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Orientalia Suecana, 2021

The article deals with the role that Baghdad has played in Arabic poetry since its foundation in 762 AD and throughout the history of Arabic literature. Founded at a time when Arabic poetry was at its peak, the glorious image of the city perched on both banks of the Tigris ignited the imagination of subsequent generations of poets to carve it in verse and enshrine it in the mantle of universal myth. There were also periods when Baghdad claimed attention because of its dramatic decline and disintegration as well as for being a theater for bloody wars, but even in such tragic times the image of an alternative, utopian Baghdad, as a metaphor, remained immune to the vicissitudes of time and the dreary reality of the earthly city. The sway of Baghdad, the fabled city of Hārūn al-Rashīd and the enchanted land of A Thousand and One Nights, continues to capture the imagination of successive generations of poets, writers, and artists the world over. Neither East nor West seems immune to its irresistible charm.

Ygdrasil, A Journal of the Poetic Arts, 2014

In order for the English reader to understand, enjoy and appreciate contemporary Iraqi poetry, light must be shed on its past. The reader will find that the translated poetry reflects the experiences of theIraqi people, dictatorship, social problems and the horrors of war and terrorism that the country still endures. The article that accompanies the poems, written by Professor Malik AlMuttalibi (College of Fine Art, Baghdad University) aims to paint a picture of the historical background of contemporary Iraqi poetry and the stages through which it went. Khaloud Al-Muttalibi

International Academic Journal of Education and Literature, 2024

Amongst the return to ruin ravaging Baghdad, its poets lamented the fall from utopian bliss to dystopia with their words representing a pained spatiality and reckoning with character-altering devastation. There is a love of place as it suffers human vices, one of the complexities of representation. Within these poeticisms are numerous historiographies. Earlier poets such as Muti ibn Iyas and Abd Allah ibn Al-Mubarak capture the urban majesty igniting the imagination. Yet it inspired contradictory emotions. Time ensured that, as destruction defined space, the poet crossed the threshold in the subject-object interaction. Those like Sa"di Shirazi, elegizing the ghostly capital after the 1258 Mongol invasion, was broken himself with his rhythmic cadence reflecting a hemorrhaging mentality. When violence invades the poetics of creation, some like Abdulghani Al-Jamil strip language of an embellished exterior. It is a desire to resist. Woundedness speaks back to the city uncovering a spatiality of loss.

One of the poets who played a leading role in the propagation of Baathist ideology in Iraq was Abd al-Razzaq Abd al-Wahid. Having published more than forty collections of poetry addressing topics like heroism in war, martyrdom for the nation and poems in praise of the leader, Abd al-Wahid was one of Saddam Hussein's favorite poets. In my article, I will fi rst examine the poet's biography and his political and literary positioning before and after 2003 in relation to his poetic work of the 1980s, then analyze examples of literary criticism issued on this nationalist author. Th e central question relates to the extent to which the poet's attitude toward his role during the Baathist era and the evaluation of his poetic work by Arab literary critics have changed after the fall of the Saddam regime. A comparison of a number of critical writings on this renowned poet not only off ers valuable insights into apologetic literary criticism and Arab intellectual discourse today, but also contributes to an evaluation of Iraq's recent cultural history and its (former) protagonists.

Oriente Moderno, XCII 1-2012, pp. 65 – 78, 2012

This paper provides a systematic examination of the unique ways used by the Kurdish-Iraqi poet Buland al-Ḥaydarī (1926, Baghdad -1996 to shape the image of Baghdad, in the context of the perception of the city's status among intellectuals of the political Left in midtwentieth-century Iraq, and as a reflection of his own life philosophy.

Aksara, 2022

The term "homeland" refers to the place and things that a poet associates with his humanity, including his dreams, suffering, and singing of his triumphs. This study seeks to illuminate some literary traits of contemporary Saudi Arabic poetry, with a focus on the Saudi poet Abdus-Salam Hashem Hafeth and one of his poems. It emphasizes the idea of "homeland" in particular as an instance of the position of contemporary Saudi Arabic poetry. One may say that among Arab writers, critics, and poets, Saudi poetry is currently in a favorable situation. The researcher aims to highlight, on the one hand, the poet's wisdom by utilizing his beautiful city-Al Madinah-as a sign of his love for his vast country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, by using it as a depiction of the poet's adoration. On the other hand, the researcher endeavors to explore the brilliance of the poet in exploiting the classical Arabic language in his poem. The research begins with an introduction before analyzing the subtitle, Arabic Poetry: The Tongue of the Arabs. An overview of eternal Saudi poetry and the Saudi Poets' Conceptions of Homeland follows. Then the study tracks a concise outline of Al-Madinah Al Monawarah as a Landmark of Thought as well as Abdus-Salam Hafeth as a Man and a Poet. The main body of the study uses a critical-analytical approach to assess the poem 'Nostalgia, Oh My Home' ‫وطني(‬ ‫يا‬ ‫)الشوق‬ with a special reference to some verse lines of the poem, which focuses on the notion of "homeland" as the poem's main theme and the Arabic poetic language as the classical tongue. The research concludes briefly with a few observations and a conclusion.

