Full text of "Encyclopedia Of Literature Vol I"

THE BOOK WAS
DRENCHED

OSMANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Call No. $$-?> / 5 *T r Accession No. OL 8 ^ t

Author ~

Title

This book shoiAt . be returned on or beWre the date last marked below.

ENCYCLOPEDIA

LITERATURE

ENCYCLOPEDIA

LITERATURE

Edited by

JOSEPH T. SHIPLEY

VOLUME ONE

PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY

New York

NOTE

An asterisk (*) after a name indicates that it is included
in the "brief biographies at the end of this volume.

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TYPOGRAPHY BY BROWN BROTHERS LXNOTYPERS

PRINTED BY THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY

TO
PETER L. R SABBATINO

Numqwm ex toto otiosus, sed out legens,

aut orans, out meditans, out aliquid

utilitotis pro communi labor ans.

PREFACE

.HIS is the first collection of surveys of the literatures of the world. Not
counting minor dialects, men have spoken in some three thousand tongues. The
first recorded literature comes to us across perhaps five thousand years.

Of the thousand American Indian tongues, some sixty are included in the
article on North American native literature; through these speak the most
cultured groups. The same is true for the five hundred tongues of the Africans,
and the seven hundred of Polynesia. For folklore has been deemed within the
scope of this volume sometimes in separate articles, sometimes within the
main survey.

Certain languages have overleapt national bounds. Thus Latin was long the
language of culture in Western Europe. Arabic, from the seventh to the fifteenth
century by virtue of conquest and of religion (it being the language of the
Koran) was the lingua franca of the Near East. The several Slavic literatures,
in varying measure, intertwine. For analogous considerations, a survey of
Christian hymnody is included: though in most national surveys it would receive
scant attention, the influence of hymnody has in many lands bulked large.

To ensure fullest presentation of a field, the reader should follow the
asterisks (*) to the individual items at the end of the volume.

All the material here presented has been especially written for this encyclo-
pedia. A few fields have never been surveyed at all, in any language, before this
volume. In others, the present writers have made pioneer research. Many of the
literatures have not been this fully presented in English before; some of the
less familiar ones have been granted extra space.

The editor has made no Procrustean attempt to shape the articles; each
insofar as space permits has been left largely in the author's style. The treatments
therefore vary as the literatures themselves suggest. Titles of works not in English
are given as seems in each case most appropriate. The inevitable subjectivity of
each writer has been tempered by the suggestions of other scholars; these con-
sultants have here my hearty thanks.

Thanks are extended also to the Legations at Washington that generously
aided in the securing of native authorities to present the literature of their lands.

vii

Especial thanks must go to Dr. R. N. Dandekar, Hon. Secretary, Bhandarkar
Oriental Research Institute of Poona, who organized the group of authorities for
the wide fields of Indian literature, and carried through the arrangements that
have made possible the presentation of this unique section of the volume. Permis-
sion has kindly been given by Constable & Company to quote translations by Kuno
Meyer (whose name follows them, in the Irish survey) from his Selections From
Ancient Irish Poetry. Also, my deep thanks to those whose encouraging words
and spirit kept me unflagging through the four years, mainly amid the pressures
of war, that have been spent upon the joyous pains of preparing this volume.

JOSEPH T. SHIPLEY

viii

CONTRIBUTORS

JLHE FOLLOWING NAMES list those whose work gives substance to this volume. To
them go my deepest thanks, for their work- and their wisdom, for their understand-
ing patience through the strains of war and the inevitably severe, however gently
intended, editorial handling.

J. T. S.

APTE, V. M. Prof. Sanskrit, Karnatak C.
Dharwar, Bombay. Indian: The Veda.

AUERBACH, LEO. Natl. Exec. Comm., Histad-
ruth Ivrith (Organization for Hebrew Cul-
ture). Hebrew.

BACH-Y-RITA, P. C.C.N.Y. Catalan. '

BARUA, SHRI BIRINCHI KUMAR. Prof, and
Head of Dept. Assamese, Cotton C.,
Gauhati, Assam. Indian: Assamese.

BATTENHOUSE, HENRY M. Prof. English;
Chmn. Div. Lang, and Lit., Albion C.
English.

BECK, RICHARD. Prof. Scandinavian Lang,
and Lit., U. of N. Dakota. Icelandic.

BHAKDI, (Mrs.) SAIYUDE. Royal Siamese Le-
gation, Washington, D. C. Siamese.

BILBAO, JUAN MANUEL. New York, N. Y.
Basque.

BIRGE, JOHN KINGSLEY. Publication Dept.
Near East Mission, Am. Board, Istanbul,
Turkey. Turkish.

BOESCHENSTEIN, HERMANN. Assoc. Prof. Ger-
man, University C., Toronto. Swiss.

BOGGS, RALPH STEELE. Prof. U. of N. C.
17. S. of America: Folklore.

CARDOZO, MANOEL. Assfc Prof. Brazilian Hist,
and Lit.; Curator, Oliveira Lima Library,
Catholic* U. of Am. Portuguese.

CARRIERE, JOSEPH M. Assoc. Prof. Romance
Lang., U. of Va.; Pres. Am. Folklore Soc,
Louisiana French; Am. French Folklore;
French Folklore.

CHATIERJI, SUNITI KUMAR. Prof. Indian
Linguistics and Phonetics, U. oi' Calcutta,
Bengal. Indian: Bengali.

CONACIIER, W. M. Queens C., Ontario.
Canadian (French^).

DA CAL, ERNESTO G. N. Y. U. Galician.

DANDEKAR, R. N. Bhandarkar Oriental Re-
search Inst, Poona, Bombay. Indian: The
Epics; Ancient Philosophy; Hindu Dhar-
masastra.

DILLON, MYLES. Prof. Comp. Philology and
Irish Lit., U. of Wise. lrish f Scottish Gaelic f

Manx.

DUNN, JOSEPH. Prof. Celtic Lang, and Lit.,
Catholic U. of Am. Breton.

ELWIN, VERRIER. F.N.I.; F.R.A.I. Patangarh,
Mandla District, C.P. Indian: Middle
India Oral.

FOOTE, HENRY WILDER. Pres. Hymn Soc.
of Am. Christian Hymnody.

FRIDSMA, BERNARD J. Ed. Frisian Information
Bur. Frisian.

FRITSCH, CHARLES T. Asst. Prof. Old Testa-
ment, Princeton Theol. Sem. Hittite.

GATES, EUNICE JOINER. Prof. Portuguese and
Spanish, Texas Tech. C, Brazilian.

GINSBERG, H. L. Prof. Bible, Jewish Theol.
Sem. of Am. Canaanite.

GORDON, IAN A. Prof. English, U. of New
Zealand. New Zealand.

GORIS, JAN-ALBERT. Commr. of Information
for Belgium in the U. S. A. Belgian.

CONTRIBUTORS

GRATTAN, C. HARTLEY. Author "Introducing
Australia," etc. Australian.

GRESHOFF, JAN. Co-ed., "Groot Nederland."
Netherlands.

GURBAXANI, H. M. Princ. D. J. and Sind C.,
Karachi, Sind. Indian: Sindhi.

HAARHOFF, THEODORE JOHANNES. Director,
"The Forum"; Prof. Classics, U. of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. South Af-
rican.

HALL, ROBERT A., JR. Assoc. Prof. Romance
Lang., Cornell U. Italian.

HATZFELD, HELMUT A. Prof. Romance Lang,
and Lit., Catholic U. of Am. Spanish.

HERSKOVITS, MELVILLE J. Prof. Anthropol-
ogy, Northwestern U.; former Pres. Am.
Folklore Soc. African; Africans in fiction.

HIGGINS, REV. MARTIN J. Asst. Prof. Byzan-
tine History and Greek, Catholic U. of Am.
Byzantine.

HOENIGSWALD, HENRY M. Yale U.; Lecturer,
Hartford Sem. Found. Etruscan.

HOLMES, URBAN T., JR. Prof. Romance Phil-
ology, U. of N. C. Provencal.

IYENGAR, R. K. SRINIVASA. Prof. English,
Basaweshwar C., Bagalkot, Bombay. In-
dian: Indo-Anglian.

JAIN, BANARASI DAS. Dir. Jain Vidya Bhavan,
Lahore, Panjab. Indian: Panjabi.

JHAVERI, DEWAN BAHADUR KRISHNALAL M.
Syndic, U. of Bombay. Indian: Gujarati.

JOAG, R. S. Prof. Marathi, Fergusson C.,
Poona, Bombay. Indian: Marathi.

JORGENSON, THEODORE. Head, Scandinavian
Dept., St. Olaf C. Norwegian.

JURJI, EDWARD J. Assoc. Prof. Islamics and
Comp. Religion, Princeton Theol. Sem.
Arabic.

KAUL, J. L. Prin. Government C., Mirpur,
Jammu and Kashmir. Indian: Kashmiri.

KRAMER, SAMUEL NOAH. Assoc. Curator,
Babylonian Section, U. of Penn. Museum.
Accadian; Sumerian.

KUNHAN RAJA, C. Head Sanskrit Dept., U.
of Madras, Madras. Indian: Malayalam.

LEE, SHAO CHANG. Prof. Chinese Culture;
Head, Inst. of Foreign Studies, Michigan
State C. Chinese.

LIPTZIN, SOL. Prof, and Chmn. Dept. of
German, C. C. N. Y. German.

LUOMALA, KATHARINE. Hon. Assoc. in
Anthropology, Bishop Museum, Honolulu.
Polynesian.

McGuiRE, MARTIN R. P. Assoc. Prof. Greek
and Latin; Dean, Grad. School of Arts and
Science, Catholic U. of Am. Post-classical
individual items (Christian Fathers).

MACNEILL, MAIRE. Irish Folklore Commis-
sion, Dublin. Irish Folklore.

MAGYAR, FRANCIS. New York, N. Y. Hun-
garian (with A. Steiner).

MANNING, CLARENCE A. Asst. Prof. East
European Lang, and Lit., Columbia U.
Albanian; Bulgarian; Czech; Estonian;
Georgian; Modern Greek; Latvian; Lithuan-
ian; Lusatian; Polish; Romanian; Russian;
Slovak; Tyurkic; Ukrainian; Yugoslav.

MARK, YUDEL. Yiddish Scientific Inst.

Yiddish.

MATENKO, PERCY- Prof. German, Brooklyn
C. German: individual items.

MENDOZA, VICENTE T. Mexico, D. F. Mex-
ican and Central Am. Oral.

MERCER, SAMUEL A. B. Prof. Semitic Lang,
and Egyptology; Dean of Divinity, Trinity
C., U. of Toronto. Ethiopic.

METRAUX, ALFRED. Former Assoc, Dir. Inst.
of Social Anthropology, Smithsonian Insti-
tution. South Am. Indian.

MIKELIAN, HAGOP E. New York, N. Y.
Armenian.

MILWITZKY, WILLIAM. Pres. Natl. Fed Mod-
ern Lang. Teachers. Judeo-Spanish.

MISRA, RAO RAJA DR. Shyam Behari, Rai
Bahadur. Lucknow, U. P., and
MISRA, RAI BAHADUR. Pandit Sukdeo
Behari. Lucknow, U. P., Indian: Hindi.

CONTRIBUTORS

MUGALI, R. S. Prof. Kannada, Willingdon
C., Sangli, Bombay. Indian: Kannada.

MYERS, (Mrs.) FRANCES FRENCH. Albion,
Michigan. English: individual items.

NARAYAN RAO, C. L. T.; Anantpur, Madras.
Indian: Telugu.

NIESS, ROBERT J. Assoc. Prof. Romance Lang.,
U. of Kentucky. French: individual items.

OLLI, JOHN B. Asst. Prof., C. C. N. Y.
Finnish.

PARRY, JOHN J. Prof. English, U. of 111.;
Ed. "Jour. Eng. and Germanic Philology."
Cornish; Welsh.

PRAHARAJ, RAI BAHADUR G. C. Sahitya-
Bisarada; Advocate, Patna High Court,
Cuttack, Orissa. Indian: Oriya.

QUAIN, REV. EDWIN A,, S. J. Asst. Prof. Clas-
sics, Fordham U. Post-classical Latin.

QUASTEN, JOHANNES. Prof. Ancient Church
History; Dean, Faculty of Theology, Cath-
olic U. of Am. Greek: Early Christian.

RAGHAVAN, V. U. of Madras, Madras. In-
dian: Classical Sanskrit; Literary and Dra-
matic Criticism.

ROEBUCK, CARL A. Assoc. Prof. Classics, Dal-
housie U., Halifax. Greek.

ROEDDER, the late EDWIN.' Late Prof. Emeri-
tus German, C. C. N. Y. German Folklore;
German: individual items.

ROSENTHAL, FRANZ. Washington. D. C.
Aramaic.

SARMA, K. MADHAVA KRISHNA. Curator,
Anup Sanskrit Library, Bikaner, Rajputana.
Indian: Grammar.

SAVAGE, JOHN J. Fordham U. Latin.

SCICLUNA, CHEVALIER HANNIBAL P. Li-
brarian Royal Malta Library, Director of
Malta Museum. Maltese.

SEEL&, KEITH C. Assoc. Prof. Egyptology,
U. of Chicago. Egyptian.

SHAIKH, CHAND HUSATN. Bar.-at-Law, Dept.
of Education, New Delhi. Indian: Urdu.

SHUCK, EMERSON C. Asst. Prof. English,
Bowling Green State U. U. S. of America.

SIMSAR, MEHMED A. New York, N. Y.
Persian.

SPELL, JEFFERSON REA. Prof. Romance Lang.
U. of Texas. Spanish American.

SRINIVASACHARI, RAO BAHADUR C. S. Prof.
History and Politics, Annamalai U., Anna-
malainagar, Madras. Indian: Tamil.

STEINER, the late ARPAD. Late Assoc. Prof.
German, Hunter C. Hungarian (with F.
Magyar).

STEINER, ^HERBERT. Wheaton C. Ed. "Co-
rona"; "Aurora" Series. Austrian.

SUMBERG, S. L. C. C. N. Y. German; indi-
vidual items.

THOMAS, R. R. Asst. Dir. Public Instruction,
Assam, Shillong. Indian: Khasi.

TINDALE, NORMAN B. Ethnologist, So. Aus-
tralian Museum, Adelaide. Australian

Aborigine.

TIWARI, SHRI UDAI NARAIN. Allahabad, U. P.

Indian: Ehojpuri.

UPADHYE, A. N. Prof. Ardhamagadhi, Raja-
ram C. Kolhapur, Bombay. Indian: Prakrit.

UYEHARA, YUKUO. Asst. Prof. Japanese, U.
of Hawaii. Japanese.

VAIDYA, P. L. Prof. Sanskrit and allied lang.,
N, Wadia C., Poona, Bombay. Indian:
Pali and Buddhistic.

VIDEBECK, PASTOR C. M. Brooklyn, N. Y.
Danish.

VINCENT, C. J. Assoc. Prof. English, Queens
C., Ontario. Canadian (English).

VOEGELIN, ERMINIB W. Ed., "Journal of
Am. Folklore"; Hon. Fellow in Anthro-
pology, Indiana U. North Am. Native.

WEINBERG, BERNARD. Asst. Prof. Romance
Lang., Washington U. Guggenheim Fel-
low, 1946-7. French.

WIDEN, ALBJN. Mgr. Swedish Information
Bur. Swedish.

ENCYCLOPEDIA

LITERATURE

NOTE

In the surveys, there is an asterisk (*) after names for which
there is individual discussion at the end of the volume.

ACCADIAN

ACCADIAN (also known as Assyro-Babylonian)
literature consists of epics and myths, hymns
and prayers, and various types of wisdom com-
positions. Much of it represents original crea-
tive effort on the part of the Accadians, but
the greater part seems to have grown out of
the Sumerian (q.v.) literary works whose con-
tents were borrowed, modified, molded, and
integrated into new compositions by the Acca-
dian poets and scribes. Many of the Accadian
literary creations were composed in the second
millennium B.C. However, the tablets on which
they have been found inscribed date very
largely from the first millennium B.C. Most of
the texts have been translated by Western
scholars in the course of the past century, and
an excellent cross-section of the Accadian lit-
erary remains will be found in Hugo Gress-
mann's Altorientalische Texte zum alien Testa-
ment (Berlin and Leipzig, 1926). Briefly they
may be classified and described as follows:

Epics: By far the most significant of the
Accadian literary compositions is the Epic of
Gilgamesh; it may well be described as the
forerunner of the epic genre in world litera-
ture. Its date of composition probably goes
back to the very end of the third millennium
B.C.; considerable portions have been found
inscribed on tablets dating from the first half
of the second millennium B.C. The poem is
divided over eleven tablets (with a twelfth
tacked on as an inorganic appendage) and
consists of more than 3,000 lines, of which
about half have been recovered to date. It must
have been translated into all the more impor-
tant tongues of the ancient Near East; frag-
ments of translations into the Hittite and
Human languages dating from the second half
of the second millennium B.C. have been ex-
cavated in Cappadocia. There is ample reason

for this vast popularity. For unlike most of the
Accadian epic and mythological material un-
covered to date, the Epic of Gilgamesh is con-
cerned primarily with man and his struggles
and hopes, rather than with the rather mechan-
ical and puppet-like activities of the gods. The
episodes in the hero's life have a lasting signifi-
cance and carry a universal appeal because of
their human quality; they revolve about forces
and problems common to man everywhere
through the ages. The need for friendship, the
instinct for loyalty, the impelling urge for
fame and name, the love of adventure and
achievement, the all-absorbing fear of death,
and the all-compelling longing for immortality
it is the varied interplay of these emotional
and spiritual drives in man which constitutes
the drama of the Epic of Gilgamesh, drama
which transcends the confines of time and
space.

The second major epic of the Accadians is the
creation poem Enuma Elish ("When above":
the first two words of the composition); it is
particularly significant for the theogonic and
cosmogonic concepts current in Assyria and
Babylonia. The poem consists of over 1,000
lines, almost all of which have now been re-
covered, and is divided over seven tablets. It
was probably composed in the first half of the
second millennium B.C., although practically
all our available material consists of copies
made in the first millennium. The major pur-
pose of the composition is to present the myth-
ological incidents and cosmological concepts
that reveal and justify the rise of the god
Marduk to the leading position in the Acca-
dian pantheon. It therefore begins with the
story of the creation of the gods and of their
internecine struggles, culminating in Marduk's
victory over Tiamat, the primeval water-god-

ACCAD1AN JJTERATL7HE

dess personifying Chaos. The poem continues
with a description of Marduk's cicativc deeds.
the creation of the universe from Tiamat's
corpse, the organization of the universe and
the creation of man; it concludes with a
hymnal epilogue devoted to Marduk's fifty
names.

The Epic of Irra is another poem of which
considerable text has been recovered. It deals
primarily with the destructive attacks of the
god Irra against mankind, which seem to cul-
minate in an all-out hitter and uncompro-
mising struggle between all the peoples of the
Near East, a struggle from which the Acca-
dians emerge as the sole victors. Finally, we
have the fragmentary remains of several epic
tales: one concerns the slaying of the monster
Labbu; another deals with the slaying of the
Zu-bird, who stole tablets of fate from the
great god Enlil; a third relates of the struggle
of the king of Kuthah against a demonic host.

Myths- To date only a few Accadian myths
have been recovered, and these but in frag-
mentary form. Of myths dealing with the crea-
tion of the universe and of man we have prac-
tically nothing but a few small fragments; the
major Accadian cosmogonic material is in-
corporated in the epic Enwna Elish. Two
myths deal with the destruction of mankind
and involve the legendary sage Utnapishtim:
one relates of a terrible drought and famine
that brings death and starvation to man; the
other is a "deluge" myth incorporated in the
Epic of Gilgamesh. Two myths are concerned
with the Nether World: one describes the
descent of the goddess Ishtar to the Nether
World and the consequent withering of all
sexual desire on earth; the other relates the
episodes leading to the appointment of the god
Nergal as king of the Nether World. Finally,
we have the fragmentary remains of two myths
dealing with the Accadian legendary figures
Adapa and Etana: one attempts to explain
man's mortality as a result of a fatal misunder-
standing; the other is concerned with the quest

for the plant of birth, and involves a journey
to heaven on an eagle's pinions.

