: Percy Bysshe Shelley and Amal Donkol A Comparison Between The Social Function of Their Poetry

Introduction:

     Considering the common belief that Shelley is the romantic poet par excellence, especially in view of his image as created by the ‘Apollo School’ in Egypt in the 1930s, it may sound odd to claim that Amal Donkol, the exemplar of the revolutionary Arabic poet in the 1970s, was influenced by Shelley. However, recently published works by Donkol, apart from his standard biography and the critical revival of interest in him, show that he shares more than a superficial resemblance with the great Romantic poet. Since the so-called Arab Spring Uprising, many people have begun to read or re-read Amal Donkol with a new understanding. For one, I re-discovered that Donkol does not only echo Shelley’s revolutionary stance, but also certain romantic elements.

     Generally speaking, there were striking similarities in the social, political, intellectual, historical, and cultural contexts associated with the revolutionary nature of Shelley and Donkol. Most importantly, the upheavals in the socio-political and cultural veins in Britain from 1780 to 1830 had their parallels in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s in Egypt. Hence, both of them had witnessed many facets of social injustice and political oppression. As a result, their poetry, each in its own way, marked a considerable shift from the Neo-Classical conservatism to revolutionary Romanticism. Consequently, they are considered to be variously representatives of revolt against and challenge to the dominant status-quo. In spite of the significant differences in their cultural background, Shelley and Donkol share certain common grounds in terms of the function of poetry, the role of the poet in his own society, and the way to achieve the ultimate goal of man – freedom.

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     The greatest achievement of Shelley and Donkol in poetry is their abilities to express present feelings and concerns which are able to predicate future possibilities. According to Mary Moore, their poetry is “a bridge across diverse realities [since] it bridges the expressible and unexpressible, the present and future”. While connecting people "with the deepest joys and pains of life", their poetry provides the soil where the seeds of tomorrow can grow. Moreover, through stressing the importance of a strong and united community, their poetry emphasizes that people can transcend their individual perspectives and share the same experience of life since “in such soil, roots can burrow deeply, and new life can grow”(Moore 1998, 268-74). Generally speaking, though both were born in two fairly different cultures, Shelley and Donkol can still be viewed as having some parallels in their poetic and social concerns.

     Firstly, both of them suffered some kind of physical ailment that contributed to the feelings of bitterness expressed in their poetry and deepened their sympathy for others. Hence, their defense of the causes of the masses can be viewed as one main feature distinguishing them from their contemporaries. Secondly, both of them enjoyed a high degree of philosophical idealism which is strong enough not to allow them to show any flexibility in the way they preached their ideals. Thirdly, both of them are unusually mobile, owning to their restless nature. Moving from one place to another, their mobility helps to widen the scope of their intellectual horizons through moving across different subcultures, and thereby gaining experiences that enlarge their perspectives of the human predicament and the possibilities of social reform. Fourthly, both of them went through two distinct phases in their poetic careers; the first is that of revolt against corruption and the latter of identifying with the cause of human freedom in all its form.    

     Since Romanticism came as a direct challenge to the Augustan Age in literature in general, and in poetry in particular, Shelley represented a transition from the age of rationalism to the age of emotion. As his poetry shows a sharp repudiation of the strict objectivity and a great adherence to a veneration of spontaneous individual emotions in the works of art. Also, the new trend of Romanticism was not limited to literature, but it was extended to merge the literary, social, and political events at the time. According to Rickword, “the close coincidence between the limits of the Romantic movement and the crucial political events at that time so rare in all the English history” (Rickword 1982, 13).

     Attributing the poetic crisis in England which was clear in the decline of the cultural status of poetry at that time to the scientific advances of the eighteenth century, poetic “practitioners made an endless series of revolutions in poetic doctrine while seeking unsuccessfully to make society once again listen to them” (Clausen 1981, 1).  Hence, as a reaction against the vast remoteness between man and society during the years of the Industrial Revolution, the Romantic Revolution renewed their close connection. Subsequently, the poetry of Shelley did not only awaken the human consciousness to certain social realities, but it also necessitated the participation of man in the reformation of his own society.

     On the other hand, the British occupation of Egypt inspired Arabic poetry in general, and Egyptian poetry in particular, with the concept of poetry as "the mirror through which the changes of the Arab attitudes and thought have been reflected most sensitively and vigorously"(El-Azma 1996, 5). As a matter of fact, the direct contact between the Arab society and the West during the years of occupation is one of the main reasons for the change in many aspects of life in the modern Arab society. Consequently, Arabic poetry drew much upon the language of rebellion and revolt observed in the poetry of the West. According to Badawi, “the example of Western poetry seemed to act like a catalyst for the change or for the desire to change”(Badawi 1975, 262).

     Particularly, similarities between English poetry and Egyptian poetry on the thematic level can be seen in the Neo-Classical trend which appeared as a reaction against the Golden Abbasid Era. The poetry of the Neo-Classical trend was directed towards awakening people to the modern ways of life seen in the new civilization of the West. It is worth noting that such Neo-Classical revitalization paid a great attention to the general socio-political aim of all Egyptians: to gain independence. However, this revitalization process was threatened by the crippling effect of glorifying the traditional moulds of poetry dominated in the Golden Abbasid Era.