Cross-Currents: An International Peer-Reviewed Journal on Humanities & Social Sciences, 2023

The term "homeland" refers to the place and things that a poet associates with his humanity, such as his thoughts, pain, and chanting. The focus of this investigation is on the Saudi Arabian poet Khalid Al-Faisal and the concept of home. It consistently makes an effort to illuminate some literary traits of current Saudi poetry, such as the theme of familial attachment. The topic of "homeland" is given particular attention in the study as a sign of the direction current Saudi Arabian poetry is taking. There is a case to be made that Saudi poetry is presently flourishing among Arab writers, critics, and poets. The researcher wants to emphasize the poet's knowledge while also demonstrating his love for his vast country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, through the beautiful poem "Homeland Desire" by Khalid Al-Faisal. The researcher, on the other hand, makes an attempt to look at the poet's talent in the way he utilized the Arabic language in his poem. The poet's brilliant use of a lovely blending of classical Arabic and vernacular as a metaphor for his love of his vast homeland, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, will also demonstrate the poet's brilliance. The research commences with a brief introduction and then a look at the glory of home in Saudi poetry. The main part of the study deals with the Saudi poet Khalid Al-Faisal. The research then employs a critical-analytical approach to examine selected verses from Khaled Al-Faisal's poem "Homeland Passion" ‫انىطٍ(‬ ‫,)عشق‬ emphasizing the concept of home as its primary concern. A brief conclusion to the study is then presented.

Dirasat: Human and Social Sciences

In Brown Skin, White Masks, Hamid Dabashi critically examines the relationship between race and colonialism re-questioning Edward Said’s concept of the ‘intellectual exile’. Said stood in defense of Arab intellectuals who lived in the West and wrote anti-colonialist literature. On the other hand, decades later, Hamid Dabashi saw the situation of post-colonialism from a different angle and took his own stance from those Arab writers of post-colonialism. He reverses the positive image of some exilic intellectuals in order to shed light on the negative role which they can play. Dabashi calls them ‘native informers’ since they denigrate their cultures in a way that serves the Western ideology. This paper explores Dabashi’s concept of native informers in selected texts of Iraqi poetry. It argues that the Anglophone Iraqi poets, who paraded as ‘voices of dissent’, employ their poetry, unintentionally, to propagandize the American strategy which needs to assure the world that they are the ...

ELS Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities , 2023

A poet's ‘homeland’ is the place he associates with his humanity, such as his aspirations, pain, and incantation. The focus of this study is on the Saudi poet, Abdus-Salam Hashem Hafeth, and the concept of home as he depicts it in his poem 'Nostalgia, Oh My Home'. The paper consistently makes an effort to illuminate some literary traits of current Saudi poetry, the theme of national affection, and its connection to classical Arabic. This investigation aims to elucidate some literary facets of contemporary poetry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The issue of ‘homeland’ is given particular attention in the study as a sign of the route that contemporary Saudi poetry is taking. There is a case to be made that Saudi poetry is currently flourishing among Arab writers, critics, and poets. The researcher wants to emphasize the poet's knowledge while also emphasizing his dedication to his vast country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, by using the poet's wonderful city of Al-Madinah Al Monawarah as a symbol. The researcher, on the other hand, makes an attempt to look at how the poet utilizes the Arabic language in his poem. This study uses the critical-analytical method in assessing Hafeth's poem, 'Nostalgia, Oh My Home,' concentrating on the image of homeland as its major theme as well as the aptitude of the poet in masterfully employing the Arabic language. The result of the study shows the importance of the concept of homeland in the poetry of Saudi Arabia and the greatness of the Arabic poetic language as a beacon of illumination. By employing the poet's lovely city – Al-Madinah - as a metaphor for his love of his infinite homeland, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he also hopes to demonstrate the poet's brilliance and ingenuity. After a brief introduction, the study turns to an outline of Saudi poetry and then a concise introduction of the poet Abdus-Salam Hafeth. The study then applies a critical-analytical method to analyze a few lyrical lines from the poem ‘Nostalgia, Oh My Home’, placing a focus on the idea of home as its main theme. The study's succinct conclusion is followed by a few recommendations.