Hymns and Prayers: Practically all the Acca-
dian hymns that have come down to us end in
prayers for kings or private individuals. In the
case of several hymns dating from the first half
of the second millennium B.C., it is the hymnal
portion that is the main concern of the poet;
this is true, too, of one unusual Shamash
hymn of considerable length and beauty. But
in the course of time the prayer became the
dominant part of the composition, while the
curtailed and highly standardized hymnal por-
tion served only as an introduction to the
supplication that followed. These Accadian
hymns and prayers were dedicated to numer-
ous deities of the Accadian pantheon, but
primarily to Marduk, the leading deity of the
pantheon, to Ishtar, the goddess of war and
love (the Sumerian Inanna), to Shamash, the
sun-god (the Sumerian Utu), and to Ea, the
god of wisdom (the Sumerian Enki). Of par-
ticular interest are the so-called penitential
psalms, in which the penitent makes a confes-
sion of his sins and pleads for divine mercy
and forgivenness.

The Accadian poet, as will be evident from
the following extract, brief as it is, knew the
bitter tear and the contrite heart:

I call to thee (Ishtar), I thy wretched,

woeful, sick, slave!
Look at me, my lady, take my plea,
Gaze upon me with favor and hear my

prayer!
Utter my deliverance, and let thy spirit

be soothed:
The deliverance of my wretched body,

full of confusion and disorder,
The deliverance of my sick heart, full

of tears and sighs,

The deliverance of my wretched en-
trails, full of confusion and disorder,
The deliverance of my afflicted house,
which utters bitter laments,

AFRICAN LITERATURE

The deliverance of my spirit, sated with
tears and sighs.

Wisdom: Of the collections of proverbs and
precepts which were no doubt current in
Assyria and Babylonia, very little has been
recovered to date. Similarly we have only frag-
mentary remains of their fables, which involve
in the main beasts, plants, and stones, and
which consist largely of arguments between
the rival protagonists in which each extolls its
particular qualities and achievements. Of
longer didactic compositions, three are fairly
well preserved, these aie particularly signifi-
cant as examples of the "criticism of life"
current among the Accadians. In one, a
Babylonian Job bemoans his suffering and
affliction, which seem to have no justification
since he always tried to do what was right and
just, and is conscious of no sin; he is finally

saved from death's door through the direct
intervention of the great god Marduk. The
second composition consists of a dialogue be-
tween a man whose faith in divine justice is
wavering and his friend who points out the
errors of his conclusions. The third composi-
tion consists of a dialogue between a master
and his slave, and purports to show that there
are two sides to every question, and that there
are no real values worth living for.

Spiritually and psychologically, at least, the
modern reader will find himself not very far
apart from his Accadian brother who lived
thousands of years ago.

G. A. Barton, Archaeology and the Bible, 7th ed.,
1937; R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Lit.,
1901; R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old
'lestament, 1912; S. H. Langdon, Babylonian Wts-
dom, 1923, R. C. Thompson, Epic of Gilgamish,
1928. See Aramaic; Canaanite.

SAMUEL NOAH KRAMER.

AEOLIC-See Greek.

AFRICAN

(Negro Folklore)

NEGRO FOLKLORE (Africa and the New
World^) . The forms of Negro folklore are
the myth, tale, proverb, and riddle. The area
of their distribution is Africa south of the
Sahara and those parts of North and South
America and the Caribbean where Negroes
are found in any number.

Aside from the formal aspects of this body
of materials, what strike the student most
forcefully are its unity and its vitality. The
many plots which, with differing incidents

and characters, recur again and again in the
myths and tales, demonstrate that despite the
kaleidoscopic effect given by these differences,
they are but an overlay of variation that masks
a basic homogeneity. Vitality is expressed not
only in the wide African distribution of these
"literary" forms, and of proverbs and riddles
as well, but also in the retention of this aspect
of aboriginal cultural endowment by peoples
of African origin in the Americas.

Struck estimated in 1925 that about 7,000
tales of African tribes had been collected and
published. This number is but a fraction of

AFRICAN LITERATURE

the total, which he estimated at between 200,-
ooo and 250,000 stories a figure which, while
arbitrary, does suggest the immensity of the
field. The largest bibliography to date, gath-
ered by Klipple in 1938, lists books and papers
containing 8,804 stories, though, because of
duplications, the author gives 5,000 as "a con-
servative estimate" of "the number of distinctly
individual tales collected in Africa." New
World Negro talcs, which include most of
the incidents and many of the plots recorded
in Africa, and which in addition have ele-
ments of European derivation and in some
regions also reflect borrowings from autoch-
thonous Indian tribes, add many more to the
total. The numbers of riddles and proverbs,
in both the New World and Africa, arc vast.
Doke, who collected proverbs among the
Lamba of Northern Rhodesia, tells of indi-
vidual informants who gave him as many as
250 separate items at a single session.

The literature varies greatly in yielding in-
formation as to the range of folklore in a
given African tribe or in a given New World
locality. As far as Africa itself is concerned,
while almost every writer who has described
native life has also recorded a few talcs, col-
lections of sufficient scope to give an adequate
representation arc not numerous. Fortunately,
the larger collections are from tribes widely
distiibutcd over the continent. Among them
we find the publications of Callaway on Zulu
lore, Junod on the Thonga, Doke on the
Lamba, Smith and Dale on the Ila, Chatelain
on the Angolan Bundu, Weeks on various
tribes of the Belgian Congo, Nassau on those
of French Equatorial Africa, Gutman on the
Chagga, Lindblom on the Kamba, Lederbogen
on the Cameroon s folk, Frobcnius on the
Yoruba and other tribes, Rattray on the
Ashanti, Schon and Tremearnc on the Hausa,
Tauxier on the Guro and Gagu of the Ivory
Coast, Cronise and Ward on the Sierra Leone
tribes, and Equilbecq and Tauxier on various
peoples of French West Africa. It is thus pos-

sible to obtain working concepts of the range
and types of tales over Africa as a whole,
especially since the resources of the smaller
collections can be used to supplement these
larger series.

In the New World, collections of larger
numbers of tales from a given region, gathered
in accordance with specific plans to illuminate
the problem of variation in type, have been
the rule; though smaller, incidental series do
exist. This is due largely to the influence of
Parsons (in the Negro field), and of Boas and
others who were concerned with collecting
Indian folklore. Their insistence on gathering
an adequate representation of the tales of a
given people, and on taking down whatever
might be offered without a priori selection,
established a significant methodological tradi-
tion. Some of these collections, most of which
arc to be found in the Memoir series of the
American Folklore Society, may be named:
those of Parsons from the Sea Islands of Geor-
gia, southern United States, the lesser Antilles,
and the Bahamas, of Beckwith from Jamaica,
of Andrade from Santo Domingo, of M. and F.
Herskovits from Dutch Guiana. Other sub-
stantial series are those of Forticr from Louisi-
ana, Sylvain-Comhaire from Haiti, and Silva
Campos from Brazil.

Of the various types of Negro folklore that
have been recorded, the animal tales arc by
far the best known. This is not only because
animal tales actually do bulk large in the
Negro repertory. It is also due to the popu-
larity of the Brc'r Rabbit stories published by
Joel Chandler Harris in the last quarter of
the i pth c. These tales are in many cases
regarded as the type-forms of the Negro
animal-trickster tale, and reference is fre-
quently made to them in identifying a given
story found in the folklore of various peoples
of Africa itself. The result, especially in the
case of casual recorders of tales in Africa, but
also to some degree as concerns certain serious
students, has been that animal-trickster stories

AFRICAN LITERATURE

have been sought out to the exclusion of other

types-
Collectors have also been inhibited from
publishing other kinds of tales because of an
assumed lack of public interest in them, or
because of a feeling that these others are not
"truly" Negro. In the New World, the
counterpart of this attitude has been to over-
stress animal stories on the ground that only
these are African. It would be unnecessary to
indicate the fallaciousness of both these points
of view were they not so deeply imbedded in
current concepts of Negro folklore. The fact
remains, however, that even folklorists do not
seem to comprehend the extent to which non-
animal tales are told by Africans and New
World Negroes.

When the more complete collections of
tales from African and New World groups
are read as units, it becomes apparent that in
any given tribe or locality the animal-trickster
stories comprise one of a number of cycles of
tales. This tendency to group stories has not
received the attention it merits, for two rea-
sons. In the first place, non-animal tales were
collected in such relatively small numbers
that the phenomenon was difficult to recog-
nize. Secondly, collectors of tales in Africa,
especially non-scientific writers, themselves
often have had an attitude toward the folk-
lore of natives as something "primitive" and
child-like. This stood in the way of serious
consideration of how the total literary product
of a given people was organized.

It is only necessary, however, to consult the
larger collections with the point in mind, e.g.,
such an early work as Callaway's Zulu collec-
tion, where one can page through the various
units of the Tale of Uthlakanyana, the first of
a series of such cycles of stories about kings
and commoners, animals and supernatural
beings contained in the volume. Tales in
manuscript collected by M. and F. Herskovits
in Dahomey, West Africa, include animal-
trickster cycles centering about Tortoise and

Hare, a cycle having as its central character
a trickster of gross undisciplined appetite
called Yo, a cycle of tales concerning the ad-
ventures of twins, another having to do with
the precocious child, another of the mother-
less child, another of the hunter, in addition
to the various mythological and "historical"
cycles.

In these cycles of African tales, the action
centers about a protagonist of outstanding im-
portance. This is not so strikingly the case in
the New World as in Africa, but even in the
New World, linked tales after the manner of
certain connected episodes of the Uncle
Remus series appear. Thus a character who
has been outwitted will mention an incident
in another tale when he explains his motive
for seeking revenge; or a situation that brings
two stories within the same general frame-
work will be made specific by reference to
each.

This grouping of the tales in cycles is no
construct of the folklorist. The points that
have been made indicate this, but the com-
plete demonstration is had only in the actual
telling, where those comments are heard
which, given almost as asides, rarely creep
into the printed version. "As you remember,
Tortoise had come home after winning his
race with Deer," the teller will begin a new
story, or, "After Spider got out of prison, he
thought how to revenge himself on Elephant,
who had sent him there."

Despite the existence of these cycles, the
problem of classification is no less difficult in
the case of Negro folk tales than for any other
kind. As always, categories which have validity
for one purpose do not serve another, and
though the native has his own classifications
of the tales he tells, these categories are more
useful in affording an understanding of the
tales than in furthering systematic treatment
of the data, particularly where comparative
analysis is the end in view. Animal tales, for
example, are divided into various types, while

AFRICAN LITERATURE

animals and human beings mingle in a con-
siderable number of stories. One widely
spread story of this kind recounts how the
speech of the animals is revealed to a man
on condition that he not tell of his new en-
dowment; which he does, thereupon suffering
various penalties. Or there is the tale, of con-
siderable distribution in both Africa and the
New World, which recounts man's ingrati-
tudeor sometimes gratitude to animals who
rescue him from danger.

Myths, explanatory tales, tales with the
double entendre, educational tales with ap-
pended morals, are all found in the category
of animal stories. Furthermore, sacred tales
having the gods as characters in the mythology
of one tribe, appear with the same plot and
incidents as secular animal tales of one of
the several types just mentioned in other
tribes, or in the New World. Elements of
the familiar racing motif are found in the
South African myth of how death came to
man, while the most popular story among the
Ashanti is that which tells how the Spider
Anansi by performing through trickery a
series of seemingly impossible feats, "bought"
from the Sky-god Nyame the right to have
stories called Anansesem (Spider stories)
rather than Nyankonsem (sky-god stories).

There is no doubt in the mind of the na-
tive, however, regarding the difference be-
tween folk tales and myths, or between cer-
tain types of folk tales and myths, or between
certain kinds of folk tales themselves. Chate-
lain gives the native classification of Angolan
folklore as follows: i) all "traditional ficti-
tious stories," including the "fables" wherein
animals are personified, termed tm-soso; 2)
stories reputed true, or "anecdotes," called
maka; 3) "historical" narratives, the "chroni-
cles of tribes and natives . . . considered
state secrets," called malunda; 4) proverbs,
ji-sabu', 5) poetry and music; and 6) riddles,
ji-nongonongo. Lindblom classifies Kamba
stories as i ) tales about animals; 2) tales about

ogres, giants, etc. 3) episodes from the life of
the natives; 4) myths and legends, few in
number, but including explanatory tales; 5)
imported tales. This is not unlike the categories
given by Junod for the Thonga: i) animal
tales; 2) stories which illustrate how "human
beings, children, the miserable and the de-
spised, triumph over their elders and those
who hate them" what Junod calls "the wis-
dom of the little ones"; 3) ogre tales; 4) moral
tales; 5) stories that "seem based on actual
facts"; 6) foreign tales.

In the New World, comparable classifica-
tions have been made by only a few col-
lectors. Basilio de Magalhfies, analyzing the
Brazilian tales gathered by Silva Campos,
gives the following categories: i) animal cycle
("cyclo da mythica zoologica"*), 2) tales of
metamorphosis; 3) Afro-American myths; 4)
facetious happenings; 5) ethical tales; 6) tales
of marvels; 7) religious stories. M. and F.
Herskovits divide tales from Dutch Guiana
into classes dictated by their dramatis per-
sonae those having animals, those containing
animals and humans, and those with human
characters. They note, however, that in this
collection cycles comparable to the West Afri-
can ones are discernible, not only as regards
the tales concerning the Spider Anansi, but
also those relating the adventures of the pre-
cocious child (Enfant Terrible cycle).

African concepts of what constitutes a myth,
as differentiated from other types of narra-
tives, follow quite closely the folklorist's defi-
nition, though of course not phrased in the
same manner. That is, any sacred tale that
validates belief and ritual is a myth, to be
clearly distinguished from the secular tale.
Knowledge of the mythology of a given peo-
ple in Africa varies with the ability of a
student to probe their world-view and their
conception of the forces in the universe that
play upon them; with the extent to which
tradition permits those that know such stories
to tell them to foreigners, or to tribal mem-

AFRICAN LITERATURE

bers who have not attained a requisite age or
are not initiates; with the degree to which
the native feels that a given story will cast
discredit on his own belief when viewed
through European eyes.

Except for West Africa, narrative myth se-
quences appear only rarely in the literature.
There are those who hold, indeed, that in cer-
tain parts of the continent, particularly East
Africa, the Congo, and those portions in-
habited by the Southeastern Bantu there
is little or no mythology to be found. That
a substantial body of mythology exists among
peoples everywhere in Africa has been con-
clusively demonstrated by Alice Werner, who
gives for region after region origin tales and
stories of the gods and the country they in-
habit, myths that sanction the ancestral-cult,
and accounts of natural phenomena, such as
lightning or the rainbow, that are regarded as
supernatural forces to be propitiated. Yet it
is necessary to turn to the discussions of Afri-
can religion, as Alice Werner did, rather than
to studies of African folk literature, to obtain
the desired concept of the universe. From the
point of view of the student who approaches
mythology as a literary phenomenon, what is
lacking is the presentation of the narrative
sequences, as told by natives, of events in the
supernatural world that are believed to have
brought about the situations described. It is
difficult to understand, to take but one in-
stance, why Junod did not record in this form
the myths that, for the Thonga, explain and
give meaning to the intricate world-view he
describes in considering the tribal religion,

Mythological systems vary with the beliefs
of the people from tribe to tribe in Africa,
in the New World in accordance with the de-
gree of acculturation to European religious
systems. The sacred tales concern all aspects
of cosmology the creation of the world, the
coming of the gods (who are generally con-
ceived as nature-deities), their functions in the
world, their relations to each other and to

man, the nature of magic, its origin and how
the forces controlling it exert their power, and
the like. They explain rituals and account for
divining practices. In addition, there exists a
great body of "family" myths tales that, re-
counting the earliest history of a given rela-
tionship grouping, validate such totemic
beliefs and rites as it may possess, and act to
stabilize the social system.

In the New World, myths of pure African
type are rare. Only in Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, and
Dutch Guiana, where groups conscious of
their African heritage and proud to preserve
it have retained full-blown African religious
systems, are these in some measure found. In
Catholic countries, the identification of Afri-
can gods with the saints of the Church has
afforded a measure of psychological protec-
tion to the aboriginal African deities. But this
does not mean that in Protestant countries,
where such syncretisms were impossible, the
sacred myths of the Bible have been taken
over without change. One need only consult
Stoney and Shelby's collection of Sea Island
Negro versions of these stories (entitled Black
Genesis} for a demonstration of how these
tales can be reinterpreted after the African
manner.

"Historical" tales, political stories and
anecdotes, form another major category of
Negro folklore. Except for the fact that the
motifs that go into such tales are often found
in myths and animal stories, and that this
type merges imperceptibly into the former as
quasi-supernatural beings such as twins or
gifted folk appear in them, little can be said
of them as a body. Their functions vary to
amuse, to instruct, to admonish, to recall. They
are frequently told by the elders for recrea-
tion, in the manner analogous to that in which
the animal tales, in large measure, are told
by the children.

The animal-trickster tales are highly stable,
and in a considerable number of instances
stories recur over all the African continent

AFRICAN LITERATURE

and in the New World as well. Some of the
better-known ones may be cited. One is the
rope-pulling contest, which in essence re-
counts how the small trickster wagers a much
larger animal that he can match him in a
tug-of-war, and wins by repeating the wager
with another beast, the size of the first; where-
upon the two, out of sight of each other, reach
an impasse, each thinking he is pulling against
the trickster. This tale has been collected in
Senegal, the Ivory Coast, the Sudan, Togo-
land, Dahomey, Nigeria, Calabar, Gaboon,
the Cameroons, the Congo, and South and
East Africa; in the New World, it has been
reported from the United States, the Bahamas,
Haiti, Trinidad, Dutch Guiana and Brazil.

The Tar Baby story, so well known that it
needs only its title to identify it, has a similar
distribution among Negro peoples, with, how-
ever, even more versions on record. Of almost
equal fame, and of similar distribution, is the
tale where the small trickster humiliates his
larger, duller-witted foil by making of him a
riding-horse; or that in which a slow-moving
animal, usually Tortoise, bests another faster
animal in a race by posting others of his kind
at intervals along the course where each makes
his appearance as the swiftly running op-
ponent nears his place of concealment, the
last of the series crossing the finish line the
winner.

Other widely distributed animal tales are less
known. The story in which the animal trick-
ster, posing as doctor or nurse or as a servant,
undertakes to care for the children of the
larger animal, eating a child each day and
deceiving the parent until all are devoured, is
one of this kind. It appears in Sierra Leone,
in the Sudan, in Dahomey, Nigeria, Gaboon,
the Congo, Angola, Uganda, Rhodesia, Portu-
guese East Africa and South Africa; in the
New World it has been recorded in Brazil,
Dutch Guiana, Trinidad and Haiti, and in
all likelihood is told elsewhere in the Carib-
bean and perhaps in the United States. In

another, trickster wins a loan from a series
of animals which habitually prey on each
other and arranges the time of repayment of
each loan so that as one creditor comes to
receive his money he is killed by the next,
the last in the series being tricked into can-
celling the indebtedness. Still another tells
how trickster, finding an object that yields
food when the proper formula is pronounced,
hides it so others cannot benefit; but when
they discover his secret, contrives to obtain
a magic whip that punishes the thieves. Over
twenty versions of this tale have been re-
ported from West Africa alone, and it is
found also in other portions of the continent
and among many New World Negro groups.

Whether in Africa or the New World, the
trickster is a small animal of high intelligence
and facile cunning, quite unscrupulous, with
great cupidity and gross appetite. Though in
any given cycle he victimizes a series of his
fellow creatures, there is generally one animal
or sometimes several that are his particular
prey. They are inevitably larger and there-
fore stronger than the trickster, dull of wit,
often earnest and hard-working. Despite the
many times he bests them their occasional
reluctance to have dealings with him is an-
other indication of how the individual stories
are associated in the native's mind they
eventually respond to his suave arguments
and alluring promises, and afford him yet an-
other triumph.