     Hence, the second trend of change in Arabic poetry appeared in Egypt as a reaction against the first one. In an attempt to find a new dynamic power which could add new dimensions of meaning to poetry, those poets resorted to foreign avenues of thought as a sign of refusal of the static themes and forms of poetry. At that time, Romanticism was an appropriate resort for those poets as they found in Romanticism, particularly its European version, a suitable source of inspiration. In Arabic Romantic poetry, the reader can easily feel a heightened sense of individuality, an agonizing feeling of social and cultural change, a political malaise, and an occasional awareness of loss of direction and of being strangers in an unfamiliar universe (Badawi 1975, 264-65).

     Unfortunately, the fall of Palestine to the Israeli occupation and the defeat of the Arab armies in 1948 marked a severe political and military catastrophe to all Arab countries. Hence, Romanticism turned out to be a futile form of life to the shocked Arab mind. Awakened to the horrors and degeneration of the Egyptian social and political life, Egyptian intellectuals, like Salama Mussa, Muhammad Mandur, and Louis Awad, rasised the slogan of "poetry for the people" and called for overthrowing the dominant forms of materialism. According to Badawi, “a stream of angry social protest began to pour out… social injustice and class struggle were added to national independence as political themes (Badawi 1975, 207). This strong feeling of anger paved the way for a commitment wave that links literature, particularly poetry, to the social, economic, political, and intellectual problems of society with the aim of awakening the consciousness of the masses.

    Shelley thought that poetry was “the expression of the imagination” (Shelley 1978, 511). As a matter of fact, imagination is the single characteristic that distinguished the English Romantic poets from eighteenth century poets. Moreover, imagination aids the poet in revealing reality. In a materialistic world, Shelley’s concentration on imagination is really exclusive. For instance, his description in “To Jane: The Recollections”:

The lightest wind was in its nest,

The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,

The clouds were gone to play,

And on the bosom of the deep

The smile of Heaven lay. (669, 11:16)

 

     Shelley regards imagination as “man’s highest faculty” through which “he realizes his noblest powers” (Bowra 1950, 21) which opens up the gate to another realm where the reader can transcend the physical world:

There seemed from the remotest seat

Of the White Mountain waste,

To the soft flower beneath our feet,

A magic circle traced, -

A spirit interfused around,

A thrilling, silent life, -

To momentary peace it bound

Our mortal nature’s strife. (669, 41:48)

 

     Deep contemplation, which is imagination, can awaken that faculty of the human mind.  Hence, imagination, for Shelley, is a transcendental means of communicating with the unseen power dominating the universe, and thereby can reach the Ultimate Truth. According to Shelley, imagination is not restricted to the poet but it should also be extended to every man as it is a means of achieving reform. Regarding man’s place in the universe as its centre, Shelley highlights the importance of reinforcing man’s imaginative competence since it is the only medium to realize a social change.

     Unlike Shelley, Donkol was keen to hide his cultural springs from which he formulated his poetic vision. For him, it is only through the close study of his poems that the reader can find out his view of the nature of poetry and its function in the society. Seen from a holistic perspective, the poetry of Donkol projects a dystopia of disillusionment arising from a series of calamitous events he has to pass through which we might view in terms of a tripartite causality chain: dreams or aspirations, disillusionment, and loss of hope. In the case of Donkol’s life and works, dreams are shattered one after another. Donkol’s dystopia arose out of his inability to reach his utopian dreams of happiness, stability, and prosperity. Right from the very beginning, he seemed to be aware of the conflicting realities surrounding him which led to a feeling of disillusionment and despair, and subsequently, a loss of any hope of a radical change.

     This mode of frustration and bitterness prevails in all Donkol’s poems. On the individual level, his poem “She Said” shows how the female figure encourages the poet to be a man of action rather than being a dreamy one, but his response is one of defeat for he is slothful as though something pinned him down to a spot:

Come hither, approach,

Climb this small staircase

“Shackles pull me down,” said I.

“Wallking is tiresome,

I would not rich that high;

I may get weak.

A small staircase, with no destination.

Leave us alone: me and sorrow.”

(43, Translation mine)

 

     Even “a small staircase”, which is an indication of an effortless action, seems hard for him.  Moreover, the negative tone in his poem, particularly “no destination”, “alone”, and “sorrow” reveals his deep despair as he has no clear objective to reach at the end of the road. This poem clearly depicts the psychological impotence of the poet that resulted from his hidden ambition to realize his love dream and his previous conviction of the impossibility of fulfilling such a dream on the actual level.

     On the national level, his poem “The Land and the Unhealable wound” depicts a picture of his country suffering from wars, defeat, and social corruption. In this poem, Donkol highlights the sense of loss and frustration that overwhelmed not only Egypt but the entire Arab world. The gloomy picture of the Arab world can be observed:

Hides his face,

Burnt in war!

Can the drug dealer amend

What the oil spoilt?

There is nothing more to say.