PhD thesis submitted to the University of Manchester in Jan. 2015, 2015

This study investigates the term, and the poetry of, the Rearguard Poets (sāqat al-shuʿarāʾ). It demonstrates through the investigation of both literary and non-literary texts of the Abbasid era that socio-political circumstances were major factors in forming the critical thinking of Abbasid critics as exemplified by al-Aṣmaʿī. The study argues that the grouping of the rearguard poets (without their consent) indicates that al-Aṣmaʿī and his fellow critics were interested in the poetry of this group not merely because they found in it the ‘purity of the Arabic language’ (faṣāḥa) free from linguistic errors or because of the poets’ eligibility to be included among the champion poets (fuḥūl al-shuʿarāʾ); they were concerned with a much bigger issue: the mission to preserve Arab cultural identity, which those critics felt was being threatened by the changing atmosphere of Abbasid politics, as Chapter One shows. Reverting to the life of the desert and the Bedouin language to create a standard language (ʿArabiyya) marked an important stage in Arabic intellectual life which left its mark on generations of critics and the criteria they used in selecting and judging poetry, as Chapter Two shows. One of the most important features of Bedouin poetry is the predominance of unusual vocabulary (gharīb), which served as both a linguistic treasury for philological critics and a foundation for creating a distinctive linguistic identity impregnable to foreigners, as Chapter Three demonstrates. In Chapter Four the norms and values of Bedouin society, which had the tribe at its centre, are analysed using examples of the poetry of the rearguard poets; these are identified with major themes occurring in the poets’ panegyrical and satirical poetry. Turning to the inner-self and the persona of the poets themselves in Chapter Five, it becomes clear that although the critics relied on them to provide contemporary examples of Bedouin poetry, the poets for their part were preoccupied by their own interests and were trying to fight for their own causes: for their tribes, for their patrons and for their own concerns as a part of the wider society, which may or may not have intersected with the agendas and concerns of the critical and cultural authorities. Chapter Six examines the stylistic features of the poetry in question, and investigates the influence of Abbasid modern (muḥdath) poetry and the refined (badīʿ) style. Examples of Ibn Harma’s poetry in particular are thoroughly analysed due to his perceived position as a pioneer poet composing in the new style of the Abbasid era. The study has found that although the creation of the ‘rearguard poets’ group served the critical authorities’ cultural and ideological interests rather than to show the linguistic and artistic value of their poetry, this does not imply that the representation of those poets as providers of good examples of Bedouin poetry in the Abbasid era is invalid. Moreover, the creation of this group was a reaction to the dominance of Persian culture in al-Aṣmaʿī’s time. Furthermore, the poets’ language, themes, motifs and imagery served to showcase the interests of early critics and their preferences in poetry despite the lack of compelling evidence that both parties collaborated to promote one unified and clearly stated purpose.

This article is part of the bigger project of my PhD thesis which investigates the influence of the British war poetry of the twentieth century on the development of Iraqi poetry in the century/Plymouth University/UK. The article examines the influences of British poetry on the development of the forms of poetry in Iraq after the Second World War. The aim is to shed the light on the creation of the 'third product' or the Iraqi poetry that shows the influences of the translated British poetry or the 'second product'; which was written in prose for it is almost impossible to transfer the rhyme and rhythm of poetry from one language to another. Those who translated the poetry where also the pioneers of the major formal revolution in Arabic poetry and they were also influenced by the 'first product' which is the Poetry written in English language and its modern free forms. T. S. Eliot is one of the main influences that initiated the massive changes in the form of writing Arabic poetry which for the first time was written in the free verse form. The poetry of BadrShakir Al Sayyab (1926-1964), the Iraqi poet and the celebrated prince of the free verse movement in Arabic poetry, shows these influence and sample of his poems are analyzed in this article to reveal the influences of the poetry of T. S. Eliot and Edith Sitwell on his poetry.

