By Mursi Saad El-Din In tracing the movement of enlightenment in Egypt, one detects an underlying aim, namely the demand for an intellectual freedom which would run parallel to political liberty. This aim was close to the hearts of intellectuals who fervently desired a new cultural and political identity which would preserve the legacies of the past even while embracing elements of the new. That search for an identity aimed at getting rid of the fetters of underdevelopment, and the shackles of despots and colonisers. It was a search enabled by the outbreak of the two world wars. While World War I witnessed the emergence of a political revolution, World War II resulted in the search for a new Egyptian spirit with a distinguished national stamp to encompass a wider horizon, going beyond the frontiers of Egypt. The 1948 Palestinian War gave a new impetus to the Arab perspective. It resulted in a world view in all intellectual activities, cultural and political. It saw the stirrings of the seeds of Arab unity and Arab nationalism of which Egypt would be part, indeed the leader. This period also witnessed a radical change in literature. Taha Hussein wrote Al-Mu'azzabun Fil Ard (translated into English under the title The Tree of Misery ), decrying the suffering of the poor. Khaled Mohamed Khaled published Min Huna Nabda' (From Here We Start), and Yehia Haqqi brought out his landmark Qandil Umm Hashim (translated into English under the tittle The Lamp of Umm Hashim ) which underscores the necessity of going back to Arab-Islamic roots inspite of the influence of European science. It was as if various threads were pulled together to create a new society of justice, freedom and equality, which of course created the groundwork for the 1952 Revolution. The revolution resulted in an upheaval in our literary life. Poets took up again, in a different vein, the project of freeing poetry from the old fetters. The new generation of poets rejected the prevalent old forms and became dissatisfied with the traditional styles adopted for hundreds of years. The revolution became the subject matter for the young poets. Among the pioneers of this new wave were Salah Abdel-Sabour and Ahmed Abdel-Moeti Hegazi. But beside these iconoclastic poets, there were others who introduced new content but kept to the traditional forms. It was like pouring new wine into old bottles. The wave of innovation also made itself felt in drama and one finds among dramatists likewise those who cast away all manner of traditional elements, and others who kept the old forms but introduced new content. Between the two schools there was a group of dramatists who stuck to the old style and content. We find, for example, Aziz Abaza writing verse drama in the style of the poet laureate Ahmed Shawqi, taking his subject matter from Arab history and retaining the traditional rhyme and rhythm. Even Tawfiq Al-Hakim, a modernist in every sense of the word, continued to evoke plays from the canon. We find that politics began to come into drama, as seen in the verse dramas of Abdel-Rahman El-Sharqawi. In the field of theatre one should mention a group of playwrights with a marked focus on Egyptian culture and current social problems. Among them were Noaman 'Ashur, Rashad Rushdi, Youssef Idris, Lotfi El-Kholi, Alfred Farag and Saadeddin Wahba. Those playwrights had a distinctly Egyptian stamp in that they used colloquial Arabic and resorted to thoroughly local backdrops. The field of fiction-writing has seen a number of new writers whose contributions have enriched Egyptian literary life. Naguib Mahfouz, if much older than the generation I have been discussing, is a towering figure in this field. Much has been written about this great novelist, especially since he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Out of a sizable corpus of novels that bear his name, Mahfouz will always be remembered for his Thulathiya, the trilogy in which he depicts three generations of one family starting from the 1919 Revolution. Through the life of the successive members of the family, the changes that have overtaken Egyptian society over decades are registered. Nor was literary criticism lagging behind -- but this can wait for a future column.