Oh Earth! Do you give birth to men?

(102-03, Translation mine)

 

     This poem reflects the poet’s sense of bitterness concerning the state of the Arab world. Donkol blames the Arab oil countries as they failed to fix the social and economic problems of their societies in spite of their richness. Moreover, such countries did not play the supposed role in the Arab world which resulted in the defeat of three Arab armies: Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in 1967 in spite of their rhetorical promised solutions. The last two lines of the poem summaries the result of the irreconcilable contradictions of the Arab world, that is the impossibility of achieving reformation. 

     By the same token, Donkol followed the same track of the psychological despair of his early love poems as well as his later national ones till the end of his life. Such gloomy perception of life can be observed in one of his last poem “December”, in which he addresses the calendar papers while he was lying sick in the Cancer Institute:

Mine, like yours, is an age of anxiety;

Lie beside me, ye claiming thy identity,

Let’s share tales of the soul’s rest,

The delectation of alienation,

The slavery of rooted boughs.

(407, Translation mine)

  

     In contrast to Shelley’s utopia which represents the possibility of hopes, dreams, aspirations, by and large the possibility of reform, Donkol’s dystopia insists on depicting frustration, despair, disillutionment, by and large the impossibility of reform. While Shelley’s optimistic vision is reflected in his “Queen Map” and “The Revolt of Islam” which delineate a beautiful world where the dreams of the common man in justice and fairness can come true, Donkol’s pessimistic vision is reflected in his “Spartacus’Last Words” which depicts the impossibility of dreaming of a happy world as long as people do not revolt against tyranny. Moreover, Donkol’s horrific pictures show a very sensitive poet aware of the agonies of his mother land and they also prove that poetry can be used as a powerful means to depict bleak realities which require attention as well as change.

     In “A Dialogue with Abu Mussa Al-Ashrai”, Donkol depicts a little poor girl symbolizing Egypt.

When I shouted against his tyranny,

She turned with sweet eyes;

In them two roses await for a kiss

From a wounded bee!

I saw her a child, a pregnant, a shadow.

(180, Translation mine)

 

     Traditionally, ancient Egyptians used to throw a young beautiful girl in the Nile as a sacrifice. Here, Donkol sees that Egypt has become that poor girl. The poet implies that she is a victim of abuse which is reflected in contradictory image of a child who is pregnant and the state of falsehood voiced by the media which the Egyptian people take for granted as being the real state of the country.

     Moreover, Donkol proposes some predictions about the future but they are bleak and gloomy like the present state of Egypt. He sums up this terrible image of the future in his “Everything is waiting for a sword”:

Now you give birth

To unaided babies

Who cannot raise an eye,

Who are sold as slaves,

To be abused in palaces,

And fight for victory.

(196, Translation mine) 

  

     This poem depicts the future youth of Egypt as being extremely exhausted, hence they are doomed to failure. Portraying the inability of the political and social institutions to provide a prosperous future for the Egyptians, Donkol confirms the gloomy future of Egypt particularly in consideration with the existence of the crafty propaganda machine that does its best to maintain the status quo. For Donkol, the first seed of such bleak future showed itself in the 1967 setback which proved the failure of the political administration of the country to protect its independency. 

     For Shelley, poetry is a medium to achieve the ultimate goals of human existence: peace, justice, and happiness. Since imagination can awaken the human mind to generate action, man is able to approach Truth and to enjoy the hidden beauty of the world. The ability of man to achieve the improvement and reformation of the external world through the mysterious imaginative power of poetry to remove the veils of the world’s inner reality proves Shelley’s belief in the perfectibility of man. Shelley conceives that poetry is a unique source of harmony in the universe through which man can get rid of the ugliness of the chaotic world and contemplate its beauty that lies in his own mind not in the world itself. In other words, beauty already exists all the time in everything but it can not be seen through the direct senses, hence Shelley uses the poetic power of imagination to perceive the beauty of the world. In sum, it is only through imagination rather than reason, insight rather than sight, feeling rather than seeing, that man can contemplate beauty:

Beauty is seen nowhere, but felt everywhere; it exists not in this low sphere nor in heaven, but its power makes divine the loftiest and the lowest. Its presence in winds, trees, streams, music, voices of animals and of man, in flowers and leaves, in autumn, in the motions and the smile of woman makes him worship, and its absence makes him lament. (162-3)

     The main concern of Shelley is the development of man as a social being, after a long period of human alienation that pervaded Britain in the eighteenth century, in order to be enlightened to achieve the aspired social reform. Such conception of poetry can be clearly observed in his “Queen Mab” where Mab stresses that the main aim of poetry is to achieve perfect happiness through urging man to generate an action in order to realize the desired reformation:

Yet, human spirit! Bravely hold thy course,

For birth and life and death, and that strange state

Before the naked soul has found its home,

All tend to perfect happiness, and urge

The restless wheels of being on their way,

Whose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life,

Bicker and burn to gain their destined goal. (799, 146:154)  

 

     Regarding Donkol, he attempts to enlighten man through presenting shocking rather than transcendental aesthetic aspects of life. Unable to cope with the irreconcilable contradictions surrounded him from all directions, Donkol shocked the masses through depicting a bleak picture of life in order to awaken them to realize the gloomy realities, and, subsequently, to perform a social change. In his “Some of Abu Nuwas’ Papers”, he expresses his shock at the murder of Al-Hussein. Donkol depicts the gloomy picture of life through showing how those people, for the sake of their interests, murdered him:

I was in Karbla

The old man said,

“Hussein died without a sip!”