This dissertation critically investigates the transnational movements that shaped the making of modernist poetry in Iraq and Iran. Following a brief introduction to the project’s historical and critical framework, the first chapter provides the dissertation’s theoretical foundation. It thus engages conversations about literary commitment, the transnational dimension of literary development, and world literature to situate these two poetries as integral to the broader modernist movement. Chapter Two examines the poetry of Nīmā Yūshīj, the founder of Persian modernist poetry, and the foundational position of premodern Arabic prosody for Persian poetic form. It highlights how Nīmā’s innovations on Arabic prosody presage the birth of the Iraqi free verse movement. Chapter Three moves on to discuss the work of Iraqi poet Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb, addressing how his pioneering project of poetic modernism changed in light of his political alignments. It demonstrates how his experience of the 1953 coup against Mosaddegh in Iran forced him to reconsider his Communist affiliations and discerns the effects his changing political outlook had on how he presented his poetry for posterity. Aḥmad Shāmlū and Furūgh Farrukhzād, two poets who took up Nīmā’s modernist vision in Iran, are the subjects of Chapter Four, which tackles their continued development of Arabic prosody in Persian and ultimate break with the formal constraints Nīmā had continued to adhere to. It also considers Shāmlū’s and Farrukhzād’s contrasting poetics of death in terms of their transnational poetic engagements. The final chapter turns to examine the Iraqi poet ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bayātī’s poetics of revolution—which combines existentialism, Sufism, and political commitment—to show how al-Bayātī’s use of the poetic masks of ʿUmar al-Khayyām and the martyred Sufi Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj works in transnational dialog with the Persian poetic and mystical traditions. By taking the Arabic modernist tradition as its focal point and putting Arabic poetry in conversation with modernist poetry in Persian, this study sheds light on how modernism functions as a planetary movement and calls for a reconsideration of current models for transnational literary analysis, reorienting modernist studies away from vertical approaches to lateral ones that consider minor modernist traditions on their own terms.

Journal of Arabic Literature, 2024

This article situates the 1955 novel Abū Nuwās fī Amrīkā by Ṣafāʾ Khulūṣī as an exemplar of and commentary on the dynamics of twentieth-century Iraqi cultural production. Drawing on Margaret Litvin's application of "travel literature readings" to modern diasporic and expatriate literatures, it analyzes the novel's protagonist-in the form of a reincarnated, radically reformed version of the Abbasid-era poet Abū Nuwās-as engaging in a "riḥlah-road-trip," traversing the United States alongside an anonymous narrator. Rather than fashioning a conservative extension of the pre-and early modern riḥlah genre, in view of the author's historical moment and works, this article argues that Khulūṣī parodies this genre by constructing critical distance and building intertextuality simultaneously. Khulūṣī draws on riḥlahs of the past, in which Iraq is represented as an advanced cosmopolitan destination, to speak to Iraq's future as a differently globalized, modernizing state that grapples with its perceived temporal and cultural regress, much like the novel's time-traveling protagonist.

1974

Preface iii Notos iv Abbreviations v PAST ONB AL-EABI'S LIPB AND TIM3S o Chapter I THB POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT Chapter II THB SOCIAL BNVISONMBNT Chapter III THB LITSKARY BNVISONMBNT Chapter IV AL-KADI'S LIFB Al=Sadl and hie family 95 His childhood Years of suffering Barly stages of his education 105 Further stages of his education Waiting for the exile's return Under his father's shadow Al-Kadl the naqlb 117 To Mecca A!-Hada. the ambitious politician The last stage of al-Kadl's professional career 126 The final years His personality and character His religious belief 136 His works PAST TWO ABE'S PQBTKY Chapter V HISTORICAL 0BS3SVATI0WS ON AL~1ADI S 3 BXWAN 150 Chapter VI AL~KABI«8 3UL0GY 1 = General remarks 2 = The stage of imitation 3 = The stag© of maturity 4-The Ikfawaniyyafc of al-la'dl 187 Chapter VII AL=KADI'S SBLF-PKAISB 1 = General remarks 2 «= Al-Kadl's self-praise Chapter VIII AL-KADI 9 S ELSGY 1 = General remarks 2 ~ Al=Sadl"o elegy 214 3 = Dirges on women Chapter II SHI S ISM IN AL~KABI«S FOBTSY 1-Shi 6 ism in history 244 2-Shi 8 ism in poetry 3 = Shi"iam in al~ladi's poetry Chapter X AL-KADI'S LOVB=POBTRY 1 = Introduction 2 = Al-Kadi's love-poetry (ghazal) 280 3 = Al-Sadi'8 amatory prelude 4-Al-Hijaziyyat Chapter XI AL~KADI»S FOBTICAL TBGHNIQUB 1 ••=> General remarks 2-Similes in al~Kadi 9 s poetry 3 = Metaphorical figures 4 = Shetorieal embellishments AP Mutabaqah and Muqabalah 330 Bo Tajriis 333 Co Husn al-ta 8 lll 335 Do Exaggerations and hyperbole S •= ESiyme and jpluythm 340 <5-E'iotE'o 34S 7 = Al"tiad'i°s poetical style and"vocabulary 350 Chapter XX J AL-SADI'S PLAC13 IK AKABXG LITaaAKY H1ST0SY 356

