Ahmad Shauqi 18681932

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Ahmad Shauqi (1868-1932)
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• Mixed origin
• Studied law and translation
• In1887 was sent by Khedive Taufiq to France to
  study Law at the University of Montpellier.
• Held a high office in the court
• Composed panegyric poems on official occasions
• known for his loyalty to Abbas and the Ottomans
  and his attacks on the British
• Exiled to Spain in 1915 (during WWI)
• Developed interest in Spanish Arabic poets while
  in exile, especially Ibn Zaidun

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• Wrote poems about the glories of the past Arab
  civilization of Spain and his nostalgia for Egypt
• Returned to Egypt after the war to devote his
  time to literary activities.
• Identified with the cause of the Egyptian people,
  nationalistic feelings and aspirations becoming
  more active, violent (1919).
• During this time he wrote his poetic dramas.
  (except for Ali Bayk al-Kabir in 1893)
• Active until his death in 1932 when he was as one
  scholar said, "at the height of his great poetic
  gifts".

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• First volume of verse published in 1898.
• Collected works published in four volumes 1 and
  2 in 1926 and 1930, 3 in 1936 and 4 in 1943 (both
  posthumously)
• First volume contains poems on historical,
  political, social themes
• Second volume contained descriptive, amatory,
  miscellaneous poems
• Third volume was devoted to elegies
• Fourth volume was a mixed collection including
  poems from the three previous categories as well
  as juvenilia, fables, poems for children and some
  humorous verse

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• In 1961 Muhammed Sabri published 2 more volumes
  under the titleal-Shauqiyyat al-Majhula
• In addition to poems he published many short
  prose romances of
• indifferent quality. Example Adhra al Hind
  (The Maid of India, 1897), Ladiyas, 1899 and
  others.
• Translated Lamartine's Le Lac into Arabic verse
  (translation lost)
• While in France became interested in theater and
  wrote the first serious modern Arabic poetic
  drama
• Remained a neoclassicist although he borrowed the
  external form of Western literature
• Wrote a variation on Avicenna's Ode on the Soul
  setting an example to be followed by other
  succeeding poets
• Accomplishment made the traditional Abbasid
  idiom so relevant to the problems of modern life
  that poetry became a force to be reckoned with in
  the political life of modern Egypt.