I wondered how swords dared

To kill the blessed son.

The old man replied,

“Sparkling gold did.”

If Hussein’s words, arms, honour

Failed to support Truth,

Can a poet’s chitchat do?

(334, Translation mine)

  

     This poem is a great example of the sense of despair which prevails most of Donkol’s poetry as it shows a pessimistic view of life as well as it confirms the impossibility of achieving a productive change. His word “chitchat” stresses the sense that poetry is nothing but a futile medium in defeating evil, hence the impossibility of reformation.

     However, his major source of inspiration for achieving such aspired social change is the patterns of revolt. In his poetry, Donkol presents certain historical figures who dare to revolt against the mainstream powers like Spartacus, Kulaib, Zarqaa Al-Yamama, and Noah’s rebellious son. Even if those historical prototypes failed in defeating corruption and effecting change, this does not exclude the possibility that man’s aspirations for fairness, justice, and happiness can come true through other trials. According to Kassim Haddad, “Donkol’s despair was of a creative and generative type. He was genuinely desperate for real change… by outpouring his despair, he frankly faces reality and annihilates such a feeling. That is, once the poet vents his frustration and anger, so he somehow does not fall victim of despair” (Haddad 1999, 166-67).  

     Sharing the same ground of glorifying the sense of individuality, Shelley and Donkol affirm the value of individual freedom and his striving struggle to achieve it. For Donkol, man is the social product of the mainstream ideologies dominated Egypt at the time; hence he projects the individual as a hero who struggles and sacrifices himself for the welfare of the masses. In his poems, particularly “Spartacus”, “Satan”, and “Noah’s son”, the main figures raised the socialist motto “all for one and one for all”. According to Donkol, man is able to defy the dominant powers which control the world, and, subsequently, he is able to change it. The main focal of his poetry is the ideological shift from the subjugation of the oppressed policies imposed by certain social institutions to the ability to revolt against them.

     Motivating the reader to identify with them in order to perform a course of action to create the world of ideals: happiness, justice, fairness, and beauty, Shelley and Donkol proved their sincere commitment to the troubles of the masses through their great poetry which can be described as a crucible where the light of self-discovery and self-knowledge is fused with the aesthetic perception of beauty. According to both of them, poetry is not confined merely to the individual, nor is it a mere aesthetic ingenuity, but it has a great social role that can improve man and society. For them, poetry should try to form a union of all the people whose potential can be uplifted and elevated, and, hence, become the agents of reformation.

     One of the major tasks of poetry is to challenge ignorance and reveal truth through stripping the veil of fallacy in order to realize the conflict between ideologies and to resolve such clashes in a harmonious structure. For Shelley and Donkol, the main goal of poetry is to reread the social, political, and cultural events and revaluate them in order to show the contradictions between what is preached and what is really occurred. For instance, in his “Pages from the Book of Summer and Winter”, Donkol uses the white pigeon as objective correlative for new Egypt which is threatened by corruption through groups of “parasites” who conspire against the revolution. By uncovering this conspiracy, Donkol directs people’s attention to the danger of utopian dreams which may not be grounded on sordid reality. In spite of such danger, he ends his poem by urging the frightened pigeon to keep singing as an indication of emphasizing the dream of defying dangerous challenges in an attempt to stress the importance of hope in such gloomy life:

Oh, exhausted pigeon!

Hover over domes of this society,

Sing to death, sorrow and anxiety

Till we see at dawn

Try wings, cut and thrown

By the pedestal of the statue

Then thou that knife must know.

(208, Translation mine) 

 

     Despite the fact that both of them appreciate the value of imagination as a medium of challenging ignorance, discovering truth, and reconstructing the world in a reformist way, Shelley and Donkol differ in their mechanisms of using poetic imagination. Regarding Shelley, his mission was the defense of poetry in an age when the role of poetry as a mouth-piece of humanity was threatened by scientific advancements. Thus, his poems necessitated the prevalence of a mysterious imaginative atmosphere. Concerning Donkol, he did not have to defend poetry as it was the primary literary form that distinguishes the Arabic language. So he was primarily concerned with the functions assigned to poetry in the milieu of modern Egypt. Hence, his poems focus on a purely realistic imagination that was wholly preoccupied with social and humanitarian issues. Moreover, while Shelley transcends the imagination to a high level where one can rarely see the world of senses, Donkol is completely against romantic roaming in such unknown world. The poetic imagination, for Donkol, should be limited to the domain of the five senses, for “imagination that leaves reality behind has little to do with the humanistic issues. It can hardly be effective or creative” (Al-Taweel 1999, 96, Translation mine). In sum, whereas Shelley portrays a model of romantic imagination that deals with purely ideal concepts, Donkol depicts a model of realistic imagination that focuses on dominant social issues.