International Journal of Applied Research in Social Sciences

Classical Arabic poetry is the core of all categories of literature in all Arabic lands, territories, and realms since the age of pre-Islam. This study is an attempt to shed light on some literary facets of modern Saudi Arabic poetry focusing on the concept of homeland as an illustration of the standing of modern Saudi Arabic poetry with a particular indication to a contemporary Saudi poet, Abdus-Salam Hashem Hafeth. It can be right that the progress of Arabic poetry in the present age, among Arab poets, writers, and critics has a positive measure. It is true to generalize that the same would be identical to current innovative Saudi poetry given that it is naturally considered a principal, commanding, and uninterrupted measure of Arabic poetry. The researcher endeavors to illustrate the poet&#39;s intellectuality in depicting his glorious city as a representative of his adoration for the big home - the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study commences with a concise introduction. Then, i...

Baghdād

The history of Arabic literature has been indivisible from that of Baghdād since al-Manṣūr (r. 754-775) founded Madīnat al-Salām in 762. This city influenced like no other the development of Arabic poetry, notably at the crucial transition from a cultural practice of Arab tribes to the means of expression of an emerging multi-ethnic society and a vehicle of Islamic imperial ideology. Not only was Baghdād the seat of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs and the residence of the administrative and military elite who patronized poets and prose writers. A sub-elite consisting of upwardly mobile merchants and manufacturers strove to imitate the elite by forming their own circles, as did poets and writers. Baghdād was also a place where ideas and trends were born, left their mark on the literature and were thus disseminated. Literature was ubiquitous in the city, whether performed orally, set to music, circulated in private notes and letters or distributed in the form of books. Mosques, courtyards, alleys and the burgeoning book markets were sites of literary sessions, poetic jousts and satirical jabs. Then again, some poetry-accompanying practices unfit for public display, such as wine-drinking, took place behind closed doors. The modus vivendi of Arabic literature in public and private spaces thus mirrors the urban character of Arabic-Islamic culture. In turn, Baghdād became the paradigm of the perfect city, a place of nostalgia and the paradise of the literary imaginaire, whose fame would outlast all the conquests, destructions and transformations to which the city would later fell prey. 47 In 836, circumstances forced the caliphal court to relocate to Sāmarrāʾ, circa 100km north of Baghdād as the crow flies. But this did not last, and Caliph al-Muʿtamid (r. 870-892) returned to Baghdād in 884. Sāmarrāʾ was officially abandoned as a residence in 892, but its rapidly crumbling dried brick constructions survive in the verbal architecture of the odes of ʿAlī b. al-Jahm and al-Buḥturī, which describe the residences of Caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 847-861). Even during this intermezzo, Baghdād did not lose its attraction. The panegyrist Ibn al-Rūmī (d. 897), despite being dependent on the elites for his income, excused himself from leaving Baghdād for Sāmarrāʾ with a long qaṣīda depicting the hazards of travel. 48 47 Cooperson, Baghdād. 48 Gelder, Terrified Traveller. The presence of prominent poets shows the changing importance of Baghdād over the centuries. The luminaries of the late eighth and early ninth century, Bashshār b. Burd, Abū Nuwās, Muslim b. al-Walīd and Abū l-ʿAtāhiya were firmly ensconced here, as was a generation later the most famous representative of the modern style of poetry, Abū Tammām. His disciple al-Buḥturī alternated between Sāmarrāʾ and Baghdād, whereas the contemporary Ibn al-Rūmī remained faithful to Baghdād. A century later, as the city's fortunes waned, al-Mutanabbī (d. 965), the most famous poet of his time, traveled between the courts of the Ḥamdānids in Aleppo, the Ikhshīdids in Cairo and the Būyids in Shiraz, spending only a year in Baghdād in 962 to edit his collected works. The ingenious free spirit al-Maʿarrī (d. 1057) made only one brief and unsuccessful visit to Baghdād, withdrawing for the remainder of his career to his native village near Aleppo. By the time of the Saljūqs, Baghdād had lost its role as a magnet for poets, as poetry itself had yielded the rank of prestige literature to ornate prose, much of which was by now written elsewhere. One Iraqī-born but itinerant poet, Ṣafī l-Dīn al-Ḥillī (d. 1349), who composed both qaṣīdas and strophic poems (muwashshaḥāt) himself, devoted a treatise to the emerging colloquial poetic genres, and two of them (kān wa-kān and qūmā) were Baghdādī creations, in which popular practitioners made competed with elite poets. 49 Back in the first half of the ninth century, Baghdād was brimming with literary activity and provided the backdrop for the rise of modern poetry, which caused much debate among philologists and courtiers. It was a veritable tug-of-war between the dominance of the linguistic norms of classical Arabic (for which poetry had up until then supplied the model) and a new aesthetics, which suited the time and was appreciated by the governing elite. With the artistic acclaim and financial support of the courtly circles, modern poetry triumphed over the defenders of a normative definition of poetry. Instrumental herein was the class of educated courtiers, notably state functionaries (kuttāb), who developed a new method of practical criticism to argue in favor of the modern style, long before poetics would become an independent discipline. 50 But poetry was not limited to great names. Communication of all sorts was conducted in verse, a medium that was memorable, easy to disseminate and carried social power and cultural prestige. Irrespective of its artistic dimension, poetry simultaneously served practical

