Ittijahat al-Shi'r al-Arabi al-Muasir
- Author died
- 1424 AH
- Editions
- National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters
Ittijahat al-Shi'r al-Arabi al-Muasir (Trends in Contemporary Arabic Poetry) is a critical study by the Palestinian scholar and critic Ihsan Abbas that examines the intellectual, psychological, and thematic currents of modern Arabic verse .
Scope and Composition
Abbas dated the preface of the book in Princeton on June 2, 1977 . Although he initially intended the work to be a concise and simplified study to introduce contemporary poetry to a broader audience, he noted that simplification and brevity often conflicted with the intellectual complexity of the subject .
To prevent the scope from expanding unmanageably, Abbas restricted his inquiry to the thirty years preceding the book's composition . He argued that poetry from earlier in the century had already received extensive scholarly attention, remained directly tied to traditional Arabic heritage, and did not pose the same interpretative challenges as recent verse . He refrained from dedicating a separate chapter to formal and prosodic developments, noting that the diverse techniques of poetic structure, imagery, and diction required specialized studies of their own .
Method and Themes
In establishing his critical framework, Abbas rejected purely historical, political, or nationalist classifications, asserting that such categorizations reduce poetry to documentary records rather than engaging with its artistic nature . Instead, he adopted an approach focused on the psychological and intellectual depths of modernist poetry . He relied primarily on primary collections (diwans) rather than secondary criticism, aiming to present an independent critical appraisal .
The work investigates several central phenomena in modern Arabic poetry, including:
- Myth and Symbolism: The appropriation of mythological motifs and pagan or religious figures to articulate the modern Arab condition, influenced in part by Western literature and psychoanalytic theories .
- Historical Counter-Narratives: The deployment of revolutionary or historical symbols, such as historical uprisings, to transcend traditional historical burdens .
- Alienation and Identity: The conflict between the individual and society, and the poet's psychological experience of estrangement and lost identity .
Reception and Editions
The study was among the critical contributions on modern literature recognized when Abbas co-won the King Faisal International Prize for Arabic Literature in 1400 AH / 1980 CE, which was dedicated to studies on contemporary Arabic poetry . A second edition of the work was published in Jordan by Dar al-Shuruq in 1992 .
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