     According to Donkol, the poetic image should bear the seeds of social reformation through challenging the ugliness of ignorance and stressing the light of knowledge. Unable to cope with the prevailing paradoxical ideologies, Donkol regards poetry as an effective means that is capable of effecting a change in the way with which people understanding current issues in society. Light, for Donkol, is a very common theme in many of his poems as it removes ugliness, highlights beauty, illuminates the contradictions, sustains man in his struggle for freedom, by and large, effects a change in the way through which man views life. His poems “The Silver City Tale” is a clear evidence of using poetry as a tool of providing light to man. It begins with a poet describing his property: he has only his pen and five fingers which he calls five “mirrors” that reflect light. Since light springs from the poet’s blood, poetry is synonymous with light.  As long as the poet grips his pen to write, light will flow and spread knowledge and awareness in man’s mind and soul:

Ah! How cruel a wall

That blocks sunrise;

One may spend a lifetime to make a hole

For light to get through to generations.

(249, Translation mine)

 

     Also, his poem “The Book of The Exodus”, Donkol represents the image of some students with radical ideologies who gather around a statue protesting against some procedures through depicting their union as of a candle on a candlestick enlightening the dark night of Egypt:

                            The cruel clock stroke,

          A café radio was declaring

          The old talks about riots

           Revolving, demonstrating, flaming

           Around the statue, that candlestick

           Of anger, glowing in the dark,

           The students’ voice spread by dawn;

           Singing new Egypt’s morn.

           (292-3, Translation mine)

 

     Hence, poetry is an honest and objective mirror of reality as it exposes the maladies of society despite their ugly face. Reaching such stage of knowledge and awareness, man is able to understand his position in life and, hence, act to reform his society on the basis of insightful ideologies.

     Once knowledge is prevailed, awareness is achieved, and the irreconcilable contradictions of life are understood, poetry begins its second role. While Shelley encouraged radical changes through a gradual process which may take generations, Donkol encouraged immediate change even if it would lead to direct confrontation with corrupted systems. Considering the violent revolt against corruption and oppression as the major task of the moral poet, Donkol aims mainly to reform his society:

A moral and original position that resulted from the poet’s suffering in a social and cultural atmosphere wanting justice and freedom. This notion accounts for his feeling of alienation. Through revolt, he aims to uncover the evils of society in order to change them for the good of all people. (Megalli 1994, 59, Translation mine)

     By the same token, Shelley intensifies the notion of poetry as a mirror in his Defense of Poetry. For him, poetry strips the veil of familiarity which covers man’s ability to perceive the inner reality of life. He has an affirmative faith in the mysterious imaginative power of poetry to perform an estrangement of life through providing a completely new vision of it. Hence, the main task of the poet, for Shelley, is to awaken man in order to be able to see the main essence of life: beauty, happiness, justice, and freedom. “Poetry defeats the curse which blinds us to be subjected to the accident of surrounding impressions… It reproduces the common universe of which we are the portions and percipients, and it purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity which obscures from us the wonder of our being” (Shelley 1978, 533).

     However, Shelley’s vision of the inner reality differs from that of Donkol, while the former is completely idealistic, the latter is entirely realistic. Whenever Donkol tries to portray beauty in his poems, he is confronted with despair, corruption, and oppression. In the opening part of his “Excerpts from the Book of the Dead”, Donkol explains the inability of finding beauty in anything even water in the morning shower turns into blood: “Every morning I get up very tired, / Get a shower / Of blood, not water” (199, Translation mine). In brief, whereas Shelley formulates a kind of utopia in his poetry, Donkol could not find but a dystopia which blocks his way to the light of beauty, happiness, justice, and freedom.

     In spite of the fact that both of them attributed a very significant role of the poet in relation to the reformation of his society, Shelley and Donkol extremely differ in the nature of such role. Shelley’s concept of “The Chameleon Poet” indicates that despite the ability of the poet to be immersed in the social situations and cultural circumstances surrounded him, he adaptively transcends the mundane and sordid to offer humanity a newer vision of life. The poet, in this sense, is far from being aloof from the society he lives in, rather, he is a social being whose elevated sense and transcendental awareness provide him with a unique vision that might lead him to the reformation of life. Such a poet is worthy of becoming a “herald”, a “champion” of “the awakening of a great people to make a beneficial change in opinion or institution” (535). On the other hand, Donkol refuses such flexibility on the part of the poet whose role, for him, is to explicitly revolt against the corruption of life. Since the improvement process of life is an endless one, man should always strive for achieving such improvement till the end of his life. Donkol is that very Egyptian who views man’s contentment with the status quo synonymous to his death, while his constant search for a better form of life is the endless noblest human aim. Donkol accounts for this firm belief in his “The Southerner”: “Sir, the southerner aspires to be / What he has never been; / To meet two things – truth and the missed faces” (394, Translation mine).

