Abstract
This study examines two Modernist Arabic poems, both entitled Ṭardiyyah (hunt poem), by two pioneering Arab free-verse poets, the Iraqi ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al-Bayātī (1926-1999) and the Egyptian Aḥmad ‘Abd al-Mu‘ṭī Ḥijāzī (1935-). In naming their poems Ṭardiyyah, both poets invoke the classical Arabic poetic genre of that name, together with its literary constraints and formal and thematic expectations. Part I: Introduction, provides the background of the hunt-theme, from the early (6th-7th Century CE) classical Arabic ode (qaṣīdah) to the short lyric genre of the hunt poem (ṭardiyyah) that first appeared toward the end of the Umayyad period (early 8th century CE) and reached its formal and aesthetic apogee in the High ‘Abbāsid period (9th-10th centuries CE). After several centuries of neglect, the hunt poem was revived precisely by the two Modernists Arabic free-verse poets, al-Bayātī and Ḥijāzī. Part II opens with the text and translation of the poem Ṭardiyyah from al-Bayātī’s 1966 collection Allādhī Ya’tī wa lā Ya’tī (He Who Comes and Does Not Come). It argues that the poet transforms the genre- and form-bound classically rhymed and metered lyric of the classical tradition into a formally free exploration of the dramatic and tragic image of the hunted hare as a metaphor for the political and cultural predicament of modern man. In Part III, the study turns to Ḥijāzī’s Ṭardiyyah, composed in 1979 during his self-imposed exile in Paris and included in his 1989 collection Ashjār al-Ismant (Cement Trees). Beginning with the text and translation of the poem, the study demonstrates how the poet transforms the poignant lyricism of the traditional hunt poem into an expression of his personal experience of political exile and poetic inspiration.