The trickster is not always depicted as best-
ing an intended victim. On occasion he not
only loses in his enterprise, but in some stories
he is shown as anything but clever. This is
the case in the Tar Baby tale, where trickster
is caught and made to pay for his wrongdoing
when he becomes fastened to a figure made of
a gummy substance set up for the purpose
of trapping him. Another tale of this kind
is the Gold Coast story that recounts how
Spider, having put all the wisdom of the
world in a calabash with the intention of

AFRICAN LITERATURE

keeping it for himself, decides to hide the
container atop a tree. He slings it about his
neck to enable him to climb, but because
the calabash is over his chest, he can make
no progress until his child calls to him to
change the position of the gourd; whereupon,
in anger, he dashes the calabash to the ground,
and wisdom becomes disseminated through-
out the world.

In the patterning of these animal talcs an
element of psychological and sociological sig-
nificance is found in the relative size of
trickster and his opponents. Spider, rabbit,
tortoise, chevrotain all must live by their wits
when competing with lion, or elephant, or
buffalo, or other large creatures. This element
carries over when the animal tales have birds
as their characters, the small bird of one
widely told story winning a contest for the
kingship by concealing himself on the back
of Hawk or Eagle so that at the proper time
he can continue the ascent and thus appear to
fly highest.

Trickster, who must employ his ingenuity
to best his more powerful fellows, is to be re-
garded as a reflection of African thinking in
approaching the day-to-day situations a hu-
man being must meet and resolve. Such tales,
in their New World setting, have been spoken
of as a technique developed by Negroes to
compensate for their impotence as slaves. Yet
the presence of these same tales in Africa
itself forces us to regard this as at best only
a partial explanation to conclude that we are
faced with an adaptation and reinforcement of
African ways of thought rather than something
devised to fit the new situation in which these
people found themselves. Rattray has dis-
cussed the phenomenon among the Ashanti
in quasi-psychoanalytic terms, though he also
assigns political reasons to explain them: "The
names of animals, and even that of the Sky-
god himself, were substituted for the names
of real individuals whom it would have been
very impolitic to mention. Later, no doubt,

such a mild expose in the guise of a story often
came to be related qud story. The original
practice is still resorted to, however, to expose
someone whom the offended party fears to ac-
cuse more openly . . ." (Akan-Ashanti Folk-
Tales, p. xii).

The observations of Lindblom concerning
the reaction of the East African Kamba to
the triumphs of the smaller animal over the
larger may also be noted: "Presumably this
is due to the inclination of the natives as a
rule to let the weaker party finally win the
victory; and setting the biggest animal they
know of against small, harmless creatures and
yet letting it be the loser affords them espe-
cially great pleasure" (Kaviba Tales of Ani-
mals, p. viii). Junod likewise speaks of "the
root idea" of these tales as "the triumph of
wisdom over mere brute force/' and asks,
"Why does this theme of wisdom over strength
reappear so frequently and under so many as-
pects in this popular literature?" His answer
is, "because the thought is natural and emi-
nently satisfying to the mind of man," so that
the story-teller, "consciously or unconsciously
... is certainly doing work the philosophical
bearing of which is undeniable" (Life of a
South African Tribe, vol. ii, p. 223). The
audience, fully identifying itself with the
quick-witted little trickster hero, responds in
no uncertain way in acclaiming his triumphs,
and in wasting no sympathy on the lumbering
beast who is victimized.

Intimately related to the folk-tales are the
other two literary forms, the proverbs and
riddles. The moralizing aspect of the tales is
expressed in the terse statements of proper be-
havior appended to them, often as the cul-
mination of the action, but sometimes only
as an admonition that seems to have but little
to do with the sequence of events leading up
to it. Riddles, while not a part of the tales,
form a prelude to story-telling sessions, where
some of them are usually "pulled" before the
telling of tales is begun.

AFRICAN LITERATURE

Numerous collections of proverbs, from all
parts of the continent and the New World,
indicate how important an clement in Negro
folklore this form is. Stylistically, it is terse as
all aphorisms are; one interesting considera-
tion is the manner in which it often employs
archaic terms, utilizing words no longer heard
in current speech. Some proverbs are quite
elaborate in form, and occasionally are ac-
companied by song or are themselves sung.
The great number possessed by a given people
indicates their place in every-day life, and
one hears them continuously quoted. This is
true wherever African culture has become
rooted; only in certain parts of the United
States are Negro groups found whose use of
the proverb is relatively slight, this being
comparable to the desuetude in which this
form has fallen in Europe and among Ameri-
can whites.

The matter of utilizing proverbs brings up
the problem of understanding their meaning.
This involves an interesting methodological
point. For while it is not difficult to record a
long series of these short, pithy statements,
it is quite different when one attempts to
discover their significance. This can be
achieved only by employing a careful tech-
nique of question and answer, wherein a
hypothetical situation that seems to be in
accord with the meaning of a given saying
is presented to the informant, and then varied
until it meets the requirements of an under-
standing achieved. The problem is, of course,
more difficult in Africa than in the New
World, where the setting of Negro life and
much of its sanction is that of the larger
community of which it is a part, and much of
the implication of a proverb is therefore patent
to the student. How rewarding this approach
can be, however, is evident in the studies in
which it has been used; those of Travele for
the Bambara, of Herskovits and Tagbwe for
the Kru, of Herzog and Blooah for the Jabo.

By the use of this method one sees, above

all, the many occasions on which the proverb
is employed. It plays an important role in the
law-courts, where it is cited much as our
lawyers cite precedents in building up a case.
It is used with great effectiveness as an in-
strument in achieving the paradox of plain
speaking through indirection, that figures so
importantly in Negro patterns of argument.
It is used to warn, to admonish, to reprove,
to guide, to praise, to encourage, its use marks
erudition and elegance in speech. It reflects,
even more clearly than other forms of folk-
lore, the deepest-set values of a people, show-
ing the drives that motivate behavior and the
o

controls that regularize the relations of an
individual to his fellows.

A few examples of Kru proverbs may illus-
trate the points just made. "The lazy man
eats little" is not, as might be thought, a pre-
cept of general import; it is used only during a
meal to shame one who is eating heartily but
who has earlier refused to do a task assigned
to him. "A missile quickly thrown misses its
mark," on the other hand, is the equivalent
of the English saying, "Haste makes waste."
"To take out and put back never empties the
container," both cautions against too liberal
giving and is used to warn a man who is
permitting others to take advantage of him.
Striking is the case of the proverb, "The sound
of the snapping of the trap that has caught me
stays in my ears." This saying, which to a
European might well be interpreted as mean-
ing "Foresight is better than hindsight," is
actually only used in polite conversation when
one does not quite understand or hear a re-
mark addressed to him that is, it is the equiv-
alent of English "I beg your pardon"?" Such
a saying as "Chicken says, The feet of the
stranger are small,' " is a rebuke to an outsider
who would interfere in the affairs of a group,
since the idiom "small feet" signifies lack of
power. Ascribing the saying to "chicken" is
a stylistic device often encountered in African
proverbs, to render the use of a saying the

AFRICAN LITERATURE

more impersonal when employed as a rebuke.
These proverbs enter every phase of life.

Riddles are ordinarily couched in the form
of a statement rather than as a question. Ex-
amples from Africa and the New World
show how wide-spread this form is. Stayt in-
cludes some in his work on the South African
Venda that may be cited:

A chief presided and the people surrounded
him.

The moon and the stars.
An old man whose gray hair is inside his
belly.

(The gray fibres inside) a pumpkin.
That which does honor to a chief.

A slippery place after a rainfall. It
makes everyone balance and bow.

The following instances, given by Parsons for
the South Carolina Sea Islands show how
the same stylistic device prevails:

A little man was runnin' off all de time, an*
big man was tryin' to ketch him an*
couldn*.

Wagon wheels.
Something has one eye and one foot.

Needle.

Two sisters sit in an upstairs winder. Dey
kyan't see each oder.
Eyes.

These conundrums are a kind of game a
contest of wits that never fails to attract in-
terested listeners. So common is this situation
that it figures in the folk-tales themselves,
especially in tales concerning human beings,
where the point of various stories turns on
the ability of a character to "pull" a riddle
that has been set for him. In a given African
tribe, or a given New World area, the stock
of riddles told by the group is fairly stable,
and the majority of those in circulation are
known to many members of the group. The

stability of these riddles under diffusion is
striking such a one from Dutch Guiana as,
"Red horse riding a black horse's back," with
the answer, "A pot on the fire," is found in
various other parts of the New World, and
has been recorded several times in West
Africa. Children are encouraged to learn rid-
dles, since this is held to sharpen their wits,
and riddling is a favorite children's pastime.
Riddles often have a type of double entendre,
the question being posed so that the unwary
guesser seeks for an erotic rather than a
commonplace answer: "My father took his
spade and shot it into my mother's narrow
opening. Key and lock."

Every student that has collected tales among
Negro peoples has commented on the dra-
matic quality of their story-telling sessions.
This is in part due to the fact that stories are
told only at night. There are various reasons
given for not telling them during the day-
light hours, but the one most often en-
countered assigns this feeling to an associa-
tion of story-telling with rites for the dead.
Wakes are the rule in Negro cultures, and
folk-tales figure prominently among the devices
used by the watchers to keep awake. Hence,
if told by day, it is felt that the spirits of
the dead will wreak vengeance on the teller.

In the main, except for myths and certain
"historical" tales, the stories are a primary
form of recreation. In the telling, the acting
is superb, and from all parts of the areas in-
habited by Negroes descriptions have been
given of how the antics of the trickster, for
instance, are mimicked by alterations in the
voice of the teller, accompanied by move-
ments of hands and body. The stories, more-
over, involve a degree of participation by the
audience that is unheard of in European pat-
terns. One reason for this is the interlarding
of tale with song, in which the teller acts as
soloist and audience as chorus. Often, too,
the audience is questioned by the storyteller
when a character must justify the behavior

AFRICAN LITERATURE

he manifests; and interpolations of assent
from the audience as the tale unfolds are
regularly heard.

The tales do much more than afford recrea-
tion, however. Animal tales which offer ex-
planations of natural phenomena, or account
for accepted modes of behavior, or point
morals, are regarded by natives themselves as
important educational devices. This is why
the native African can say to the European,
"You have your books, but we teach our
children through our stories." Though few re-
ports have been made concerning the types of
tales told by various age or status groups, it
was apparent in Dahomey at least, that ani-
mal tales are regarded as primarily for children,
and older informants thought it a slight to
their dignity to request such stories of them.
For adults there were the "historical" tales,
non-esoteric stories of the gods, love stories
which, contrary to general belief, are found
in the repertory of the African teller and
risque" stories.

The problem of the origin of African tales
has occupied the attention of many students.
It is rendered especially difficult by the simi-
larities that are found between stories told in
Africa and those recorded elsewhere in the
Old World. It has not gone unnoticed that
there are many resemblances between African
animal-trickster tales, Aesop's fables, the
Reynard the Fox cycle, the Panchatantra of
India, the Jataka tales of China, and animal
stories recorded from the Philippines and In-
donesia. Many years ago Bleek, struck by this
resemblance, 'entitled his collection of Hotten-
tot tales Reynard the Fox in South Africa.
The fact that these complex entities resemble
each other so closely and, at the same time,
are to be contrasted as a group with the animal
tales told by the natives of North and South
America, or with Polynesian folklore, gives
validity to the assumption of historical con-
nection between the areas where these tales
are told. It leads, indeed, to the concept of

the Old World as an area wherein a highly
consistent body of folklore has been widely
though irregularly diffused.

This approach is reinforced by a considera-
tion of the non-animal tales and motifs.
Klipple, who has studied what she terms for-
eign analogues in African tales, has noted
many such correspondences in terms of the
tale and motif-index system of Aarne and
Thompson. Thus type No. 480, "Spinning-
Woman by the Spring," the Frau Holle tale
of the Grimm brothers' collection, and also
known in Africa under the designation, "The
Good Child and the Bad," is indicated by
her as having been recorded among the Chaga
and Rundi of East Africa, among the Tanga,
Bulu, and Manbettu of the Congo, among the
Yoruba and other tribes of Nigeria, among
the Popo, in Liberia, and among the Wolof,
Bambara, Mossi and Hausa of the sub-tropical
belt of West Africa. Other examples of this
diffusion of non-animal talcs over the Old
World that can be cited at random are
Thompson's type 300, "The Dragon-Slayer,"
or 403, "The Black and White Bride," for
which extensive correspondences in Africa are
noted by Klipple.

Does this mean that tales were diffused
from Europe into Africa, or in the other
direction? The task of unraveling this par-
ticular historical skein would seem to be a
hopeless one. Those who feel that a tale such
as Tar Baby must have originated in India,
and have spread from there to Africa and,
via Spain, to the New World, can offer but
deductions based on present-day incidence
to prove their point, rather than furnish the
objective historical documentation rigid
methodology demands. It would seem more
fruitful to accept the underlying unity of
Old World folklore as a working hypothesis,
and to direct analysis toward an understand-
ing of the manner in which, in their diffusion,
the various elements of the tales have been
rephrased, reoriented and reinterpreted, than

AFRICAN LITERATURE

to attempt to reconstruct the historical ad-
ventures of a given tale. The most likely con-
clusion, in this regard, would seem to posit
inventiveness in all the area inventiveness in
terms of those conventions of the construc-
tion of tales and the ends of telling that mark
the region as a whole.

This point of view is strengthened by an
analysis of the provenience of New World
Negro tales. It will be remembered how, some
decades ago, argument was joined on the issue
of whether or not the Uncle Remus tales were
adaptations of Indian animal stones made by
the Negroes after their arrival in the New
World. It is today conceded that animal
stories found in Negro communities of the
United States, the Caribbean, and South
America are a part of the heritage brought
directly from Africa, some tales even without
change of character, such as those which con-
cern Anansi, the Spider. Discussion now turns
rather on the stories about human beings,
which are held to have been taken over by the
Negroes as a result of their contact with
whites. That this factor was operative cannot
be denied, but it is disconcerting, from the
point of view of exclusive European prove-
nience, to find Cinderella tales, Frau Holle
stories, Magic Flight sequences, Magic Whip,
and other typically European motifs appear-
ing in many collections of folklore from ab-
original African tribes. The phenomenon of
syncretism may be held operative here as in
other aspects of New World Negro culture,
the blending of two cultural streams, both de-
rived from the Old World area, in a manner
that has created among the Negroes of the
western hemisphere a body of folklore that
presents, to those that see its wide range, an
harmonious unity.

To analyze Negro folk-tales in terms of
their stylistic qualities would require the de-
tailed consideration of a number of specific
stories. Such an analysis would demonstrate
how competently Africans achieve adequacy

of characterization, how the situations de-
scribed attain verisimilitude, how action de-
velops to its climax. Interest is sustained by
the inner consistency in the building of a
plot, suspense alternates with relief, and de-
vices such as repetition of a phrase to denote
intensity, or lengthened time, or distance, are
skilfully employed. The dramatic quality of
the tale is inevitably diluted when it is writ-
ten, for the efficacy of the literary devices is
heightened by the manner of telling. Yet the
wealth of creative imagination that has gone
into these tales is apparent in whatever form
they may be experienced. This, together with
the logic of plot and consistency of action
that characterize them, mark them as artistic
achievements of no inconsiderable order.

M. J. Andrade, Folklore from the Dominican
Republic, Mem. Am. F. L. Soc., vol. XXIII, 1930;
M. Beckwith, Jamaica Anansi Stories, Mem. Am.
P. L. Soc., vol. XVII, 1924; W. H. I. Bleek, Rey-
nard the fox in South Africa (London), 1864; Rev.
Canon Callaway, Nursery Tales, Traditions and His-
tories of the Zulus (Natal), 1868; H. Chatelain,
Folk Tales of Angola, Mem. Am. F. L. Soc., vol. I,
1894; F. M. Cronise and H. W. Ward, Cunnie
Rabbit, Mr. Spider and the Other Beef (London),
1903; C. M. Doke, Lamba Folk-Lore, Mem. Am. F.
L. Soc., vol. XX, 1927; F. V. Equilbecq, Essai sur la
Litterature Merveilleuse des Noirs (Paris), 1913; A.
Fortier, Louisiana Folk-Tales, Mem. Am. F. L. Soc.,
vol. II, 1895; L. Frobenius, Atlantis: Volksdichtung
und Volksmarchen Afrikas. (Jena), 1921-1928;
Bruno Gutman, Volksbuch der Wadschagga (Leip-
zig), 1914; J. C. Harris, Uncle Remus, His Songs
and Sayings (Boston), 1880; Nights with Uncle Re-
mus (Boston), 1883; M. and F. Herskovits, Suriname
Folklore (New York), 1936; M. J. Herskovits and S.
Tagbwe, "Kru Proverbs," Jour. Am. F. L., vol. xliii
(1930), pp. 225-293; G. Herzog and C. G. Blooah,
Jabo Proverbs from Liberia (London), 1936; H. A.
Junod, Chants et Contes des Ba-Ronga (Lausanne),
1897; The Life of a South African Tribe (and ed.,
London), 1927; M. A. Klipple, African Folk Tales
with Foreign Analogues, Unpublished doctoral thesis,
Indiana University, 1938; W. Lederbogen, Kame-
runer Marchen (Berlin), 1901; G. Lindblom, Kamba
Tales of Animals, Arch. dtudes Orientates, vol. xx,
pt. i. (Uppsala), 1926; B. de Magalhaes, O FoZfc-
lore no Brasil (based on tales collected by J, da Silva-
Campos; Rio de Janeiro), 1928; A. H. Nassau,
Where Animals Talk (Boston), 1912; E. C. Parsons,
Folk-tales of Andros Island, Bahamas, Mem. Am. F.

AFRICAN LITERATURE

L. Soc., vol. XIII, 1918, Folklore of the Sea Islands,
South Carolina, Mem. Am. F. L. Soc., Vol. XVI,
1923; Folklore of the Antilles, French and English,
Mem. Am. F. L. Soc., vol. XXV, pts. 1-3, 1933-
1942; R. S. Rattray, Ashanti Proverbs (Oxford),
1916; Akan- Ashanti Folk-Tales (Oxford), 1930; J.
Schon, Magana Hausa (London), 1885; E. W.
Smith and A. M. Dale, The lla-Speaking Peoples of
Northern Rhodesia (2 vol., London), 1920; H. A.
Stayt, The Bavenda (London), 1931; S. G. Stoney
and G. M. Shelby, Black Genesis (New York),
1930; B. Struck, "Die afrikanischen Marchen," Vol-
kerkunde, Berlin, 1925, p. 35; S. Sylvain-Comhaire,
"Creole Tales from Haiti," Jour. Am. F. L., vol. 1

), pp. 207-295; vol. li (1938), pp. 219-346;
L. Tauxier, Les Noirs du Yatenga (Paris), 1917;
Negres Gouro et Gagou (Paris), 1924; Stith Thomp-
son, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, Indiana Univ.
Studies, vol. XIX-XXHI (Bloommgton), 1932-1936;
M. Travel, Proverbes et Contes Bambara (Paris),
1923; A. J. Tremearne, Hausa Superstitions and
Customs (London), 1913; John H. Weeks, Jungle
Life and Jungle Stories (London), 1923; A. Werner,
"African Mythology" in Mythology of All Races, vol.
VII, pp. 10-375 (Boston), 1925; Myths and Legends
of the Bantu (London), 1933.

AFRICANS IN FICTION. The use of native Afri-
cans, as well as of other nonliterate tribesmen,
as protagonists in works of fiction is compara-
tively recent. It is a part of a wider develop-
ment that, in all aspects of life, has made us
conscious of cultures other than our own, and
has given us the willingness to utilize ma-
terials from these societies. From a purely
literary point of view, it is an aspect of the
tendency toward experimentation that has
marked the work of writers for the past two
generations, manifesting itself not only in
literary works about natives, but in hospitality
toward the writings of native authors.

One of the earliest such works, concerned
with Africa, was Ren6 Maran's novel
Batouala. Himself a native African, the author
sets its action in the Ubangi-Shari district of
French Equatorial Africa. The story, which
concerns the love of a chief's retainer for one
of his jealous master's wives, has, however,
been criticized by those that know the people

of the area for its lack of verisimilitude, due
to the ascription to Batouala and other char-
acters of a psychology essentially European,
and to the fact that the plot is based on a
theme of such widespread incidence that the
African setting is of but little significance to
the work as a whole. Effective use is, however,
made of a native song and folk-tale.