     Deeply inside Shelley’s and Donkol’s keen insistence on the reformation of their society lies their appreciation of the role of the poet as a legislator. Shelley’s most quoted words states that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind” (535). Because of his deep insight, objective judgment, and his ability to perceive man’s plights, the poet can depict a unified form of systematic social and political structures. Through his intensive observation and speculation, the poet can transcend most worldly trivialities to provide a unique vision of how man can achieve the reformation of his surroundings. For instance, in his “Victor and Cazire”, “St. Irvyne”, and “The Margaret Nicholson”, Shelley addresses social and political injustices. Moreover, his “Hellas” stresses a heavy attention to thought as means for giving the world its systematic structure. For Shelley, thought is not only the producer of laws that govern life, but it is also capable of achieving one’s dreams. On the other hand, Donkol shares Shelley’s significant appreciation of the legislative role of the poet, both of them are aware of the importance of declaring their own manifestos which draw the way for others to follow. Rejecting social, political, and economic corruption in many of his poems, Donkol asserts the poet’s ability to motivate man to revolt against the bleak situations and gloomy circumstances surrounded them since poetry can be seen as “one of the human bridges between the ‘rejected’ now and the aspired ‘tomorrow’ ” (Al-Taweel 1999, 89, Translation mine). His keen insistence on the fruitful future for his society was clear in his refusal to indulge in an endless mourning after the death of President Nasser, despite his firm belief in the sincerity of the Egyptian leaders, depending on the conviction that if this “Salahdin” dies, there are an endless number of “Salahdin” in the Egyptian society:

I saw on the first of October

Your crying soldiers.

They do not know,

Everyone of them is Salahdin.

(274, Translation mine)

 

     Moreover, seeing that reformation should start from above – the ruler, Shelley and Donkol try to effect a change not only in the minds of their peoples but also in the minds of their rulers. Shelley’s “The Mask of Anarchy” deals with the political procedures taken by the King and his ministers to suppress any reformist calls. Such poem shows how the laws of anarchy cover the real beauty of life with a false mask, thus the poet predicts that one day those masks – “murderers” – will be crushed and their fallacy will be unveiled:

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,

Lay dead earth upon the earth;

The Horse of Death, tameless as wind,

Fled, and with his hoofs did grind

To dust the murderers thronged behind. (340, xxxii, 130:134)  

 

     Considering the ruler as the most effective tool of a safe and immediate reformation, Donkol addresses President Sadat in his masterpiece “Do not Make Peace”. As a matter of fact, Donkol expresses his refusal of Sadat’s policy; he refuses the deeds not the leader. His rejection of the peace negotiations stems from his strict faith in the Israeli treachery against the Arab world in general, and Egypt in particular:

Do not make peace!

Even if they guaranteed equality.

Are all head equal?

Is a stranger’s heart equal to your brother’s?

His eyes and your brother’s?

Is a hand fighting with you

Equal to one seeking thy head?

(326, Trannslation mine)

 

     It is worthy to note that the deep sense of Shelley’s and Donkol’s personal indignation formed a pivotal cornerstone in their keen insistence on achieving a radical social formation. Deeply feeling the fallacies of the social structure of their societies, both poets expressed their personal rejection of social orthodox dogmas through leaving their familial surroundings; Shelley went to Italy and Donkol to Cairo, even if the cost was social as well as financial dilemmas. Both of them held the conviction that revolt against all forms of corruption in the social institutions of their countries is a necessary stage in achieving human freedom. Their means of revolt is poetry whose major task, for them, is to create a value and a purpose for the human life through stressing the significance of the social reformation for the ultimate welfare of the humanity. According to Pickett Scott, “Injustice towards himself only served to awaken in him a bitter hostility to religion and society, and to encircle with a noble halo the head of him who should inaugurate a new social and religious era” (Scott 1878, 7).

     For instance, in his “The Mask of Anarchy”, Shelley concentrates on his abomination of the violent king of England and his supportive ministers who tyrannize the multitudes. Condemning the massacre that was taken place in order to suppress any attempt of reformist call, Shelley expresses his impatience with injustice:

I met murder on the way…

He had a mask like Castlereigh-

Very smooth he looked, yet girm;

Seven blood hounds followed him; (338, 5:8)  

 

     Also, in his “Queen Mab”, Shelley violently revolts against tyrannical Kingship, he asserts that a tyrant is the inevitable result of a corrupt social structure that based on selfishness. As an example of such kings, Shelley refers to Nero whose arrogance and “savage joy” caused a fire in Great Rome:

When Nero,

High over flaming Rome, with savage joy

Lowered like a find, drank with enraptured ear

The shrieks of agonizing death, beheld

The frightful desolation spread, and felt

A new-created sense within his soul

Thrill to the sight, and vibrate to the sound;

                                          (773, III, 180:86)

 

     Donkol did not, by any means, differ from Shelley in his violent revolt against social corruption. Regarding poetry as an alternative to suicide, Donkol shouldered the responsibility of awakening his people to the horrible conditions that his country was undergoing at the time. In Egypt, the mighty hands of the oppressed ruler turned the whole country into a police-state that silenced all rebellious calls for reformation. Alluding to the tyrant ruler, Donkol’s magnificent poem “A Prayer” highlights that if the addressee is God, the speaker should be a humble worshipper who has nothing to do but to obey without questioning:

Lord in the investigation office!

