الشاعر (التجريبي) والثقافة / The (Experimental) Poet and Culture

Program

ALIF

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http://www.jstor.org/stable/521579

All Authors

عبد الكريم, عبد المقصود; Abdul Karim, Abdul Maqsud

Document Type

Research Article

Publication Title

Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics

Publication Date

1991

doi

https://www.doi.org/10.2307/521579

Abstract

[In this article, the idea of "culture" is used in the broad sense of every day experience -- which necessarily includes the reading experience. Culture is introduced on two levels. The first level deals with the academic approach, where neutrality is the primary assessment to success. In contrast, the second level of culture is that of the poetic; where culture is not valid as a subject on its own; but rather becomes a part of the poet's subjective being. The academic approach to culture is dealt with on the level of the ego and the superego. On the other hand, the poetic approach is contained within the realms of the id. On the first level of culture memory plays an important and inevitable role; whilst on the second level, the concept of forgetfulness forms an essential ingredient. At this point the author cites advise given long ago to the Arab poet Abu Nuwwas: to forget all he had learned of poetry before starting to write. This concept of forgetting does not mean that what is forgotten is lost, for it remains somewhere in the human brain even though it might not be re-used in its original form. Culture that has an academic thrust to it forms what the writer of the article describes as a "combination". In contrast, the cultural - poetic construction forms a structure that resembles the "chemical compound", where the whole does not add up to the sum of its parts. Within this whole, the parts are not easily separated. The article attempts to apply this theory to the works of two experimental poets: Saʿdi Yusuf, the prominant Iraqi poet, and Ahmad Taha, the Egyptian poet who belongs to the group known as Aswat. They both demonstrate an ability to put behind them the past poetic experience -- with its known meters and stanzas -- and start from the point of "negation." Finally the article points out that the modern poet is in need of great courage to create an art that depends on forgetting rather than memorizing.]

First Page

138

Last Page

147

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