Far more telling from this point of view, is
R. S. Rattray's The Leonard Priestess. Its
author, an Englishman with long experience
in the Gold Coast, focuses the plot of his
story on the native dread of the punishment
exacted by the gods for incest here defined,
in native terms, as the mating of members of
the same clan who though perhaps cousins
far removed, call each other and behave to-
ward each other as "brother" and "sister."
The story, moving from the initial incident
which involves another taboo, against having
sexual relations on the bare ground, since
this is an affront to the Earth-Goddess moves
steadily to its climax where, in a manner that
suggests Greek tragedy, retribution is exacted
of the culprits. The book as a whole shows
how powerfully a tale rooted in the concepts
of a foreign people can reach across cultural
differences to poignant meaning.

Unique in that the tribe, rather than any
individual, is the center of the action, is the
work by J. H. Driberg, The People of the
Small Arrow. It is cast in the form of a series
of episodes, each of which, almost an inde-
pendent sketch, portrays a single aspect of
life among the East African Didinga. Some of
these sketches reach a dramatic pitch, as in
the opening chapters describing the battle
scenes, or telling how Alukileng, the Rain-
maker, obtained and used his power. Sensitive
use is made of native versification, and such
a hymn of praise as The Bull-Song of Aura-
nomoi illustrates the rich imagery of African
ritual verse. Not dissimilar from the theme of
Rattray's novel is the chapter wherein The
Tragic Love of Lotingiro and Nachai is told.

AFRICAN LITERATURE

Here, too, the attraction of a girl for a man
overrides the tribal incest taboo, and the
penalty of death is paid.

Two novels treat of the coming of the
Europeans to African folk. One, Flesh of the
Wild Ox, by C. S. Coon, portrays the life
of the Riffians of Morocco, and their futile
struggle to prevent the Spanish and French
from obtaining control over their land. The
daily round, the intrigue that accompanies
political manoeuverings, and above all the
situations that give meaning to life, all ap-
pear in its pages. Mrs. I luxley's Red Strangers,
a more skilful work of this genre, is set in
Kenya, East Africa, and in its three parts
portrays the native culture as it existed at
the time of the coming of the "red strangers"
the whites the period of strongest attack on
native ways of life, at the time of the First
World War, and finally, the demoralization of
the natives under European control. The psy-
chological havoc wreaked on natives by for-
eign domination is movingly recounted, for the
story is based on sound knowledge and sure
insight, and on the author's remarkable abil-
ity to portray the reactions of an alien people
to the onslaught of her own culture.

Native writers of fiction are few, and only
two of their works call for mention. The first,
Doguicimi, by Paul Hazoume, a native of
Dahomey, French West Africa, focuses upon
the life of the court of the Dahomean kings
before its conquest by the French. It de-
scribes a military campaign, which at first
meets defeat but is carried to final victory.
Here are detailed the complexities of the life
of the upper classes in African societies, and

the subordination of personal desire to po-
litical expediency.

The fictionized biography of Chaka, by
Thomas Mofolo, a member of the Basuto
people of south-eastern Africa, is, however, by
far the outstanding literary work among all
those mentioned in this discussion. Originally
written in Sesuto, the language of its author,
it treats of a dramatic character, "the black
Napoleon," as he has been called, the founder
of the modern Zulu nation, from a point of
view that only a native African could present.
The rise of Chaka, born illegitimate by Zulu
standards, a weakling and an outcast, to high-
est position among his people through his
literally sacrificing those dearest to him the
woman he loved, and finally, his mother is
the theme of the book. His failure to attain
psychic security, the role of the witch-doctor
in bolstering his confidence at critical mo-
ments, and his fall as a result of his unutter-
able blood-thirstiness these strands, and
others that show how rich a vein is to be
tapped in material of this kind, are woven
into a pattern which makes for sympathetic
comprehension of what must be regarded as
one of the world's most baffling personalities,
and points how such literature may improve
understanding of values and ways of life that
differ from our own.

Carleton S. Coon, Flesh of the Wild Ox (N. Y.),
1932; J. H. Dnberg, People of the Small Arrow (N.
Y.), 1930; Paul Hazoumd, Doguicimi (Paris), 1937;
Elspcth Huxley, Red Strangers (London), 1939;
Ren Maran, Batouala (N. Y.), 1922; Thomas Mo-
folo, Chaka, an Historical Romance (London), 1931;
R. S. Rattray, The Leopard Priestess (N. Y.), 1935.

MELVILLE J. HERSKOVITS.

AFRIKAANS-See South African.
AKKADIAN-See Accadian.

ALAMANNIC-See Swiss.
ALASKAN-See North American Native.

ALBANIAN LITERATURE

ALBANIAN

THE ALBANIAN language, an independent
member of the Indo-European family, is
spoken by the one million population of in-
dependent Albania and in a more corrupt
and incorrect form by about 400,000 people
living in scattered colonies on the eastern
coast of Italy and in Sicily (the Italo-Alba-
nians) and by several hundred thousand more
scattered throughout the southern part of
Yugoslavia and Greece. Yet even in the home-
land, the people who speak Albanian are di-
vided religiously. About four-sevenths of the
population are Mohammedan, and of the re-
mainder about two thirds are Orthodox Chris-
tians, largely in the south, and about one
third in the north in the neighborhood of
Skutari, are Roman Catholic. In addition to
this, the language falls into the two main
dialects of Tosk in the south and Gheg in
the north. It has therefore been a hard task
to promote the work of unification, even after
the sense of national unity had once been
aroused. To make the problem still more dif-
ficult, the Ottoman Empire, which governed
most of the Albanians for more than four
centuries, prohibited all publications in the
Albanian language and thus forced the early
writers, before the independence of the coun-
try in 1912, to publish abroad.

There is an abundance of folksongs in Al-
banian. These deal with the same general
themes and fall into the same general types
as those that occur in the other Balkan coun-
tries. They date from various periods and
cover all aspects of the life of the villagers
and of the liberty-loving mountain shepherds
and herdsmen, and they speak of the clan
feuds that have reigned for many years in the
remote valleys and mountains. There are epic
and narrative poems about the great Albanian
lawgiver, Lek; but the most popular subject
is the life of Skanderbeg, (George Castrioti,

ca. 14101467), who during his short life
succeeded in uniting most of the Albanian
clans and in holding off the Turkish attacks
for many years. He has become the ideal Al-
banian national hero, furnishing inspiration
to most of the modern authors as well as to
the older, traditional folksongs.

The oldest fragment of written Albanian
is found in a writing of the Orthodox Bishop
of Durre's, from 1462; soon after, we find
Roman Catholic sources, whether from Al-
bania or Italy, dating also from the i5th c.
It was not, however, until the Franciscans
began work in Albania that complete books
were written in Albanian; for they secured
permission from the sultans to print books,
when all other Albanian writings were barred;
but naturally most of theirs were of a religious
character. In 1841, the Jesuits secured simi-
lar permission and have had considerable
influence on the development of Albanian
thought.

The first Albanian printed book was the
Dizionario Latino-Epirota, by Francesco
Blanco (1635); this was followed by an Al-
banian Catechism published by Buda di
Petrabianca in 1685. The first author of some
independent ability was Giulio Variboba, an
Italo- Albanian who prepared, about 1730, a
Life of the Blessed Virgin. He died in Rome
in 1762. Italo- Albanian work continued and
Vincenzo Stratigo (1822-85) un ^ er Italian
influence presented the newer Italian social
thought in the Proletarian and the Bersagliere.

It was not to be expected that the Romantic
revival with its emphasis upon folksong and
popular tradition would pass unnoticed among
the Albanians. Girolama de Rada (1813-
1903), who was born among the Italo- Al-
banians, commenced to collect their ballads
and folksongs and soon turned to the writing
of original verse. Among his chief writings

ALBANIAN LITERATURE

are the Song of Seraphim Thopia, Princess
of Zadrima (1845), a reworking in an Al-
banian setting of the Lenore theme; the Song
of Milosaon (1864), a tale of Skutari; and
Shenderbeg (1873), a biography of the great
hero.

In much the same spirit Gjergj Fishta
(1856-1941) began his work. He was of a
humble Roman Catholic family from the
Zadrima mountain of Skutari, but by becom-
ing a Franciscan he was able to take advantage
of the possibilities of publication in the print-
ing press of the Order. He published folk-
songs and poems based upon them, and edited
a literary review, Hylli i Drites (Star of Light).
His principal work was Lahuta e Malcis
(Highland Strings, 1899-1909), in which he
united the careers of the modern Albanians
struggling for their liberty with the heroes
of the popular ballads and showed how their
striving for freedom and independence had
been the dominant mood of the Albanian
spirit throughout the ages. After the down-
fall of independent Albania at the hands of
the Fascist Italians in 1939, Fishta became
silent and refused to cooperate with the Ital-
ian conquerors in any way. Associated with
him was Vine"nc Prenushi, best known for
his collection of Albanian folk poems, Kange
Popullore (Popular Songs, 1911).

In the meantime, new currents were set in
motion. The division of the Albanian lands
at the Council of Berlin inspired the leaders
of the Albanians to hope for ultimate inde-
pendence and to organize and commence po-
litical work in much the same way as the
other Balkan peoples had done. This in-
volved the reaching of a mutual understand-
ing by the leaders of the three religious com-
munities in the country; and all three groups
combined in the development of an inde-
pendent Albanian literature and culture. Most
of these men were compelled to flee abroad;
thus many of them found the opportunity
for writing and having their work printed in

Sofia, from which city it was smuggled back
into the country.

This was the experience of Besa (A Pledge
of Honor) by Sami Bey Frashcrj, one of the
leaders of this group. This play was first pub-
lished in Turkish in Istanbul, then translated
back into Albanian and published in Sofia.
It is an effective drama, describing the old
Albanian code of honor and contrasting the
proud and independent mountain herdsmen
with the corrupt representatives of the ruling
class that were seeking for honors from the
nation's conquerors. Nairn Frdsheri (1846-
1901), Sami's brother, member of a promi-
nent South Albanian family and also in exile,
published the pastoral idyl Bageti e Bujquesija
(Shepherds and Plowmen, 1886). He fol-
lowed this with Fletore e Bektashinjet (The
Book of the Bektashis, 1896) describing this
Mohammedan sect, of which he was a mem-
ber, and in 1898, Istoria e Skenderbeut (A
Life of Skanderbeg). He died in poverty
abroad, but in 1937 the Albanian govern-
ment brought back his remains to Tirana and
erected a monument in his memory. Along
with these brothers was Pasko Vasa Pasha
(Pseudonym, Wassa Effendi), a Roman Cath-
olic of Skutari, who served in the Turkish
service as governor of Lebanon, and was also
the author of the Albanian hymn of libera-
tion, Mo; Shqypni (My Albania, 1881).

Other writers of this period were the scholar
and poet Giuseppe Schir6 (1865-1927), who
continued on Albanian soil the tradition of
De Rada, with his Kenga e Mirdites (The
Song of Mirdita). Here belong also two Or-
thodox Albanians from Korcha in the south,
Mihal Grameno with his patriotic tragedy
Vdekja e Piros (The Death of Pyrrhus; 1906)
for the Albanians counted Pyrrhus, the
King of Epirus and the chivalrous opponent
of ancient Rome, one of their own people; and
Kristo Floqi, a lawyer, who treated in poetic
drama the problem of religiously mixed mar-
riages in his Fe e Kombesi (Faith and Pa-

ALBANIAN LITERATURE

triotism) in 1912. His Anthollogjia Shqipetare
(Anthology of Albanian Poetry, 1923) was ex-
tensively used in the schools of free Albania.

Among the prominent writers that defended
the Albanian cause abroad were Faik Konitza
(1875-1942), for many years Albanian Min-
ister in Washington. He was an essayist, critic,
and poet. He edited the review Albania in
Brussels and London (1896-1909) and con-
tributed to the newspaper Dielli (The Sun)
which has been published in Boston, Mass,
since 1909. Fan S. Noli (b. 1881), bishop of
the Albanian Orthodox Church in America,
has also had a prominent career. Born in
Qyteza, Bishop Noli was educated in Turkey
and Egypt, then was graduated from Harvard
University and the New England Conserva-
tory of Music. He served for a while as For-
eign Minister and Prime Minister of Albania.
Among his works are Istoria e Shenderbeut
(A Life of Skanderbeg, 1921), a three act
play, Israelite dhe Filistine (Israelites and
Philistines, 1907) and Simfoni Bizantine
(Byzantine Symphony, 1938). He has had
still greater influence through his translations,
for he has rendered into Albanian the lead-
ing works of Shakespeare, Ibsen, Poe, Omar
Khayyam, Ibanez, and many other writers,
and has increased the vocabulary of the lan-
guage and rendered it more able to serve as a
vehicle of literary expression.

Alexander S. Drenova (under the pen name
of Asdren) marks a transition from this gen-
eration. In his early work he wrote, as did
his predecessors, to prepare the Albanian peo-
ple for independence, but after the liberation
of the country, he joined the next group, who
were far more responsive to the currents of
literary development sweeping over Europe.
Thus he developed from his early collections,
as Rzeze Dielli (Facing the Sun, 1904) and
Endera e Lote (Dreams and Tears, 1912) to
Psalme Murgu (Psalms of a Monk, 1930).

Among the younger generation who are
largely under the influence of symbolism and

the later movements, but who are no less pa-
triotic in their feelings, are Ali Asllani with
his Hanko Holla (Aunt Jane), a collection of
poems that express the homely local wit of
Valona, Skende'r Bardhi (the pseudonym of
Nelo Drizari), an American of Albanian par-
entage who has introduced American ideals
and literary traditions into Albanian litera-
ture, and by his translation of Sami Bey
Frasheri's Besa into English has made the
first important translation from Albanian into
English. Andon Zako (pseudonym, ajupi)
has created an anthology of the Albanian
highland ballads and songs, Baba Tomori,
which, like Mount Tomori itself, emphasize
the sturdy character of the Albanian people.
Midhat Frdsheri, under the pseudonym of
Lumo Ske'ndo, was the editor of the literary-
educational review, Diturija (Education,
1909-39), and until 1944 director of the
Lumo Skendo Library in Tirana; he made a
classic translation of Schiller's Wilhelm Tell
which has been accepted as an expression of
the national ideal of freedom and liberty.
Other poets are Louis Gurakuqi; and Ramiz
Harxhi, who used the southern dialect of
Argyrocastra and Kurveleshi in his poems
Deshirat e Zemres (Desires of the Heart).

In prose, Foqion Postoli wrote the popular
novels Per Mrojtjen e Atdheut (for the De-
fence of the Fatherland, 1921) and Lulja e
Kujtimit (The Flower of Reminiscences,
1924), also the sentimental play Detyra e
Meme's (A Mother's Duty, 1925). Milto Sotir
Gurra of Opari shows the influence of O.
Henry and of Maupassant in his Plaget e
Kurbetit (Wounds of an Exile, 1938); this
marks another stage in the introduction of
Western influences into the literature. Ilo-
Mitke Qafezezi is the foremost Albanian
biographer. Up to 1939, the leading literary
and philosophical review Perpjekja Shqiytare
(The Albanian Endeavor) was edited in
Tirana by the essayist Branko Merxhani.

Lasgush Poradeci, in the 1930*5, appeared

ARABIC LITERATURE

as the most disputed talent of modern Al-
bania. He represents the same fusion of ideas
and moods as does Mihai Eminescu in Ro-
mania, but there are still many who question
his value.

Albanian literature and Albanian life have
suffered greatly from the cultural gap be-
tween the educated classes of Tirana and the
great masses of the people, especially the non-
Bekiashi Mohammedans. The Bektashis take
an interest in their traditional culture and the

works that describe it; the Tiranese are
European in the full sense of the word. This
is of course a purely transitional phase; it is
to be hoped that in a restored Albania there
may develop a sound point of view that will
blend in one national culture the influence
of both Christianity and Islam and will thus
offer to the world a new cultural synthesis.

J. Bourcart, Le mouvement litter air e en Albanie
(La Vie des Peuples, 1934).

CLARENCE A. MANNING.

ALEXANDRIAN-See Greek.

ALGONQUIAN-See North American Na-
tive.

ALIBAMU-See North American Native.
AMAZON See South American Indian.

AMERICAN-See African; Brazilian; Ca-
nadian; Christian Hymnody; Louisiana;
Mexican; North American Native; South
American Indian; Spanish American;
United States.

AMHARIC-See Ethiopic.

ANATOLIAN-See Turkish.
ANDES See South American Indian.
ANGAKOK-See North American Native.
ANGOLA-See African.
ANTILLES-See African.
APACHE-See North American Native.

APAPOCUVA GUARANI-See South

American Indian.

APINAY-See South American Indian.

ARABIC

THE literature of the Arabs is largely the
product of Islamic culture. It drew upon the
gifts of many races in different lands, yet re-
mained essentially Semitic in form, continu-
ing to some degree the Hebrew, Aramaic, and
kindred heritage.

Not without significance is the disorderly,
if not fictitious, genealogy of Arabia. It as-
sumes an original, now defunct, stock, that of
Qahtan, and a more recent one, 'Adnan. The
children of the former grouping presumably

inhabited the South. Theirs was the opulent
ancient civilization of al-Yaman; Hadramawt,
and the neighboring coast, that of the Saba-
eans and Minaeans. The 'Adnanites of the
North, according to tradition, are the offspring
of Ishmael, and Abraham is the builder of the
Ka'bah. To this northern wing belonged the
Mudar, kinsmen of the Nizarite Quraysh,
forbears of Muhammad. But by the time
Arabic literature was making its appearance,
a whole class of tribes, including Rabi'ah,

ARABIC LITERATI/RE

domiciled in northern and central Arabia, as
well as the powerful Ghassanids of eastern
Syria and the Lakhmids of Iraq, claimed a
southern origin. The citizens of Medina who
rose to the support of Muhammad were also
of Yamanite descent.

Epigraphical remains disclose a number of
fossilized Arabic languages in which, by
means of the southern alphabet, the speech
of the north was reduced to writing. This so-
called proto-Arabic group is represented by
the Dedanite and Lihyanite inscriptions of
al-'Ula in north Hijaz (7th to 3rd c. B.C.);
the Thamudic writings of al-Hijr and Tayma'
in the same region (5th c. B.C. to 4th A.D.);
and the Safaitic inscriptions discovered in the
volcanic Hawran district (ca. 100 A.D. or
later), representing the northernmost advance
of the South Arabic script. While all these uti-
lized by-forms of the South Arabic alphabet,
their idioms were definitely northern and
therefore akin to the language of the Koran.
Together with the Nabataean (down to ca.
100 A.D.) and Palmyrene (ca. 100 A.D.-ca.
300), they constitute a considerable layer of
dead Arabic languages.

Language and literature, as known to fame,
were moulded in Arabia, allegedly by the
Mudarites, in the dialect of the Quraysh,
vehicle of cultured thought, religious ideas
and literary expression, as the Moslem be-
lieves. In reality, the ancient poetry, which
had served Muhammad as a model, was a
common development neither Qurayshite,
nor Mudarite, nor South Arabian hammered
out by the pre-Islamic poets themselves. When
the literary remains of pre-Islamic antiquity
were ferreted out, furthermore, an attempt
may have been made to exaggerate the role
of southerners, since not a few admirers of
the pagan literary past were themselves men
whose roots were in al-Yaman. The records,
biased, and discriminating, thus give as south-
ern pre-Islamic literary personages the notable
Imru' al-Qays, 'Abid ibn-al-Abras, 'Alqamah,

'Amr ibn-Qami'ah, al-Muhalhil, 'Amr ibn-
Kulthum, al-Harith ibn-Hillizah, Tarafah
ibn-al-'Abd, al-Mutalammis, al-Ash'ath, and
the poetess Jalilah. Among the many stars of
pagan verse are such northerners as Aws ibn-
Hajar, Zuhayr ibn-abi-Sulma, al-Hutay'ah,
Ka'b ibn-Zuhayr, and al-Nabighah. It is doubt-
ful, however, whether either category of bards
may be considered legitimate sons of any but
the geographic zone of the Mudarites in the
north and central regions of the Peninsula.