We are thy subjects;

Might is thine, silence is ours;

Awe is what thou guardst.

Thou alone hast all wealth;

The right wing is a loser,

The left is in distress, except

The flatterers who keep looking

In the bought newspapers

Till they go blind,

Except those who denounce others,

Silence ties decorate their collars!

Your highness, do not worry about rebels;

Today is thine. (278, Translation, mine)

 

     Also, in his “Waiting for the Sword”, Donkol shows how the radio, which has been transformed into a means of illusion by the tyrant ruler through directing people’s attention to trivial issues in order to make them blind to the Egyptian dilemmas both inside and outside. Hence, the citizen became completely unconscious and unaware of the truth:

Prices rise for two days,

Then we get used to the new prices.

Our body groans for two days,

Then we get used to the new whip.

The radio is silent for two days,

Then we get used to the new voice.

(198, Translation mine)

 

 

     Moreover, Egypt in the 1970s witnessed a very grave economic crisis; as a result of such corrupted society, the monopolist minority got richer while the public majority got poorer. The Egyptian wealth was stolen under the umbrella of what is known as the “Open-Door” economic policy, or Infitah.  Stressing the class conflict in the Egyptian society at the time, Donkol depicts the contradiction between the rich who enjoys luxurious and noisy car and the poor who has to beg in order to live in that “old” and weary society:

We get lost in old Cairo,

And forget time.

We bypass the cars noise and beggars’ songs.

Tired, we sit in the metro station. (87, Translation mine)

 

     The major difference between the two poets lies in their own methodologies to achieve social reformation. While Shelley’s idealistic ideologies looked at the brighter side of the issue, Donkol’s realistic vision looked at the sordid reality of all the Egyptians under a tyrannical rule. There are two causes that may justify Donkol’s radical view that led him to portray a horrible dystopia in all his poems in contrast to Shelley’s utopian depiction. On the one hand, Shelley spent most of his revolutionary life outside of England, where he could practice some forms of freedom of expression while Donkol witnessed the murder of such freedom under the oppressed Egyptian regime which violently and aggressively suppressed any calls for reformation because he cannot stand leaving Egypt. On the other hand, in spite of the similar internal atmosphere of injustice, oppression, corruption, tyranny, and hypocrisy, the Egyptian external turmoil had a grave impact on Donkol’s gloomy vision as opposite to England which did not witness such a great number of military defeats. Politically speaking, the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s coincided with some catastrophic events in Egypt: the Arab-Israeli conflict has been intensified in Egypt and Syria; England, France, and Israel attacked Suez in 1956; the Israeli victory over the Egyptian army in 1967; even after restoring Sinai in 1973, the Camp David Accords and the Peace Treaty in 1978 and 1979 did not satisfy most Egyptians. Moreover, great social projects initiated by Nasser faced financial problems since money was used for military purposes.

     At the core of Shelley’s and Donkol’s poetic visions lies the issue of human freedom. Revolting against their respective political regimes, they sought to achieve the noblest aim of freeing the individual from the inextricable bonds of evil in order to form his utopian paradise on earth. It is apparent that their radicalism is mainly due to their keen commitment to humanistic issues particularly the achievement of human freedom through their reformative poetry. Both of them bear the deep conviction that man is innately innocent while evil is transient. For Shelley, he is completely confident that the supreme power of love can dethrone evil, and hence man can realize his own freedom. In his “Prometheus Unbound”, Shelley expresses his firm belief that the essential norm of life is freedom while anything else is a violation of that norm. He believes in achieving freedom through knowledge, wisdom, and self-reform, rather than red revolution. It is only through such non-violent radicalism that man, for Shelley, can restore “the paradise of wilderness”. Also, his theory of evil is mainly based on the fact that the mind’s power of self-deception is so strong that man himself has given his oppressor the chance to dominate him, to torture him, and to deprive him of his rights, so it is man’s own responsibility to restore the earliest condition of natural freedom through the expulsion of evil:

My soul is an enchanted boat,

Which like a sleeping swan, doth float

Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;

And thine doth like an angel sit

Beside the helm conducting it,

Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.

It seems to float over, for ever,

Upon that many-winding river,

Between mountains, woods, abysses,

A paradise of wildernesses!

