And is it in the poetic manner we came to know in "Herodias," for instance, or have you found your way to a new manner?

A — What is said is true. But permit me, madam, not to disclose the subject to you now. Suffice it to say that it turns on an ancient Sumerian epic that preceded the Iliad by at least fifteen hundred years. That ancient epic is among the foremost literary masterpieces of all ages and all nations.

As for the manner I have followed in composing it, it differs from my known manner in its freedom from rhyme, from the unity of the single verse, and from the formal oratorical strain that rests on the stringing of epithets and synonyms and the multiplying of conjunctions and all the other rhetorical connectives whose effect is to prevent the meaning from standing directly before the mind.

Q — I have now a personal question, one that must be turning in the minds of many of your acquaintances. It concerns your return to Lebanon despite the material and moral success you had achieved. Will you tell us the reason that moved you to return?

A — With pleasure. The reason is simple. I did not find there the soil in which it would be given me to realize myself — that is, to be my own self, with all the dreams and hopes and desire to create that are in it. Man is a rational being, and the material environment does not suffice for his happiness, however laden with blessings. He stands in urgent need of settling and centering himself in the environment of his heritage and of interacting with it. Hence we see the emigrant communities taking care, for the space of a generation or two, to cluster together in the lands of their emigration, as though they were trying to carry the old homeland over into their new one.

Q — I had meant to touch on other aspects — your experience at the United Nations, your opinion of the American woman and the American man, the standing of the Arabic press in the Mahjar... and perhaps also the literature of the Mahjar. But space runs short. Until another time, then, God willing.