Nor is it sufficiently clear what the concept
of literature was in heathen and early Islamic
times. Nallino suggested that the term adab
for literature implies the sense of dab, steady
work, continual striving. But the word really
connotes what Goldziher earlier had desig-
nated as "the noble and human tendency of
the character and its manifestation in the con-
duct of life and social intercourse." Equally
arresting are those definitions that make artis-
tic expression "equal to two-thirds of religion,"
or that esteem the knowledge of literature as
a process leading to an intellectual culture of
a higher degree and making possible a more
refined social intercourse especially in the
realm of philology, poetry, exegesis, and
ancient history. Following the age of urban-
ization (632-750) and the gradual increase
of secular composition, under Persian and
other stimuli, a more specialized application
of the term literature gained acceptance. Ibn-
Qutaybah (828-885) wrote a book entitled
Adeb al-Katib (The Author's Technical
Skill). While the religious sciences Koran,
Tradition and Jurisprudence were referred to
as "ilm (science), belles-lettres, skill in sports,
and ingenious games were recognized as part
of the province of the literary art (adab). As
a fine art, literature gave birth to a brand of
rhetoric, of which the celebrated free-thinker
al-Jahiz (d. 869), author of the Book of Elo-
quence and Exposition, passed for founder.
Curricula of Arab schools today include
courses on literary criticism and history, in

ARABIC LITERATURE

addition to the old subjects of grammar, callig-
raphy, lexicology, poetics, rhetoric, theory of
style, and logic.

The Old Voices (A.D. 500-632). The
sumptuous odes, comminatory utterances in
rhymed prose, the legends and heroic songs,
of pre-Islamic days reflect a long period of oral,
and partly written, literary tradition in Arabia,
culminating in the forms and techniques em-
bodied in the Koran. There were also speci-
mens of prose, proverbs and orations, over-
shadowed by business transactions and sundry
documents revealing Arabia's contacts with
her neighbors, Jews, Christians, Persians. The
old voices ring with echoes and memories of
startling happenings of antiquity: reports of
Arabian grandeur under the Syrian Ghas-
sanides, the Iraqi Lakhmids, the Kindites of
al-Yaman. Going farther back, legend kept
fresh the ambitious career of Queen Zenobia
of Palmyra, who was finally led captive by
Aurelian in 274 A.D. The Nabataeans, who
from their capital Petra (in modern Trans-
jordan) had by the time of Christ carved a
kingdom extending north as far as Damascus,
were not entirely forgotten. Nor was this
pagan literature silent on the subject of South
Arabian splendor, dating back to the first
millennium B.C. The Koran discloses the
existence of a literate society in al-Hijaz, in
no way isolated from the outer world. The
opening verse of a chapter entitled The Chap-
ter on the Greeks (.i.e., Byzantines) reads,
"The Byzantines are overcome in the nighest
parts of the land; but after being overcome
they shall overcome in a few years. . . ." It is
plain that interest in the outcome of the pro-
tracted struggle between the Eastern Roman
Empire of the Byzantines and the Sassanid
Persians still ran high in the "Arabian circles
to which Muhammad preached.

The miscellany of writings in which the
old voices are conveyed began to appear in the
2d Moslem c. The first recorded attempt to
compile ancient Arabic poetry was undertaken

by Hammad al-Rawiyah (d. 772). Until then,
successive schools of reciters had passed on
the poetical heritage orally. It was garbled in
its passage through the hands of Moslem nar-
rators; but also it underwent a series of radical
changes during the era antedating the coming
of Muhammad (ca. 570632). On the basis of
poetical vocabulary and standards we discern
the existence of a number of dissimilar schools
that tended, nevertheless, to be drawn closer
to the common norm. The projection of a
unified system was a matter of time. The
poetry ascribed to 'Amribn-Qami'ah (ca.
480 A.D.) may present a prototype of the first
complete ode (qasiclah^); but research is un-
certain, partly due to the falsification of forger-
ers. Out of originally unrelated elements grew
the poetical works ((fa-Ivans') of the principal
bards, Imru' al-Qays, Tarafah, Zuhayr, al-
Nabighah 'Alqamah, al-A'sha, Labid. Frag-
mentary material is also ascribed to certain
eminent poets, led by the two outlaws,
Ta'abbata Sharra and al-Shanfara. The choic-
est seven to ten odes of the masters, among
whom, in addition to those already referred to
as authors of diwans, are 'Amr ibn-Kulthum,
al-Harith ibn-Hillizah, and 'Antarah, received
singular honor as the noblest poetical com-
positions of the pagan age. These were the
mu'allaqat (suspended) that won the unani-
mous admiration of audiences at the annual
literary fair of 'Ukaz. Less celebrated were
the odes compiled by al-Dabbi (d. ca. 785) in
al-Mufaddallyat (The Preferred Odes); in al-
Hamdsah (Heroical Poews), edited by abu-
Tammam (ca. 850); and in al-Aghdni (Songs)
of al-Isbahani* (967).

There is little doubt, however, that the
dawn of the standard ode of Arabia breaks in
this early period. As a poetical form the ode
(qastdah) preceded the rise of Islam, and
has remained comparatively unchanged to the
present day. Each verse is divided into two
balanced parts; the rhymes at the end are the
same throughout the poem. The ode invari 1

ARABIC LITERATURE

ably followed a pattern of conventional con-
struction. Its overture had a characteristic
movement in which the bard appears upon a
camel, accompanied by fellow travelers. His
destination is a familiar site, some tribal haunt
or locality favored by nature. In these sur-
roundings his fancy turns across the years to
recall former joys and comradeship, gravitat-
ing around the beloved. An amatory prelude
(nasffc) in praise of her follows. Emerging
therefrom, the ode describes the poet's jnount
and the details of a hunting scene. Only at
this point is it proper for the poet to break
into the core of his theme. The subjects in-
clude episodes of tribal life, scenes of revelry,
thunder storms, feats of bravery under trial,
exultant clannish pride, the munificence of a
patron, the resounding clash of arms and war-
cries in battle, a raid by night, a personal
encounter with the foe. Embedded in some of
the odes are elegies, songs of revenge and
robbery, satires, taunts, diatribes, the laughter
of the scornful.

A thread of unbroken artistic continuity,
moreover, vouchsafed by identity in vocabu-
lary and imagery, runs through the old voices.
Even more striking is the slow evolution of
motifs, hardly recognizable in the earlier
schools but elaborately enlarged by later
craftsmanship. Parallels manifest themselves
between the techniques of the rival southern
poets, Imru' al-Qays and 'Abid ibn-al-Abras
(both b. ca. 500 A.D.). Succeeding genera-
tions of poets were imbued with the spirit and
forms of 'Abid, whereas Imru' al-Qays scion
of the princely House of Kindah attained
disproportionate fame. At the same time cog-
nizance must be taken of intrinsically differ-
ent influences. The Jewish al-Samaw'al ibn-
'Adiya, who inhabited a castle at Tayma',
some distance north of Medina, was recog-
nized for both loyalty and poetical talent. He
is a reminder of the Jewish impact resulting
from the presence of Judaized agricultural set-
tlements within the confines of Peninsular

Arabia. Known also are the names of numer-
ous Arab bards of Christian background. 'Adi-
ibn-Zayd (b. ca. 545), of utmost facility and
elegance in Persian and Arabic, was an Iraqi
Christian whose family had long been in the
service of the Arab Lakhmids of al-Hirah. A
man of international prestige, his career is
linked with the reign of al-Nu* man III (580-
602), last of the Arab kings of al-Hirah and
by far the most celebrated in tradition.

Abu-Du'ad al-Iyadi was also a member of a
Christian Arab tribe in Iraq, whom Arab
literary critics regard as an outsider. He
brought into pre-Islamic poetry specific alien
influences, popularizing a technique hitherto
unknown in Arabia. His style sprang from the
semi-nomadic, half-urbanized Arab environ-
ment of al-Hirah. Of all poets down to the
Prophet's day, he stands alone, for having
used 12 of the 16 standard meters. The re-
nowned Imru' al-Qays himself had used only
ten. There arose in connection with Lakhmid
court life at al-Hirah a number of well-differ-
entiated poetical forms; there appeared the
ramal (adorned with pearls), and perhaps the
khaftf (brisk). The Hirah galaxy of bards
could boast a third luminary, al-Mutaqqib al-
'Abdi (ca. 550 A.D.), and a fourth, the famed
al-A'sha (ca. 565 A.D.), who displays not only
the advanced traditions of the northern Qays
clan but also the unmistakable impress of
Sassanid convivial poetry. The ramal meter
may come from the Pahlavi octosyllabic verse,
as the mutaqarib (approaching) meter may
be an adaptation of the Pahlavi hendecasylla-
bic verse. In the late yth c. narrative-didactic
Arabic verse adopted the muzdawij (doublet)
prosody, developed in Persia during the Sas-
sanid period, but in due course abandoned in
favor of the more indigenous rajaz (trembling
of knees in camel-march).

Zuhayr ibn-abi-Sulma of al-Hijaz lived on
the eve of Islam. He is the mouthpiece of
Bedouin ethics, voicing in his didactic poetry
nearly the whole range of desert moral ideals.

ARABIC LITERATURE

Therefore his verse, outranking what went
before, occupies a position halfway between
the Koran and the rest of pre-Islamic litera-
ture. The muallaqah ("suspended" ode) of
al-Harith ibn-Hillizah (disregarding the prob-
lem of its authenticity) reflects the feuds of
north Arabia amid the life-and-death struggle
between the Byzantine and the Persian em-
pires. During the fifty years preceding Islam,
the poet al-Nabighah of Dhubyan lived at the
Syrian court of the Christian Ghassanids and
was imbued with some of their polish. He also
sojourned at the Persianized court of al-Hirah;
his poetry smacks of the splendor of both
thrones. The didactic earnestness of his verse,
and that of his younger contemporary, al-
A'sha, is witness to the permeation of Penin-
sular thought with the loftier elements of
Aramaic culture.

Considered as a sacret text, the Koran (read-
ing, or recital) marks the end of one era and
the beginning of another. As a living literary
voice it has much in common with the so-
called pre-Islamic literature. Its description of
Paradise resembles passages in which the
heathen bards depicted earthly scenes of
carousal and revelry. Whether Muhammad
actually drew upon this source or not is open
to debate. In the earlier suras (chapters) of
the Koran one reads vivid and moving imagery
forecasting the doom of the wicked and the
terrors of the last judgment. Even though
touches of Judaeo-Christian theology recur,
the style employed was not basically strange
to the ears of the Prophet's hearers. In point
of literary technique the Koran indeed
eschewed the highly developed metrical poetry
of the pagan age in favor of the oracular
rhymed prose (say") of professional magicians
and wizards. Such was the parentage of the
first book in Arabic prose. There was no other
model suited to serve as a literary link between
the old epoch and the new. Thus the Koran
remains the foremost literary source on the
"Age of Ignorance," i.e., the age when the

Arabians could not match the scriptural writ-
ings of Jewry and Christendom with a scrip-
ture of their own.

Judged as a literary masterpiece wherein
are mirrored the psychological, social, and
economic aspects of Arabian life, as well as
the moral, religious, and spiritual, the Koran
excels every prior production. It is tremblingly
alive to the commercial relations binding the
Quraysh traders with the Syrians, Greeks,
Abyssinians, and Persians when it admonishes
the north and south bound caravaneers (.sura
1 06) to be of one accord whether their
journey is in summer to Syria or in winter to
al-Yaman: "In the name of the merciful and
compassionate God. For the uniting of the
Quraysh; uniting them for the caravan of
winter and summer. So let them serve the
Lord of this house who feeds them against
hunger and makes them safe against fear."
Almost every Koranic passage is enmeshed in
Arabian life as lived in pagan days. Like the
townsmen of Carthage, Athens, and Rome
before, the Arabians of Mecca and Medina
had become engrossed in the kind of com-
mercial materialism that entails money-
changing, usury, greed, dishonesty and selfish
abuse of privilege. That whole picture is con-
jured up by the specific regulations regarding
financial transactions (2:282): "If ye engage
to one another in a debt for a stated time,
then write it down, and let a scribe write it
down between you faithfully; nor let a scribe
refuse to write as God taught him, but let him
write, and let him who owes dictate; but let
him fear God his Lord, and not diminish
therefrom aught. . . ." By special provision,
in the verses immediately preceding, the prac-
tice of usury is prohibited: 'Those who de-
vour usury shall not rise again, save as he
riseth whom Satan hath paralyzed with a
touch." Theologically, the Koran portrays the
character and evils of the idolatry that was
rampant in Arabia when and before the
Prophet delivered his iconoclastic blow. Along

ARABIC LITERATURE

these and other lines it is possible to show
the matchless value of the Koran as the lead-
ing literary source on pagan Arabia.

To the orthodox Moslem, the Koran is not
a man-made book. It is not merely divinely
inspired. In itself it is divine, uncreated, sub-
sisting in the Essence of the Deity. Its ordi-
nances, sanctions, and precepts are taken to be
applicable not to the yth c. Arabia alone but
to all men at all times. It is the text-book from
which every Moslem learns to read. The lit-
erary importance of the Koran may be visual-
ized if one remembers that due to it alone the
various dialects of the Arabic-speaking peoples
have not fallen apart into distinct languages,
as Latin, despite the Catholic church, pro-
duced the Romance tongues. Arabic was su-
preme in medieval times as a vehicle of
enlightenment in the then civilized world. No
other tongue could vie with it in scientific,
philosophical, and religious output fiom the
9th to the 1 2th c. Among the alphabets of
mankind, only Latin exceeds Arabic in the
number of tongues reduced to writing through
its characters. Even today, when the great
world literatures are enumerated, it will be
found that only the English language sur-
passes the Arabic in the aggregate number of
books composed in it.

The years 610-622 form the background of
the earlier Meccan suras, about ninety. These
are mostly short, dynamic sermons, exhorta-
tions, and monotheistic manifestoes on the
here and the hereafter, the resurrection, retri-
bution, idolatry, punishment. One can almost
see the impassioned preacher, hounded by
enemies, lose control of himself as he speaks
like an inspired man. Towards the close of
this period of constant struggle, the Prophet's
fortunes were somewhat improved by the
vigilance and the calibre of converts banded
around him. Gradually his thundering voice
settled down into a stillness, interrupted but
now and then by echoes of the former burs-
ing flashes, which refused to burn with a

steady flame. The atmosphere was about to
change. In 622, the date of the hegira, or
flight (year i of the Moslem calendar), Mu-
hammad responded to the invitation of the
Yathribites (Medinese) to compose their
raging feuds. The decade from then to his
death (632) forms the period of the new
Medinese suras. At Yathrib Medina (city)
of Muhammad the personal appeal and fiery
zeal gave way to edicts and legislative mate-
rial. The semi-lyrical, prophetic warning, and
the diatribes ceased; they were replaced by
the narrative forms, topical addresses, political
theory.

It is true that in due course the pagan ode
came to wield the leading literary influence.
But in its relation to the whole body of Arabic
literature, the Koran deserves the role of
honor. In it the unpracticed speaker, to whom
the gift of words came slowly, retains home
of the crudities of expression produced by the
lack of adequate philosophic concepts. Never-
theless, in the course of the book one sees the
development of a prose style out of a poetic
dialect. In the caliphate of 'Uthman (644-56),
the Prophet's third orthodox successor, an
official canon of the Koranic text was adopted,
though the final text was not definitely fixed
until 933. And yet the significance of the
Book in no way derives merely from the fact
that it was the first step towards a prose style
in Arabic. Nor is it its originality that invests
the work with so much power. The science of
religion has shown that in its inner founda-
tion and theory of revelation the Koran leans
heavily upon the two other religions, Judaism
and Christianity. Nonetheless, its primacy in
Arabic literature, and the history of world
thought, is beyond computation. It is inherent
in itself, that is, in what it has meant to the
Arab and Moslem, and in the nature of the
revolution thai it set in motion. Arabic gram-
mar, lexicography, history, tradition, exegesis,
and theology owe their inception to the cen-
tral interest in the Book of Allah.

ARABIC LITERATURE

The style of the Koran, then, reflected the
pre-Islamic rhymed prose; its language was that
of yth c. Mecca. But though it bore through-
out the imprint of the same master mind, its
later parts differed considerably from the
earlier. In the first revelations were disclosed
the Prophet's brilliant fancy, with touches,
at certain intervals, of the seer's profound
thought and flaming faith, tending to endow
the work with an unusual accent. Any in-
fractions of the rules of grammar or logic
were here forgivable, for these shorter pieces,
by which Muhammad inaugurated his pro-
phetic career, were not originally intended as
models in Arabic rhetoric. But the case is
otherwise with the later suras. Not altogether
free of dramatic flights of the imagination,
such as the sudden departures to adore God
for the manifold manifestations of His power
in the realm of nature, the later suras, never-
theless, represent an intellect that had finally
attained stability and maturity. It is precisely
for this that the dearly won placidity of the
composer, the ever flowing stream of his
verbose utterance, are now more open to the
inroads of adverse critics, before whose eyes
faulty diction and errors of judgment can no
longer pass unnoticed. The lengthy narra-
tives, abounding in religious meaning, are far
more objectionable when they occur along-
side a set of crude psychological inferences
and gainless technical retreats from the beaten
path. Yet these limitations and shortcomings
are wiped out by the luminous prophetic per-
sonality that shines through the honored pas-
sages of the holy book, conceived in complete
consecration to the will of God. Wiped out
they are also, by the remarkable success of
the Koran in nourishing the famished Arab
soul, for the first time perhaps in Arabia's
history, with a new and strange celestial food.

Aside from the Judaeo-Christian torches
that illumined Muhammad's vision, he drew
upon the models of ancient Arabian sooth-
sayers, to whom he owed his forms of blessing

and denouncing. Thus the oldest suras are
prefaced with oaths, invoking the most un-
expected things, the fig and olive trees, Mt.
Sinai, heaven, the signs of the zodiac, the
dawn, the ten nights (the last nights of
Dhu-al-Hijja, the month of Pilgrimage), the
double and single (even and odd, symbolizing
the rare, the unique; and, "double," that which
can be matched). Among the techniques used
is a kind of refrain which, however, never
reaches the strophe measure. In addition to
the frequent appearance of similes, the Koran
effectively employs the amthal (maxims) to
make simple comparisons, and at times to
give the impression that God has established
the phenomena of nature expressly for the
moral instruction of mankind. Historical al-
lusions are likewise drawn to prove the as-
cendancy of God's purpose, and as a warning
to men and nations.

The power of the Koran to capture the
hearts of men has been recognized from the
beginning by Moslem scholars, both Arabs
and non-Arabs. Foreign converts came to ap-
preciate the imperative need to retain the in-
tegrity of the Arabic language as a vehicle
for the Koran and the sacred sciences that
cluster around it. The study of Arabic litera-
ture, grammar, and rhetoric became the ob-
ject of the best brains. It was everywhere at-
tested, until the recent defection of Turkey
and to a certain extent of Persia, that Islam
cannot survive without a sound understand-
ing of the Koran in the original language of
revelation, and to that end the leading the-
ologians bent their energies for many cen-
turies. The Book, therefore, came to play an
unrivaled role in moulding the spiritual de-
velopment of Islam and the daily life of
Moslems. Basically, the People of the Mosque,
the Nation of Allah, the so-called Moham-
medans, are worshipers of Allah, but in a
true sense they are, above all, Koranists. No
one may speak about the spiritual realm save
by its authority. No literary creation, in the

ARABIC LITERATURE

Moslem and Arab view, can ever reach the
peaks attained by the writings of those that
follow the Koranic literary forms and patterns.
[In his Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840),
Carlyle introduced Muhammad as a prophet-
hero of deep sincerity. This was a noteworthy
reversal of the long accepted view of Western
literature, that the Arabian prophet was but
an impostor. The growth of Islamic studies,
in Europe and America, since the middle of
the 1 9th c. furthered a sounder evaluation of
the Koran's place in world literature. Rod-
well's translation of the Koran (1861) P re "
sented the suras in chronological order.
Palmer's (1880), following the traditional
order of the suras, had a pleasing literary qual-
ity. Translations by Moslem Indian scholars
have since appeared, of which Muhammad
'Ali's The Holy Koran (1920), reproducing
the Arabic text alongside the English, is best
known. The Meaning of the Glorious Koran
C I 93o)> by Marmaduke Pickthall, was the
first English translation by an English con-
vert to Islam. Pickthall sought to give a literal
translation, without attempting the hazardous
task of reproducing the full effect of the
Arabic. In reality, he was content to give a
legitimate interpolation, making no pretense
to exhaust the meaning of "that inimitable
symphony, the very sounds of which move
men to tears and ecstasy." Richard Bell of
Edinburgh published a critical translation
(1937-9) in which the material within each
sura is rearranged, on the assumption that the
passages of the holy book, first written on
scraps of writing material, became confused
in sequence when transcribed. Arthur Jeffrey's
Materials for the History of the Text of the
Koran (1937) is the most brilliant contribu-
tion in the field since Theodor Noldeke's
Geschichte des Qorans (1909-19)- On the
interpretive side H. W. Stan ton's The Teach-
ing of the Qur'an (1919) is useful. Samuel
C. Chew's The Crescent and the Rose (1937)
is limited to the Renaissance period, but it

considers the influence of every aspect of
Islamic culture on English literature. In
masterly fashion, Byron Smith, largely through
an intimate knowledge of the Arab-Islamic
world, published Islam in English Literature
(1939). Koranic studies have had a similar
development in other Western literature, in-
cluding German, French, Dutch, Italian, and
Spanish.]