2011

Within the framework of contemporary critical studies on the image of the city in modern literature , it is crucial to critically examine the city motif disseminated in Arabic and Iraqi poetry, particularly the poems of the pioneering poet Abdul-Wahhab Al-Bayati in order to emphasise major city motifs rooted in modern Iraqi literature and culture. In addition to a critical investigation of the major aspects of the Iraqi city, it is also imperative to examine the socio-political trajectories integral to the image of contemporary Arab cities particularly Baghdad. Unlike their Euro-American counterparts, the Iraqi city poets , particularly Al-Bayati, live in preindustrial, non-productive and consumptive cities, dominated by police and military establishments. Therefore, the Iraqi city poets give priority to issues such as political corruption, human rights violations, economic exploitation, decadence , moral bankruptcy, prostitution, poverty, injustice and related local issues endemic of life not only in Iraq but also in the capital cities of the Arab world. While discussing the attitude of modernist poets toward the city in "The Crisis of Language," Richard Sheppard, argues Many of the major modernist poets had come into eadlong conflict with the antipathetic institutions of the rising industrial city. This conflict is seen in "The WasteLand", where Eliot's New England sensibility expresses its alienation from the modern mass city" (Sheppard 1987: 330). Like Eliot , many Arab poets have expressed their hostility toward Arab cities in general associating them with alienation, poverty, oppression and political corruption. Salma Jayyusi in Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry points out that although "The Waste Land" is not a poem of despair it "stresses the living death of the crowd in the unreal city (Jayyusi 1977: 724). Explicitly, many Arab poets imitate or even copy Eliot's vision of the modern city ignoring the differences between the Euro-American metropolis and the Arab cities. Others have approached the city motif from different perspectives according to their political ideologies and exilic experiences. The city analogy in Arabic literature , has been part and parcel of the modernist tradition ever since Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab in "Jaikur and the City" poured out his invective against the city in the fifties, describing its streets as "coil of mud " which " bite into my heart," and moaning : "my right hand: no claw to fight with on the streets of the city, no grip to raise up life from the clay"(Cited in Gohar

This paper contends that Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab's use of mythical and symbolic figures shows the impact of foreign and Arabic poetry on the history of humanity. It Appears that Al-Sayyab restored the ancient mythologies of his nation and exchanged this them with Anglo-American culture to handle the praxis of life and reflect the verifiable circumstances of the Middle East, particularly that of his nation, Iraq. This paper reevaluates Al-Sayyab's poetry from a different perspective which reflects the socio-political unsetting within the Middle East. Al-Sayyab does not essentially duplicate Eliot's methods, symbolism and themes. Rather, he mixes them with his legendary vision to form a wealthy and widespread national poetry without neglecting or sacrificing the national orientations of his poems. The relationship between Al-Sayyab and other poets is one of subversion and alterations; not essentially one of a simple ongoing impact. Al-Sayyab progressed the myths utilized by Eliot and other poets and changed them to modernize his poetry. Critically, he utilizes myth in an organized and systematic way to compare the current subjects of his lyrics against inaccessible and legendary ones.