            (241, Act II scene V, 72:81)

 

     In “The Revolt of Islam”, Shelley preaches the gradual reform, rather than the sudden one, because it guarantees the kind of freedom which Shelley aspires to achieve, it is the freedom of mind from rotten ideologies which have been spread in all social and political institutions. Refuting the French Revolution, Shelley inquires “Can he who the day before was a trampled slave suddenly become liberal-minded, forebearing and dependent?” (Shelley 1978, 33, Italics mine). As a result of such deep understanding of human freedom, man enjoys a state of mind which enables him to forgive his tyrant realizing that he is to pity not to hate. Remarkable throughout Shelley’s works is his awareness of the relationship between suffering and freedom, the nobler the aim is, the greater man’s suffering will be. “Shelley’s socialism did not arise from his own sufferings but from those of others” (Frank Allaum in Aveling 1979, 9). As a matter of fact, it is his physical and psychological sense of exile which allowed Shelley to put his idealism into practice by liberating him to get in touch with other cultures and other experiences. Throughout his poems, particularly “The sensitive Plan”, “ode to the West Wind”, and “To a Skylark”, there is an ample evidence of Shelley’s deep faith in the close relationship between man and nature. The main focus of those poems is man’s aspiration to return to nature in order to be in tone with its elements, and hence be free and happy. In his “To a Skylark”, Shelley pleads to the skylark to teach people how they can spread joy and freedom everywhere:

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine:

I have never heard

Praise of love and wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

                                         (603, 61:65)

     For Donkol, there are many events which took place throughout his life that are indicative of his stubborn character and his radical thinking towards achieving human freedom. On the personal level, he refused to complete his university studies because he is unconvinced with the way he is taught; he also refused to enroll in any governmental job in order not to betray his personal creeds through obeying treacherous rules. On the national level, he refused to join the mainstream while calling for dismissing Israel from Sinai and applying democratic practices that guarantee human freedom. Donkol is completely convinced that his only means to achieve human freedom is to represent honestly the sordid reality of the Egyptian conditions. In his “The Moon’s Murder”, Donkol states a comparison between the real and the ideal: the real means the harsh conditions that denote complete and blind submission to evil forces, represented in oppressed leaders while the ideal means the will to revolt against evil in order to achieve freedom. Donkol chose the latter since “the brave knight who is killed in the battle field is different from that who gives in tyranny without fighting. The former remains alive with his brave memoirs while the other lives dead in shame” (Abu-Ghali, 145). Hence, human freedom is possible once the veil is removed from truth which was falsified by authority and covered by the tyrant in order to spread evil. Also, in his “The Land and the Unhealable Wound”, Donkol declares that evil spreads because the tyrant authority could falsify the truth:

I loved your glory and poets;

But that whose pants are made of illusion webs

Wanders in your fly-filled cities

Pouring honey words in the hearts;

And peacocks that removed

Wall calendars, stopped their clocks.

(102, Translation mine)

 

    Moreover, in his “Al-yammamah’s Sayings”, Donkol stresses the need for truth, as she opens her speech with her insistence on seeing her dead father running on “the truth horse” to tell people how he was killed and to show them the path of freedom:

My father. No more,

I wait to see him

At the palace gate

Riding the truth horse:

Upright anew.

I seek not the impossible,

I seek only justice.

(363, Translation mine)

 

     In his brilliant poem “A Special Meeting with Noah’s son”, Donkol affirms the necessity of choosing either to flee from responsibilities or to face them in order to save the nation from destruction:

We have the glory

We stand one hand

(God wiped out our names!)

Facing destruction

Seeking shelter beneath

A deathless mount (called people!)

Refusing to escape;

Rejecting movement!

(425-26, Translation mine)

 

     In addition, Donkol’s poetry is similar to Shelley’s in asserting the importance of the temporal suffering to achieve the noble aim of human freedom; it resembles the deep darkness that preceded the dawn. In many of his poems, he utilizes figures who witnessed suffering to liberate man from the forces of evil as Spartacus, Antra, Zarkaa Al-Yamamah; such figures remained immortal because of their commitment to humanistic issues. Like Shelley, Donkol stresses the harmony, balance, and innocent of nature which were distributed by man’s greed and love of power that are responsible for the spread of evil on the earth.

     In an attempt to unify man with the elements of nature aiming to restore his lost freedom, Donkol, in his “Birds”, classifies birds into two types: wild and domestic which symbolizes revolt and submission. Seeking freedom for himself and for the bird, Donkol unifies himself with the wild bird enjoying his freedom away from his corrupt society: “You can do nothing but to flee / Escape recurs every morning!” (414, Translation mine). Hence, he prefers to be a wild bird over being a domestic one, freedom over slavery, life over death. Donkol ends the poem with the fact that the two wings of a bird are contradictory: one means life and freedom and the other means death and slavery. Considering the transience of life, the poet values the wild over the domestic.

     To recapitulate, the revolutionary poetry of both Shelley and Donkol can be considered as a form of cultural resistance. Neither of them aimed to abolish the existing ideologies, rather both of them wished to reform human societies through resisting devastating conditions. Both are real truth-seekers, as once Donkol told Ziad Ali that “poetry is the kind of truth that man should struggle to reach” (643). Affecting a stream of poets who were sure of a coming change in the Egyptian society, Donkol, inspiring by the revolutionary poetry of Shelley, can be named as one of the forerunners of the subsequent change towards freedom in Egypt. Hence, in the wake of the January 25^th 2011 revolution, some Egyptian suggested that the prophecy of an inevitable change in society came true. As the closing lines of his “Al-Mutanabi’s Memories in Egypt” said: “O, Nile! Should water be blood / For thee to flood, / And my clan respond to my call?” (191, Translation mine).  

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