Urbanization (A.D. 632-750). In a series
of rapid forays the Arabs under the Prophet's
successors swept into Syria and Iraq, and
overpowered Heraclius, the Byzantine, and
Sassanid Persia. Then they turned against
Egypt, Eastern Persia, North Africa, and the
Iberian Peninsula. Their incredible military
victories delivered into their hands an empire
extending from the Pyrenees in the west to the
Pamirs in central Asia. In the course of these
startling conquests, leadership passed from
the power of the austere Orthodox Caliphs,
who had set up their government in Medina,
to the worldly-wise Umayyads, aristocratic
kinsmen of the Prophet, who made Damascus
their capital and gave Syria a century of im-
perial splendor.

The Arabian conquerors gradually as-
similated large populations, possessing a higher
grade of culture, to their own Islamic way
of life; and they became urbanized, proficient
in the arts of a settled society. The aggressive,
youthful elements of central Arabia who had
fought the spectacular battles of early Moslem
expansion did not go home after victory. Most
of them settled in Iraq, thence migrated
farther eastward. Others moved along the
new frontiers, finally taking up permanent
residence somewhere between Egypt and
Spain.

The most pressing literary need during the
early part of Islam's opening century was to
preserve the text of the Koran. Automatically
this led to the adoption of a more adequate
script and the formulation of grammatical
treatises based on the authoritative standards

ARABIC LITERATURE

in current usage. The study of the Koran,
its exegesis and exposition, gave rise to the
science of tradition, laying thereby the corner-
stone of the coming structures of theology and
jurisprudence. In the solution of knotty gram-
matical and etymological problems, pre-
Islamic poetry was a decisive factor. The col-
lecting and memorizing of pagan literature
grew into an activity consuming prodigious
effort. Historical studies stemmed out of the
oral genealogies and the desire to ascertain
the origin and ancient doings of the Arabians.
Source material was discovered in legend as
well as in Judaeo-Chdstian literature. In con-
nection with the Prophet's biography (straJi)
and military expeditions (maghazi), some
chronicles were made. Wahb ibn-Munabbih
(d. 732) was an authority on the legendary
, history of his native al-Yaman. His insights
in the field of South Arabian antiquities the
so-called "science of origins" coupled with
his alleged Biblical erudition enabled him to
make a contribution to early Islamic theology
and jurisprudence. In this period flourished
the learned divine al-Hasan al-Basri (d. 728),
recognized by most religious movements in
Islam rationalist, mystical, and orthodox
as the ultimate interpreter in whose teaching
their systems are rooted. His discourses, pre-
served in many a recension, are couched in
eloquent prose and bear witness to his piety
and profound theological knowledge. The
preponderant importance of oral instruction,
however, kept the literary monuments of the
period inferior.

The school of rhapsodists, or reciters,
(rawiyahs) was popular in this age. This
school affected the authenticity and integrity
of pre-Islamic poetry, as already noticed. A
rhapsodist sometimes undertook to correct
what verse he transmitted. Thus Ka*b ibn-
Zuhayr, author of the famous panegyric on
Muhammad, Banat Su'ad (Suad has de-
parted), for which the Prophet gave him his
own mantle. A much more grave practice of

the rhapsodists was the insertion of their own
verses into such earlier work. Hammad al-
Rawiyah (ca. 713-72) made such additions.
His personal incompetence in grammar and
syntax was brushed aside on the ground that
his primary concern was for the masses, in
whose interest the use of popular speech was
justifiable. Hammad altered and interpolated
the diwan of al-Hutay'ah, one of the class
of pagan poets called al-Mukhadramun (of
mixed breed: uncircumcized), who were born
in heathenism but died after the preaching
of Islam. He is accused of forgery by al-
Mufaddal al-Dabbi (d. ca. 786), who himself
deserves the same reproach. Entire odes were
fabricated by Khalaf al-Ahmar (d. ca. 800), a
disciple of Hammad, who proceeded to in-
corporate them in ancient collections.

Sometimes a rhapsodist was also a poet of
stature. Many a great poet began his career
as an obscure rhapsodist in the service of a
celebrated master. That was the relation be-
tween al-Farazdaq and al-Hutay'ah, between
the latter and Zuhayr, and between Zuhayr
and the two poets, Aws ibn-Hujr and Tufayl
al-Ghanawi. The social status of a rhapsodist
seems generally to have been rather humble.
Thus the rhapsodist of the poet al-Miskin is
referred to as a slave (ghuldm). Tradition
has it that whenever Jarir (d. ca. 729) wished
to sit down and compose poetry he called upon
his rhapsodist to bring in the inkwell and to
add oil to the lamps. Abu-al-'Ala' al-Sindi,
afflicted with a speech defect, used to delegate
his freedman (mawla') to recite his verses by
proxy. The rhapsodist of al-Akhtal appears as
an Arab of inferior rank.

But religious studies were now in the
ascendancy. The absence of an adequate prose
style prohibited an early expansion of such
literature. The poets had been scorned by
Muhammad and thereafter frowned upon by
the early Moslem community. But a reversion
to the older tradition of literary Arabic was
not long in coming. The revival took place in

ARABIC LITERATURE

Iraq, where the time-honored poetical spirit
was not completely squandered, in a region
relatively immune to the inroads of the new
faith. When the theologians sought to check
this restoration of pre-Islamic poetry, the
bards flocked into Damascus and the other
Umayyad courts, where they were accorded
cordial reception; especially, al-Farazdaq,
Jarir, and the Christian al-Akhtal* (d. ca.
710). They brought back, on an even grander
scale, memories of al-Hirah and Ghassanid
courts, and emulated the pagan poets in style
and technique.

The impact of urbanization brought radi-
cal changes in the structure (not the nature)
of the ode. The old models continued to exist,
even exist today, but in a considerably altered
fashion. In the refined circles of Medina, un-
der possibly Persian, perhaps Greek, influence,
singers gathered in the service of the leisured
aristocracy. The familiar nasib, which had
formerly been part of the ode proper, grew
into a new love lyric, especially in the hands
of TJmar ibn-abi-Rabi'ah* (d. ca. 719). His
poetry breathes a mellowness thitherto un-
known, and thereafter unforgotten for its
simplicity and gentleness on the ear. He sang
his joyous refrains in all their captivating
candor. Not long before him was the semi-
mythical Majnun (the distracted one), an
early messenger of the romantic school, whose
love for Layla still lives on. He has been
identified as Qays al-Mulawwah (d. ca. 699).
The Umayyad caliph, al-Walid II, filled many
an idle hour with these revel-songs, as a
natural adjunct to his drinking sprees. His
opprobrious reign was interrupted in 743 by
a revolt which in due season precipitated the
downfall of the Umayyads and ushered in a
new literary age.

The Ingathering Stage (A.D. 750-833).
Literature under the early 'Abbasids, heirs
and promoters of Islam's physical and intel-
lectual conquests, experienced an initial period
of ingathering. The 'Abbasids founded their

capital, Baghdad (762), a world market to-
wards which the wares of art, science, and
literature converged, a splendid metropolis
which set the cultural standards of the day.
But into the composition of the rising Arabic
literature there entered Hellenistic and Chris-
tian ideas, Judaic and Persian thought,
Aramaic, Indian, and pagan elements. Greece
came to the Arabs largely through the Syrians,
Eastern Christians, and Sabians. The Church
of the Nestorians and that of the Monophy-
sites, in their various monasteries, had carried
on since the 5th c. the study of the earlier
part of Aristotle's Organon, as well as his
Categories, Hermeneutica, and Porphyry's
Isagoge. The second 'Abbasid caliph, al-
Mansur (d. 775), was the greatest patron
of Nestorian physicians. He encouraged them
to teach. He took special interest in the pur-
veying of scientific thought through the trans-
lation of Greek, Syriac, and Persian works.
In this enterprise he was surpassed by the
caliph al-Ma'mun (d. 833), under whom the
apogee of Greek influence was reached. But
in the aesthetic realm the otherwise receptive
Arab mind shied away from the Greek legacy.
The torch-bearers of Arabic letters turned
rather to Persia. At a somewhat later date,
India poured in her philosophy and science.
Often syncretized with Mazdean and Mani-
chaean elements, this contribution is obscured
in the Ingathering Stage. Insofar as modern
scholarship is able to ascertain, the first Mos-
lem to acquire an accurate knowledge of In-
dian philosophy was the Persian Shi'ite abu-
al-Rayhan al-Biruni (d. 1048) whose long so-
journ in the dark sub-continent enabled him
to study its thought at close range. As a pro-
found master of the physical and mathemati-
cal sciences, he is without equal in Arabic
literature. To his canny observation he
brought a high degree of restraint and de-
votion to scientific standards, as demonstrated
in his two leading works, the Monuments and
India, Contact with Buddhism in Bactria and

ARABIC LITERATURE

Sogdiana produced even greater influences on
Islam and Arabic. In 772, an unknown Hindu
astronomer came to Baghdad, bearing a treatise
on mathematics and one on astronomy. The
latter consisted of the earliest Hindu scientific
works dealing with astronomy the so-called
Siddhantas, better known to the Arabs as
al-Sind-Hind in the translation of Ibrahim
al-Fazari (d. ca. 777), the first Moslem to
construct an astrolabe on the Greek model.
This translation revolutionized the study of
Arab astronomy. If it had no other significance
than the introduction of Hindu numerals into
Arabic, and thence through the works of al-
Khwarizmi (d. ca. 850) as the Arabic
numerals into the West, enough would have
been accomplished to justify its inclusion
among the epoch-making books of all coun-
tries and of all time.

The first bona fide institute of advanced
learning in the Arab world was the Baghdad
House of Wisdom Qyayt al-hikmali) initiated
by al-Ma'mun in A.D. 830. The multifarious
ingredients, assembled at the capital city,
were quietly analyzed and clothed with
caliphal sanction. In medicine, the vital assets
and resources of the onetime Persian Sassanid
studium at Jundishapur were held as models.
In addition to its strategic function as a
translation bureau, the Baghdad institute also
became the envy of scholarship by reason
of its academy, public library, and observa-
tory. Here the caliph's astronomers not only
made systematic observations, but also veri-
fied with remarkably precise results all the
fundamental elements of Almagest: the
obliquity of the ecliptic, the precession of the
equinoxes, the length of the solar year. To this
observatory al-Ma'mun soon added another
on Mt. Qasiyun outside of Damascus. The
equipment in those days consisted of quadrant,
astrolabe, dial, and globes. That affiliation in
Baghdad of literary academy, translation bu-
reau, and observatory is the most notable de-
velopment in the domain of thought since

the founding of the Alexandrian Museum in
the early 3d c. B.C.

At the hospitable 'Abbasid court, foreign
personalities stole the show from the native-
born Arabs who continued, nevertheless, to
pursue their literary course. During this forma-
tive epoch, the philologists and grammarians
had the right of way. The complex metrical
system of Arabic prosody was once for all
fixed by al-Khalil ibn-Ahmad (d. 791); his
disciple, the Persian Sibawayh (d. ca. 793)
settled the principles of Arabic grammar.
Theirs was the school of al-Basrah; at al-
Kufah a less traditional rival school arose
simultaneously, dedicated to a more liberal
philology. In the halls of the former school,
Ruzbih, a convert from Zoroastrianism, known
as ibn-al-Muqaffa' (put to death as a Shi'ite
heretic ca. 757) made a version of the Persian
book of fables, originally the famous Indian
fables of Bidpai, under the title of Kalilah
wa-Dimnah (Fables of Bidpaty. A hero-saga,
the work broke with the established traditions
of prose by its loose texture and detailed in-
tricacies. But the real humanists of the period
were the grammarians, many of whom did
not lack realism. The dreaded sarcastic humor
of abu-TIbaydah (d. ca. 824) a Jewish
Persian was supported by an encyclopedic
knowledge. In his writings he championed the
Shu'ubryah cause of the foreign-born, mostly
Persians, against the Arab national party. His
rival, al-Asma'i (d. ca. 830), a onetime courtier
of Harun al-Rashid (786-809), as editor,
commentator, and critic of Arabic poetry, left
the basis of nearly all that has since been
written in the literary field.

It was clear, however, that some time had
yet to elapse before the Generality of Koranic
studies would be shaken. Under the spur of
the eclectic school of Jundishapur and the
Aristotelian logic on the one hand, and fol-
lowing the example of still raging philosophi-
cal-theological controversies in Christendom
on the other, Neoplatonic influence in early

ARABIC LITERATURE

Islam appears in connection with the central
problem of free-will (qadar^). A movement of
broad proportions soon arose, whose adherents
came to be known as the Mu'tazilah (seceders,
i.e., neutrals) because they withdrew from
the controversial arena, following an inde-
pendent course of belief in free-will rational-
ism. In retaliation, the orthodox group could
do no less than anathematize all philosophy
and philosophers. But the most signal devel-
opment of the period was the emergence of
a new poetry, distinguished by the employ-
ment of new similes. Its founder was the
blind Bashshar ibn-Burd (d. 784) whose Per-
sian birth is perhaps responsible for the hereti-
cal views that led to his execution at the
command of the caliph al-Mahdi (77585) as
well as for that lively elegance of diction,
depth of tenderness and feeling by which his
name is kept alive.

To this age, seething with explosive ideas,
belong two of the leading literary figures of
the Arabic language, abu-Nuwas (d. 810)
and abu-al-'Atahiyah (748^3. 828). Abu-
Nuwas* is remembered as the court jester
of Harun al-Rashid, and as the hero of count-
less ludicrous adventures and facetious pranks
in the Arabian Nights. In the opinion of
competent critics, he ranks, nonetheless, above
all other Arabic poets. A Persian by birth, he
received his education at al-Basrah. Following
a sojourn among the desert Arabs he settled
in Baghdad where he soon eclipsed every
court rival. His poetry included panegyric
(twfldt/0, satire (foi;a'), songs of the chase
Qardiyat), elegies (marathi) and religious
poetry (zukdiyat). His wine-songs (khamri-
yat) won him universal fame. He urged his
hearers not to shrink from excesses, since
Divine mercy is greater than the sin of man.
The scenes of luxurious dissipation and re-
fined debauchery in which he excelled prove
that Persian culture was not always a blessing
to the Arabs.

Abu-al-'Atahiyah * shows the indignation of

the humble folk at laxity in high places. Of
Arab stock, he was bred at al-Kufah and
earned his living by selling earthenware.
Legend has it that despair in love drove him
to asceticism. He was falsely charged with the
adoption of a moralistic philosophy as a cloak
for his rationalist views. For the first time in
Arabic literature he demonstrated that a truly
great poet could use the ordinary language
of the people without foregoing his distinc-
tion. He gave religion its legitimate place in
the poetical firmament.

Since the stream of religious poetry never
dried up again, abu-al-'Atahiyah may be con-
sidered a herald. That the expression of re-
ligious ideas through poetical compositions
was widespread before his time may be in-
ferred from the ante-Islamic gibes of the
Abyssinian buffoon, abu-Dulamah (d. ca.
780) and the open heresy of men such as the
Persian Bashshar ibn-Burd (d. 784). Abu-al-
'Atahiyah *s verse is imbued with a profound
theological interpretation of history. The will
of God is incessantly discovered in everyday
affairs, the door to prayer is thrown open, and
religion is not only related to all earthly mat-
ters but is expressly recognized as the decisive
factor in contemporary events.

Most prose works at this stage of the literary
transformation derived their origin from the
religio-philosophical incentive. The four ortho-
dox juridical schools of Islamic law formu-
lated, under the label of fiqh (wisdom), the
juris prudentia of the Romans, a system of
religio-juridical thought. The earliest and
largest school (madhhab*) is the Hanafite, after
abu-Hamfah (d. 767), who flourished in al-
Kufah and Baghdad. His system is the most
tolerant. A conservative school, the Malikite,
was founded by Malik ibn-Anas (ca. 715-95)
of Medina who expressed in a compilation of
his own legal decisions, al-Muwatta (The
Leveled Path), the dissatisfaction of the more
orthodox Arab theologians with the foreign
speculative schools of Iraq. A moderate school

ARABIC LITERATURE

was the ShafVite, whose founder was Muham-
mad ibn-Idrls al-Shafi'i (d. 820 in Cairo).
The fourth legal system is the Hanbalite, after
Ahmad ibn-Hanbal (d. 855, in Baghdad); its
extreme convervatism made it the bulwark of
orthodoxy in Baghdad against rationalistic in-
novations. To this period also belongs the
establishment of the independent study of
history. Ibn-Ishaq (d. 766) compiled a biog-
raphy of Muhammad, preserved in the revised
edition of ibn-Hisham (d. 834). The historian
al-Waqidi (d. 823) composed al-Maghazi, an
account of the Prophet's military expeditions.

Under the Shadow of Empire (A.D. 833
1517). Politically the Golden Age of the
Arabs was already in the background. After
al-Ma'mun (81333) the mighty empire be-
gan to decay. The centrifugal forces are ex-
emplified in the establishment of independent
dynasties, as provinces cut themselves loose
from the caliphate. The hitherto unchallenged
splendor of Baghdad began to wane, as the
political hegemony of the Arabs, once the
hallmark of an imperial race, began to disin-
tegrate. In distant parts of the Islamic world,
in provincial courts and under semi-inde-
pendent princes, the cause of letters prospered.

In Spain, under the brilliant Umayyads of
Cordova (756-1031), a splendid chapter was
being composed. Ibn-'Abd-Rabbihi* (860-
940) of Cordova, laureate of 'Abd-al-Rahman
III, was the most distinguished author. Al-
Qali (901-67), of Eastern birth, came to
prominence at the University of Cordova in
the reign of al-Hakam II (961-76). He wrote
al-Amali (Dictations), an admirable miscel-
lany on ancient Arabic literature. Ibn-Hazm
(994-1064), the most original thinker of
Moslem Spain, wrote al-Fasl ft al-Milal (Di-
vision of Sects), a pioneer work in compara-
tive religion. The rise of minor Moslem dy-
nasties in Spain enabled Seville, Toledo, and
Granada to eclipse Cordova. The Mozrabs
communicated elements of Arab culture to
the other kingdoms of the north and south.

The Fables of Bidpai were translated into
Spanish for Alphonso the Wise (1252-82)
of Castile and Leon, and ultimately used as
a source by La Fontaine. The rich fantasy of
Spanish literature indicates Arabic models, as
does the wit of Cervantes. Ibn-Hani (937
73), the licentious poet of Seville, betrays
Greek influence; but the picaresque novel
bears the impress of the Maqamah (assem-
bly), culminating stage of Semitic literature
whose creation in Arabic is credited to the
Persian al-Hamadhani (9691008), whose
rhymed prose is a blend of philosophical and
moral curiosity, usually based on the ad-
ventures of a cavalier-hero.

In the literary realm Moslem Spain pro-
duced ibn-Zaydun (1003-71), an accom-
plished poet and letter writer. The beautiful
al-Walladah (d. 1087) was the Sappho- of
Spain; and ibn-Quzman, the wandering min-
strel of Cordova. Lyric poetry of the zajal
(vulgar singing) and muwashshah (a double-
rhymed poem, likened to a woman's gem-
studded belt) forms attracted Christian in-
terest, and developed into the Castilian popu-
lar verse form of villancico, which was ex-
tensively used for hymns and carols. From
Arabic poetry, also, grew the definite literary
scheme of platonic love in Spanish, as early
as the 8th c. In southern France, the first
Provencal poets appear toward the end of the
1 1 th c. The troubadours may have been imi-
tators of the zfl/fl/-singers. The Chanson de
Roland springs from a military contact with
Arab Spain.

Following the translation period (ca. 750-
ca. 900) came the flowering of scientific ac-
tivity (ca. 9001100). The astrologer abu-
Ma'shar (d. 886) taught Europe the laws of
the tides. Four of his works were translated
into Latin and his name, appearing as Al-
bumasar, was accepted in the iconography as
that of a prophet. The treasure-houses of
Arab science began to disclose their contents.
In Istanbul alone there are more than 80

AJMBIC LITERATI/HE

mosque libraries, containing tens of thousands
of manuscripts. Other collections exist in
Cairo, Damascus, Mosul, and Baghdad, as well
as in Iran, India, and North Africa. (On this
side of the Atlantic the most impressive col-
lection of Arabic and Islamic manuscripts is
at Princeton University.) The first full-dress
academy in the Arab world was the Nizamiyah
school, founded in Baghdad in 1065-7 by the
enlightened Nizam-al-Mulk, the Persian vizier
of the Saljuq Sultans Alp Arslan and
Malikshah, and patron of 'Urnar al-Khayyam.
In Cairo the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim estab-
lished in 1005 a Hall of Science where astron-
omy and medicine were taught. 'Ali ibn-Yunus
(d. 1009) is the greatest astronomer of Egypt.
Roger Bacon's Optics was based on the
Thesaurus Opticae of ibn-al-Haytham (Al-
hazen), the Arab physicist and opticist that
graced al- Hakim's court. The astronomical
ingenuity of the Arabs is engraved on the
sky. It blossomed temporarily at Cordova and
Toledo. From the latter city, the astronomical
Toledo Tables, drawn by al-Zarqali (Ar-
zachel, whom Chaucer calls Arsechieles) in
1080, took their name.

In the wake of the translation age also ap-
peared the brilliant galaxy of Islamic philoso-
phers. The most fertile and cultured minds
engaged in the creation of a colossal syncre-
tism, in which Plato and especially Aristotle
prevail. The most eminent Arab thinkers rep-
resenting the Aristotelian philosophy were al-
Kindi (ca. 850), al-Farabi (d. 950), ibn-Sina
(Avicenna,* 980-1037), ibn-Bajjah (Aven-
pace, d. 1138), ibn-Tufayl (d. 1185), and
ibn-Rushd (Averroes, 1126-1198). Beneath
the surface of the works of these men was a
reaction against Islam. Their thought-forms
were never assimilated by Islam, nor did they
succeed in winning the understanding of the
common man. Like the billowy current-belts
that traverse the ocean, always preserving
their own coloration and direction without
ever vanishing in the expansive waters that

encompass them, these philosophers passed
through Islam without wholly becoming part
of it.

Crowning the loth c. achievements is the
work of Ikhwan al-Safa (brethren of sin-
cerity), a school (ca. 970) of Basrah and
Baghdad encyclopaedists. Their composite 52
Epistles (rasa'iO cover almost the full gamut
of contemporary knowledge and thought.
Thereafter, encyclopaedic, biographical, and
lexicographical productions continue to ap-
pear for some five centuries. Two Egyptians,
al-Nuwayri (d. 1332) and al-Qalqashandi
(d. 1418), wrote their respective encyclo-
paedias. The careers of illustrious physicians,
whose medical knowledge and practice were
incidental to their general scientific and
philosophical interests, found a biographer in
the Damascene ibn-abi-Usaybi'ah (1203-70),
matched only by the Egyptian resident of
Allepo, al-Qifti (d. 1248). Gigantic biographi-
cal dictionaries also came from the pens of
al-Safadi (d. 1363), in 26 volumes, and al-
'Asqalani (d. 1449). Abu-Nasr al-Jawhari
(d. ca. 1008), of Turkish origin, was author
of a great lexicon, al-Sihah (The Genuine
Owes) which served as a model for later lexi-
cographers. The Lisan al-Arab (Tongue of
the Arabs') of ibn-Mukarram (d. 1311) and
the Qamus (Ocean, i.e., Dictionary) of al-
Firuzabadi (d. 1414) are standard Arabic
dictionaries.

Political theory developed its own literature.
The chief judge of Baghdad under Harun
al-Rashid was the Hanafite jurisconsult abu-
Yusuf (731-98), the first to receive the title
of qadi al-qudah (Chief Judge). He wrote
Kitab al-Kharaj (Book on Poll-Tax). Ibn-al-
Tiqtaqah (b. ca. 1262), an unbiased Shfite,
wrote Kitab al-Fakhri (Book of al-Fakhri),
the first part of which is a political treatise, the
second, a re"sum of the history of Moslem
dynasties. In Spain, ibn-abi-Randaqah al-
Turtushi (ca. 1059-1126) of Tortosa was an
Arab authority on law and tradition. His

ARABIC LITERATURE

Siraj al-Muluk (Lamp of Kings) is a treatise
on politics and government, teeming with ref-
erences to earlier Indo-Persian sources. The
aforenamed Nizam-al-Mulk (ca. 1020-1092)
was a Persian statesman and student of poli-
tics. He wrote in Persian for Malikshah the
Siyasat-Namah (Treatise On Government),
probably the most important contribution of
that age on the subject. The real theorist of
power in Islam, however, is al-Mawardi (d.
1058) who taught in Baghdad and al-Basrah.
His main work, al-Ahkdm al-Sultaniyah
(State Regulations') is the most authoritative
exposition of political theory in Sunnite Islam.
Almost four centuries later, the philosopher-
historian ibn-Khaldun* (d. 1406) the most
imposing figme perhaps in the annals of
Arabic literature ascribed to political theory
an importance evidenced by the extraordinary
attention devoted to it in his Prolegomena.

The science of tradition, Koranic studies,
and exegesis were meantime proceeding apace,
preparing the way for theology and the devel-
oping field of religious thought. Al-Bukhari
(d. 870) and Muslim (d. 875) were the lead-
ing traditionists; their respective collections
were entitled Sahih (Genuine), purporting to
preserve an authentic record of sayings and
acts ascribed to Muhammad and his compan-
ions. Abu-al-Hasan al-Ash'ari (d. 935), a for-
mer rationalist who had turned conservative,
championed the orthodox cause. His many
books are of a dogmatic and polemic nature. He
originated and popularized a dialectic which
was hurled against the heretics of the day. A
contemporary of his, and like him a founder
of a school of theology, was al-Maturidi (d.
944). These two religious stalwarts formulated
much of orthodox Sunnite theology. Two cen-
turies later, the beliefs held by the new
orthodoxy were given definitive form by
'Umar al-Nasafi (d. 1142), a jurist and the-
ologian. To the same period belonged al-
Zamakhshari (d. 1143) whose commentary
on the Koran ranks with that of the later al-

Baydawi (d. 1286). A remarkable document
in Arabic religio-philosophical thought is al-
Milal w-al-Nihal (Religions and Sects) by al-
Shahrastani (1076-1153), who reviewed the
religious systems and philosophies of the
world in the light of Islamic orthodoxy.

The lifeblood of religious thought increas-
ingly came to be Sufism, a mystical movement
which in the i2th c. created the beginnings
of a vast reorganization in Islamic life, cor-
responding to the monastic orders of medieval
Christendom. The works of al-Muhasibi (d.
857), the first Sunnite mystic who was steeped
in theology, combined a concern for philo-
sophical definitions with a rigorous quest for
moral purity. His Ri'ayah H-Huquq illah
(Observance of God's Rights^) is a manual on
the inner life. The last of the early Sufis
was abu-Talib al-Makki (d. 996), whose Qut
al-Qulub (Food of Hearts) is a mystical text-
book in use to the present day. Preceding him
are scores of zealots, such as Junayd of Bagh-
dad (d. 90910) and the matryr al-Hallaj
(d. 922). 'Abd-al-Qadir al-Jilani (1077-1166),
a Persian who flourished in Baghdad, estab-
lished the first Sufi fraternity the climax
of five centuries of Sufism practiced privately
or in small, now forgotten circles. The great-
est monist and pantheistic mystic of Islam was
ibn-'Arabi* (1165-1240) of Spain. He wrote,
traveled, and taught, and finally emerged as
the supreme speculative genius of his faith,
who gave Sufism the framework of its specu-
lative philosophy. Embedded in an enormous
mass of writings, not yet critically edited, his
influence is detectable in many studies that
form part of the rich legacy of Islamic mysti-
cism. Perhaps al-Futiihat al-Makkiyah (Mec-
can Revelations^ is his masterpiece, for it
dominates the extensive domain of his pro-
ductions.

Jalal-al-Dm al-Rumi (d. 1273), the Persian
mystic and poet, founded the Mawlawite fra-
ternity of Whirling Dervishes. Mysticism was
generally more congenial to the Persians than

ARABIC LITERATURE

to the Arabs, and its influence on Arabic lit-
erature is not to be compared with the extraor-
dinary spell which it has cast over the Persian
mind since the nth c. The Arabs have only
one Sufi poet, ibn-al-Farid* (1181-1235),
that ranks with the Persian masters. Ibn-
Masarrah (887-931) of Cordova had founded
the Ishraqi (illuministic) school. From Spain
the ideas of this school were transmitted to
the so-called Augustinian scholastics, such as
Alexander Hales, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon,
and Raymond Lull. The essential element of
illuministic teaching the metaphysical doc-
trine of light reappears in The Divine Com-
edy which reproduces, a century after ibn-
'Arabi, most of the pictures he had used of
the realm beyond the grave. A staunch ex-
ponent of Sufi illumination is abu-al-Futuh
al-Suhrawardi (d. 1191). His literary activity
revived the interest of the hither East in the
illuminative life. The Shadhili fraternity is
the strongest Sufi force in North Africa, where
Morocco and Tunis, the main fields of its
expansion, harbor the various sub-orders. Its
founder is the Tunisian abu-al-Hasan-al
Shadhili (d. 1258). A more recent doctor of
this fraternity is the Egyptian abu-al-Mawahib
al-Shadhili (1407-1477-8). His Qawanm,
composed towards the close of the Mamluk
regime, reproduces within brief compass much
of the essence of Sufism.

The Mongol invasion of Western Asia
brought desolation, culminating in the sack
of Baghdad (1258). In spite of the subsequent
impoverishment of the Arabs, the chief cen-
ters of literary life in Syria and Egypt con-
tinued, until the coming of the Ottomans in
1517, to produce fitful signs of life. Detached
from the heretical Fatimids of Egypt by the
First Crusade, Syria was restored to com-
munion with the orthodox East, though the
unceasing struggle with the Franks left little
leisure for literary pursuits. The most inter-
esting work during the crusades is the auto-
biography of Usamah (1095-1188) a tableau

vivant of those stormy days. Saladin's career
was made the subject of several biographies
such as those by his secretary lmad-al-Dm of
Isfahan (d. ca. 1201); his favorite Baha'-al-
Din ibn-Shaddad; and the later Damascene
scholar abu-Shamah (d. 1268). In Iraq and
Persia, al-Ghazzali (d. nn) is the towering
personality in the Islamic thought of the age.
Al-Hariri's (1054-1122) name is made fa-
mous by his Maqamdt (Assemblies*). From the
mid 9th to the end of the nth c., Sicily was
part of the Arab world and produced a num-
ber of Arab poets, of whom the most celebrated
is ibn-Hamdis (ca. 1055-1132). He fled the
island at the Norman conquest and took
refuge in Seville, then fled again to Morocco
with his patron al-Mu'tamid (1040-95). But
Arab genius in the island did not bear fruit
until the Norman period. For a century Sicily
furnishes the unique spectacle of a Christian
court at which Arabs occupied high positions
and Arabic literature was better appreciated
than under Moslem rulers. Among the many
ornaments of the Norman Sicilian court were
ibn-Zafar (d. 1169) and al-Idrisi (d. 1166).

The Mamluks (1250-1517), a military
oligarchy of former white slaves, cleared their
Syrian-Egyptian domain of the remaining
crusaders and checked the Mongol advance
led by Hulagu and Timur (Tamerlane). Al-
Busiri (i2i2-ca. 1296), of Berber extraction,
is the only poet of the Mamluk age that
gained any enduring reputation. His fame
rests upon his panegyric of the Prophet, called
al-Burdah (The Manile). A compiler of his-
torical works was al-Maqrizi* (1346-1442).
Another, ibn-'Arabshah (1392-1450), Damas-
cus-born, was removed as a child to Samar-
qand by Timur, of whom he wrote a brilliant
biography. The dominating literary person-
ality of the century preceding the Ottoman
conquest is Jalal-al-Dm al-Suyuti* (1445-
1505), interpreter and epitomizer of the
Islamic classical tradition. The Arabian
Nights, based on the Persian Hezar Efsaneh

ARABIC LITERATURE

(Thousand Tales) by al-Jahshiyari (d. 942),
received additions from numerous sources in
different cultures but was not given its final
shape until the i4th c. under the Mamluks.

The relations established during the yth
and 8th c. between Arabia and Persia, and
even more distant Eastern lands, gave rise to
an active importation of subject matter for
fables and fairy tales, ultimately compiled in
the Arabian Nights, which the Arabs call Alf
Layla wa-Layla (Thousand and One Nights).
It is no exaggeration to recognize this work as
the greatest saga book of the East. The re-
ceived text is of composite authorship and has
a polyglot background. The story of the growth
of this book forms a fascinating chapter in
the development of Eastern culture and its
impact on the West. Transmitted to Arabic
perhaps in the 9th c., the foreign material
underwent a series of changes, involving the
addition of two strata: that of Baghdad; and
that of Egypt. The Baghdad stratum, ordi-
narily cast in solid, impressive style, features
the court life of Caliph Harun al-Rashid
(786809), together with the supporting per-
sonages: the vizier and executioner; it abounds
in cullings from the anecdotes and v foibles of
the half-Persian poet of Baghdad, abu-Nuwas
(d. 810) and the black bard and court jester
abu-Dulamah (d. ca. 780). The Egyptian
stratum relies upon the magic art, making use
of jinnis and 'if fits (demons), producing a
kind of picaresque novel with local Egyptian
color. The faris (knight) motif throughout
the Nights is moulded by the Egyptian Mam-
luk conception thereof, and the mores and
folklore of the whole work reflect the at-
mosphere of the Nile Valley. There are, in
addition to the foreign material and the two
strata, a number of collections and cycles
thrown in to make up the grand total of a
thousand and one nights.

The frame-work of the Nights is the tale
of King Shahryar and his younger brother,
Shahzaman, who, betrayed by their wives,

roam the world until, cured by their experi-
ence with a jinni, who was brutally double-
crossed by his supposedly adoring spirit mis-
tress, they decide never to trust a woman
again. Returning to his throne, Shahryar de-
nudes his realm of maidens by taking a girl to
bed nightly and ordering her executed on the
morrow. It remains for Shahrazad (Schehera-
zade), with the able cooperation of her sister
Dmazad, daughters of the grand vizier, vol-
untarily to seek the cruel king's couch. She
narrates a story on the first night, reaching a
point of critical suspense toward dawn. The
listening king spares her to complete her nar-
rative, but the second night the story grows
more fascinating and brings forth another
near climax. Shahrazad is thus spared for a
thousand and one nights, in the course of
which she brings forth three sons, and at the
close of which she comes out honored and
surrounded with love.

This practice of interlacing one story with
another is specifically Indian. It is observed
in the Mahahharata and Panchtantra, where
it also forms the basic feature of the frame-
work. The tales appearing first, such as the
Merchant and the Jinni; the Fisherman and
the Jinni; the Porter and the Ladies in Bagh-
dad; the Hunchback, etc., are excellent ex-
amples of the frame-work motif. Traceable to
Indian-Persian origin are such tales as the
Story of the Magic Horse; the Story of Hasan
of Basrah; the Story of Sayf-al-Muluk; the
Story of Qamar-al-Zaman and Prince Budur;
the Story of Prince Badr and Princess Jawhar;
and the Story of Ardashir and Hayat-al-Nufus.
Interspersed through the great majority of
the tales are shorter or longer quotations of
verse. The Baghdad stratum attracts attention
to itself by its frequent use of poetry. The
usual practice is to resort to poetry where a
sentimental role must be played, be it joy or
sorrow. No action, however, is dependent
upon the poetical section, it being abundantly
clear that the function of verse in the Nights

AEAB1C LITERATURE

is purely as a decorative motif, if not altogether
perfunctory. Identical verse quotations are re-
peatedly used in similar circumstances. There
are also instances of the clumsy use of poetry,
owing to error of insertion. Only rarely is the
name of the poet cited. Those referred to hy
name are abu-Nuwas, ibn-al-Mu'tazz (d. 908)
and Ishaq al-Mawsili (767-850). It is usual
to preface a poetical quotation with the non-
descript wa-qala al-shair (the poet said). In
fact, the poetry reproduced is, in general, of
a later variety and in no way represents the
finest forms known in the classics.

It is clear, moreover, that the N^ghts do
not form part of formal Arahic literature. The
dignified man of letters could not afford to
concern himself with fairy tales and the de-
bauched attitudes of life. The historian al-
Mas'udi (d. 956) in his monumental history
Mumj al-Dhahab (Meadows of Gold') refers
to an old Persian book "the story of the king
and his vizier, and of the vizier's daughter
and her maiden: Shirazad and Dmazad"
(sic.). Al-Nadim (d. 995) mentions the
Nights at some length in his al-Fihrist (cata-
log), writing in 988, and states that it is "a
vulgar and foolish book." The only other man
of letters to notice the work is a so-called al-
Qurti, whose statements are preserved in a
recension incorporated in the works of al-
Maqrizi (1364-1142) and al-Maqqari (1591-
1632). Al-Qurti is presumed to have com-
posed a history of Egypt about the middle of
the 1 2th c., in the course of which he com-
pared the love adventures of the Fatimid
Caliph al-Amir (1101-30) with the tales of
the Nights. Among the scholars of Islam, the
unpopularity of the work remains to the pres-
ent day. It is generally felt among them that
the position of woman as portrayed in the
Nights is unfair, as indeed it is. Extensive
concubinage, laxity in sex morality, and a
gaudy form of culture with woman as the
personification of cunning and intrigue, are
held to be the very negation of great litera-

ture. Yet the folk tales of the Nights may be
heard in the streets and cafes of Beirut, Cairo,
and Baghdad. They are privately read and are
quietly whispered in the homes of the rich
and poor, the pious and the worldly, all the
way from Morocco to Central Asia.

[In the West, however, the work is not only
more popular reading than the Koran, it sur-
passes any other Eastern masterpiece as a
household classic. Thus the name of Harun-
al-Rashid, contemporary and distant ally of
Charlemagne, became known in Europe and
America, not quite as the "good Haroun
Alrashid" of Tennyson but rather as a
despotic ruler with an impulsive amiability
and real taste for music and letters. Dur-
ing the period of the Crusades, European
settlers in Syria must have heard stories from
the Nights which they carried back. Chau-
cer's Squieres Tale is an Arabian Nights'
story. The French translation of Antoine Gal-
land (1646-1715) provided Europe with its
text of the Nights for over a century. A dis-
cussion was thereafter to arise regarding the
authenticity of the text. Hermann Zotenberg
made, in 1835, an Egyptian recension from
which most modern translations are made.
Lane's translation, incomplete but enriched
with a valuable commentary, began to ap-
pear in 1839; Payne's in 1882-84; Richard
Burton's in 1885-88 reproduces Payne but
retains the Oriental flavor. Enno Littmann's
German translation (6 vok, 1921-28) is
highly commendable. Through these and
other translations the Nights has assumed a
unique position among the immortal master-
pieces of world literature. Its stories of Aladdin
and the Wonderful Lamp; of Ali Baba and
the Forty Thieves (from which the catch-
word "Open Sesame" has come into the
English language); the exploits of Sindbad the
Sailor and many more enchanting tales, are
part of every literate child's heritage.]

Early in the 1 3th c. the Muwahhid dynasty
(1130-1269), or Almohades, which like its

ARABIC LITERATURE

predecessor the Murabit (1056-1147), or
Almoravides, had been founded by a Berber,
was overthrown in Spain by the Christians,
who recovered the Iberian Peninsula save for
a narrow strip of land running from Gibraltar
to Granada. Few monuments of the Arabic
literature produced here escaped the destruc-
tion ordered at the time of Ferdinand and
Isabella's reconquest. Ibn-al-Khatib* (1313-
74) stands out as a writer above all his con-
temporaries for sheer mastery of the craft of
letters. He is probably the last notable poet
and writer of muwashshahs who died in
Spain. Thereafter Hispano-Arab culture mi-
grates to north-west Africa, with centers in
Fez and Tlemcen. First Tunis, in the i3th c.,
then Fez, in the i4th, rose to prominence as
citadels of culture. Tangier is the birthplace
of Islam's foremost traveler, ibn-Battutah*
(130477). The Moroccan historian 'Abd-al-
Wahid, who sojourned in Spain, wrote in
1224 the most valuable work on the Almo-
hades. The Tunisian ibn-Khaldun (1332
1406) carved his unforgettable name as the
inventor of the new science of history.

To this long-drawn-out period of literary
effervescence, under changing conditions, be-
longs the enrichment of the Arabic language
by a group of first-class historians and
geographers. The two leading historians of
the Arab conquests were the Egyptian ibn-
'Abd-al-Hakam (d. 870-71), whose Futuh
Misr (Conquest of Egypt) is the earliest ex-
tant document on the conquest of Egypt,
North Africa, and Spain; and the Arabic-
writing Persian al-Baladhuri (d. 892), whose
main work, Futuh al-Buldan, gave the origin
of the Islamic state. Arabic historical com-
position reached its highest point in al-
Tabari (838-923), and al-Masudi (d. 956),
and after Miskawayh (d. 1030) started on a
rapid decline. A chief judge of Syria, ibn-
Khallikan (d. 1282), was the first Moslem to
compose a dictionary of national biography.
Before him, Yaqut (1179-1229), greatest of

Eastern Moslem geographers, composed a dic-
tionary of literati, Mu'jam al-Udaba, and ibn-
'Asakir (d. 1177) sketched in 80 volumes the
careers of notable Damascenes. Ibn-Qutaybah
of Merv (d. 885) wrote, among odier books,
al-Shi'r w-al-Shu'ara (Poetry and Poets), the
first attack on pagan poetry, suggesting that
merit rather than mere antiquity is the proper
criterion of verse. His prose set the tone of
the literary essay through many generations.
In the loth c. literary criticism took the
form of philological investigation of stylistic
standards, with literary history in outstanding
biographies such as al-Amidi's (d. 987) com-
parative study of the poets abu-Tammam (d.
ca. 846) and al-Buhturi (d. 897). This im-
pulse led to the application of Greek rhetorical
reasoning to Arabic literature, through the
work of Qudamah ibn-Ja'far (d. 922). The
unfortunate 'Abbasid prince, ibn-al-Mu'tazz
(d. 908), whose one-day caliphate ended in
his assassination, composed Kitab al-Bad?
(Book on Rhetoric), the first important work
on poetics, a pioneer experiment in building
up rhetoric on purely Arabic lines of thought
and observation. Abu-Hilal al-'Askari (d.
1005) in Kitab al-Sinaatayn (Book on the
Two Skills poetry and prose) moulded the
various discoveries made in the field of rhetoric
and literary theory into a system that in both
organization and documentation shows the
progress achieved within two or three genera-
tions. As regards the miraculous rhetoric of
the Koran (1'jdz al-Qur'an), he presented an
exposition that induced the Ash'arite the-
ologian al-Baqillani (d. 1012) to deal in his
book with the problems of rhetoric and criti-
cism. He pointed out the occurrence in the
Koran of the rhetorical figures used by the
poets; he gave an aesthetic critique of part
of the mu'allaqah of Imru' al-Qays; and also
of a representative ode by a contemporary
poet, al-Buhturi. Aesthetic criticism is for the
first time made the major concern of an im-
portant volume. To the literary elite of the

ARABIC LITERATURE

i oth and nth c, belong the two leading fig-
ures in medieval Arabic prosody, al-Mutan-
abbi* (d. 965) and al-Ma'arri* (d. 1057). The
first is commonly regarded as the foremost
master of Arabic verse. Though less versatile
as a prosodist, the second achieved greatness
largely through his scintillating wisdom and
skeptical approach to ultimate realities.

Literary specialists began to look askance
at the unwarranted generalizations of their
predecessors, including al-Jahiz (d. 869).
Abu-Mansur al-Tha'alibi (d. 1038) wrote an
anthology of contemporary poets, Yatiwat al-
Dahr (Solitaire of the Age), a clear manifesta-
tion of scholarship and literary taste. A more
rational treatment and critical analytics were
evolved, paving the way for the literary giants
of a latter day. Of these ibn-Rashiq (d. ca.
1070) wrote al-Umdah, on the art of poetry,
in which he expressed the view that moderns
would receive greater recognition if they dis-
carded the obsolete conventions. He bade the
poets draw inspiration from nature and truth,
instead of mimicking the old forms and tech-
niques. 'Abd-al-Qadir al-Jurjani (d. 1078) and
Diya'-al-Dm ibn-al-Athir (d. 1239), on the
basis of a thorough rational training in the
auxiliary sciences, were able to turn to the
study of the more general aspects of literary
expression.

The Low Ebb (1517-1800 A.D.). The es-
tablishment of the Ottoman Turks on the
Bosphorus in 1453 and their destruction of
Mamluk authority in 1517 brought Arab
civilization to its lowest ebb. The Ottomans,
who had supplanted their Saljuq kinsmen
in Asia Minor, had set up early in the i^th c.
a kingdom which in time had absorbed the
empire of the Byzantines as well as the do-
minions that had risen on the ruins of
'Abbasid power. The hour had meanwhile
struck for the westward disposition of world
culture. The discovery of the new world
(1492) took place in the same year that Spain
under its Castilian sovereigns destroyed the

last semblance of power of the Moslems.
These events, together with the opening of
the Cape of Good Hope route (1497), under
Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) of Portu-
gal and his successors, transferred world trade
to new avenues, and made the Mediterranean
a backwater until Napoleon rediscovered its
significance. A general lethargy seemed to
settle on the Arabic-speaking lands. In con-
trast with the awakening mind of Europe, a
dark shadow lay over the Arab world from the
1 6th to the end of the i8th c. But authorship
had not altogether vanished. The glorious
Islamic record in Spain, always a stirring
theme in the Arab memory, was compressed
by the Algerian Ahmad ibn-Muhammad al-
Maqqari* (d. 1632) in a historico-literary
work which has survived as the chief source
in the field.

Political upheavals in the i3th and i4th c.
had brought about the expansion of Islam in
India and Malaya, the East Indies, China,
Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Africa.
The progress of Islam was normally accom-
panied by the spread of Arabic literature. In
Moslem India, where Persian was the official
court language, literary works in Arabic ap-
peared sporadically, including two historical
accounts: Tuhfat al-Mujdhidm (Contribution
of the Persevering) depicting the entry of
Islam into Malabar and the conflict with the
Portuguese; and a history of Gujarat. Minor
theological treatises in Arabic were composed
in distant Malaya. Perhaps the work that best
represents the thought of the age was that of
the Egyptian 'Abd-al-Wahhab al-Sha'rani (d.
1565), the last great mystic of Islam. His
autobiography, Lata'if al-Minan (The Kind-
liest of Blessings) is a record of his spiritual
gifts and virtues. His Lawaqih al-Anwar
(Fecundating Lights), better known as al-
Tabaqat al-Kubra (Comprehensive Record of
Classes), is the leading biographical diction-
ary of the Sufis. He regarded theology as the
first step toward mysticism, and sought to

ARABIC LITERATURE

harmonize the four great schools of juris-
prudence. He contrasts the miserable lot of
the Egyptian peasantry under the Ottomans
with their comparative prosperity under the
Mamluks.

In Anatolia and Eastern Europe, the Turks
at first showed more dependence on Persian
than on Arabic models. During the 1 5th c. the
only Arabic works written by Turks were on
theological and scientific subjects. The in-
corporation of the Arabic-speaking world into
the Ottoman Empire led to a slightly more
extended use of Arabic for general literary
purposes. The most imposing Arabic literary
monument by a Turk is an elaborate bibliog-
raphy of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish works
by Hajji Khalfah (d. 1658), a secretary of
the Ottoman War Department in Constan-
tinople.

Into Central Africa Islam penetrated from
east and west. For many centuries Arab trad-
ing stations had been established along the
east coast as far as Sofala. In the course of
time, large Moslem colonies grew up in Zanzi-
bar and on the continent. There is an im-
portant narration of the struggle between
Moslems and Christians in Abyssinia, written
about 1540 by a Somali Arab, 'Arabfaqih.
From Morocco, Islam had penetrated into the
Niger territories in the nth c. There too an
Arab historical literature came into being in
the 1 6th c., the most interesting work being a
political and enthnographical account of the
Soghay kingdom entitled Tarikh al-Sudan
(History of the Sudan") , by al-Sa'di, a native
of Timbuktu.

Toward the close of this period, a religio-
political movement rose in Arabia. Fired by
the example of ibn-Taymiyah (1263-1328) of
Harran, Muhammad ibn-'Abd-al-Wahhab (b.
ca. 1720) of Najd tried to purge the simple
creed of Islam of corruption, and to restore
the religion of Muhammad in its original
purity. Those were the birth pangs of the
Wahhabi reformation, which ran the gauntlet

of Ottoman Turkey and in due course pre-
vailed over Central Arabia. The versatile King
ibn-Su'ud (b. 1880) of Arabia was the
shrewdest leader of this movement. As cus-
todian of the Ka'bah, overseer of the pilgrim-
age, spokesman for the Arabs and the Mos-
lems, ruler of an oil-rich dominion, he brought
the importance of Wahhabism to the atten-
tion of the world. Out of this Islamic funda-
mentalism came the mysterious Sanusi
brotherhood, founded by Muhammad ibn-
'Ali-al-Sanusi (1791-1859) of Algiers who
died at Jaghbub in the Libyan desert. Al-
Sanusi's program sought to regulate Islam by
establishing an independent theocratic state
on the model of that of the Prophet and his
successors in 7th c. Arabia; it met disaster in
opposing Italy's expansion, until the victory
of the Allies in World War II brought the
Sanusis assurance from Great Britain (1944).

Under the influence of a number of re-
markable scholars, philological studies con-
tinued during this grim and desolate age. In
South Arabia al-Sayyid al-Murtada (1732
91), last of the moderate Shfite, Zaydite,
school of al-Yaman, kept the fires burning,
with his valuable commentary, Taj al-'Arus
(Crown of the BnJe), on one of the standard
earlier lexicons. Of far greater significance was
his edition of al-Ghazzali's Ihya, also with an
exhaustive commentary. The effect of his
work, in which he abandoned pedantic de-
pendence on earlier writers and used the
sources at first hand, was to arouse throughout
the whole Moslem and Arab world a new zeal
for learning and to enkindle a fresh conscious-
ness, vitalized by the tenacious personal faith
of al-Ghazzali. Out of the dreary low ebb a
tidal wave was forming.

Days of Restoration (1800-1914 A.D.).
Throughout the ipth c. and until World
War I, Ottoman Turkey retained her sway
over most of the Arab world. Constantinople
continued as capital of a colossal empire, re-
ligious seat of a caliphate that wielded world-

ARABIC LITERATURE

wide authority. In this epoch no Arabic speak-
ing land, with the possible exception of Syria,
approached Egypt in her stride toward a liter-
ary restoration. On the valley of the Nile
burst the dawn of modern Arab independ-
ence. The day was hastened by the policy and
ambition of Muhammad 'Ali (1769-1849),
and his heirs, particularly Ibrahim (1789-
1848), who coveted nothing more for Egypt
than withdrawal from the Ottoman fold; a
shrewd literary observer in this period, himself
a participant in political life, was the Egyptian
al-Jabarti* (d. 1825). The foundation stone
was thus laid for a movement looking to Arab
unification. Thereafter, Egypt pursued the
course of revival, though for some time still
her literature continued to reflect the Otto-
man spirit, as in the prose and verse of Ab-
dullah Fikri (1834-90), 'Ali al-Laythi (ca.
1830-96), and 'Abdullah al-Nadim (1844-
96). Despite waning prestige, the Sultan of
Turkey continued to rank as the titular head
of the world's Moslem community. Poets
eulogized him as bearer of Islam's regal dia-
dem. Thus Egypt's pro-Ottoman literary lean-
ings persisted even through the world-shaking
events of 1914-18.

The two leading spirits of Islam in this age
were Jamal-al-Dm al-Afghani* (d. 1897) and
his illustrious disciple Muhammad 'Abdu* (d.
1905). The former labored for the consolida-
tion of Moslem peoples under the Ottoman
Caliphate; the latter achieved lasting recogni-
tion as the chief modern reformer of Islamic
theology. The literary masters of the time also
were in continuous touch with the Sublime
Porte. That they were recipients of special
honors and favors from the Sultan is shown
in the careers of 'Ali abu-al-Nasr (d. 1880),
Ibrahim al-Muwaylihi (d. 1906), and Mustafa
Kamil (d. 1908). Quite the same is true of
the next generation of poets: Ahmad Shawqi
(1868-1932), Hafiz Ibrahim (1871-1932)
and Ismail abri (1861-1923). Mustafa
Kamil made no. secret of his belief that Egypt's

vital interests bound her to the brotherhood
of Islam, Another notable literary personage
had set the stage for the rising tide of pro-
Ottomanism: the Syrian Christian convert to
Islam, Ahmad Paris al-Shidyaq (1804-87).
Even in lands as remote from the center of
Islam as Morocco, writers such as Shihab-al-
Dm al-Salawi* (d. 1897) retained their pride
in the Islamic and Arabic heritage. Yet the
concern of literary men with the Ottoman
future was primarily characteristic of native-
born Egyptians. Foreign-born Egyptians,
whether Syrian or Iraqi, stood on either side.
The Syrian-born Salim Taqla (1849-92),
founder in 1875 of the important Egyptian
daily, al-Ahram (The Pyramids^), favored Ot-
toman union, as docs the celebrated Egyptian-
ized Syrian poet, Khalil Matran* (b. 1872).
The opposite wing also boasted the allegiance
of Syrian journalists and litterateurs, includ-
ing Salim Sarkis (18691926), founder of
al-Mnshlr, an organ of anti-Ottomanism.

Under Khedive 'Abbas Hilmi II (1892-
1914) Egypt's role as a haven for Arab na-
tionalists and a refuge for Ottoman liberals
became more pronounced. Among the mod-
erates was Farah An tun (1874-1922), who in
1897 instituted at Alexandria a journal, al-
] ami' ah al-'Uthmamyah (Ottoman Union*),
advocating a political organization of Near
Eastern peoples against Western assaults.
An tun, the Syrian Christian resident of
Egypt, by his appraisal of the situation drew
the praise of the orthodox Moslem thinker
Rashld Rida (1865-1935), editor of al-Manar,
organ of conservative Moslem theology in
Egypt. An illustrious member of the moderate
school was Jurji Zaydan* (18611914).
Zaydan, with Adib Ishaq (1856-85), and
others, felt that without the Ottoman bond
the Arabs ran great risks. Their cry for re-
form, therefore, was not an incitement to re-
volt against the Sultan. In the same moderate
center belongs the brilliant poet Wali-al-Dm
Yakan (1873-1921), Constantinople-born yet

ARABIC LITERATURE

thoroughly Egyptianized. His poetry pulsates
with an intensity of wrath against the corrupt
Ottomans; also, with a tender affection for his
original Turkish homeland.

What has been said of Syrian immigrants
in Egypt is somewhat true in other lands of
their diaspora. The oversea Syrian in modern
times has generally been a Lebanese, often-
times a Christian, who abandoned his birth-
place either fleeing autocracy and persecution
or in quest of economic betterment. Under
these circumstances, he might be expected to
disdain the advantages of Ottoman citizen-
ship. Nevertheless, many a former subject of
the Sultan retained, while he sojourned in
the Americas, a profound interest in Near
Eastern affairs. The birth pangs of a new
literary life in the homeland did not leave him
indifferent.

It is easy to see why in Syria, Lebanon,
Iraq, Egypt, and elsewhere, the bulk of the
emerging literature should be devoted to pane-
gyric. The center of attraction was the Sultan-
Caliph. Every literary technique was utilized,
to glorify the Caliph and his henchmen. Many
of the poets and writers, who vied with each
other in this field, were men of personal talent
and integrity. But dominating all the strains
of praise is a sharp note giving the impression
of abject humility in the presence of an un-
bending high-handed dictator. This is patent
in the anthologies of the early poets of this
period, such as Butrus Karamah (1774-1857),
the pioneer Syrian litterateur, 'Abd-al-Baqi
al-'Umari (1790-1862), the poet of Iraq, and
Nasif al-Yaziji* (1800-71), a Lebanese who
revived the medieval style and literary spirit.

The year 1908, amid turmoil and blood-
shed, brought forth the long-awaited reforms,
embodied in the new Ottoman constitution
(dwstiir). This momentous event had been
foreshadowed in the i9th c. by the efforts of
enlightened statesmen and intellectuals, of
whom the most distinguished was Midhat
Pasha (1822-84). During his governorship of

Syria, a vigorous literary movement arose,
committed to revitalizing the national con-
sciousness and opposing the arbitrary rule of
Constantinople. Fiery odes protesting against
tyranny were posted on the doors of mosques
and churches. While the nightmare of Sultan
'Abd-al-Hamid's reign (1876-1909) lasted,
the new literary awakening either lived in
exile or plunged into darkness. When the
new constitution brought proof of the reality
of Ottoman citizenship, free for all, a national
pride, transcending classes, races, and geog-
raphy, gripped the Near East. The power of
that solidarity had manifested itself in the
literature produced during the Russo-Turkish
war (1878), the Greek war (1897), the
Italo-Turkish war (1911) and the Balkan war
(1913). The attitude of the Arab world, at
the time of the Boer war (1899-1902), crystal-
lized in a qasidah (ode) by Khalil Matran,
in favor of the South Africans. Even more sig-
nificant is the pro-Japanese literature evoked
by the Russo-Japanese war (1904-05). Japan
was then the close friend and ally of Great
Britain, with whom Arabic literary opinion
often found itself in open conflict. But Russia
traditional foe of Turkey was now success-
fully fought by Japan, and Arab applause
swelled the writings.

Thus in the early i9th c. had come a deter-
mined attempt to revive the literary and
philological heritage of the 'Abbasids and the
Andalusians. But Western culture, especially
with Napoleon's invasion of Egypt (1798-
1801), brought also a desire for moderniza-
tion. To this, the contribution of Christian
missions, mainly in Syria and Lebanon, was
prodigious, producing the cultural movement
of which the monumental works of Butrus
al-Bustani* (d. 1883) are a living symbol. The
religious emphasis was now and then offset by
writers trained in naturalist philosophy and
the physical sciences, such as the rationalist
Shibli Shumayyil* (d. 1916). In Egypt the
new era was promoted by Muhammad 'All

ARABIC LITERATURE

(1805-48) and his grandson Ismail (1863-
82). Rifa'ah al-Tihtawi (1801-73), sent to
Paris as a student by Muhammad 'Ali, was
the first Egyptian poet to employ French forms
and techniques. In 1894, Khalll Matran*
launched the modern school of creative poetry,
rooted in the classical tradition yet receiving
its inspiration from the nominalist, existential
Western philosophy. In 1 908 he consummated
these ideals in the publication of his poetical
collection: al-KhalU (The Friend). In time
this new school reached a fuller development
in Syria, as well as among Syro-American
bards. By 1914 American poetical ideals and
literary motifs had entered into the makings
of the new Arabic literature.

April 24, 1913, brought to focus these vari-
ous currents. On that day, the National Egyp-
tian University was host to Arabic literature,
which it honored in the person of Khalll
Matran. Participating were the leading liter-
ary lights of the age, including Ahmad
Shawqi, Hafiz Ibrahim, Isma'il Sabri, Jurji
Zaydan, Shakib Arslan,* Amin Rihani,*
Jibran Khalll Jibran,* Marie Ziyadah,
Antun al-Jumayyil, Muhammad Lutfi Jum'ah,
'Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad, Muhammad Kurd
'Ali. This was a landmark in the reawakening
of Aabic literature,

New Visions (1914 ). On the ruins of

that hollow Ottoman citizenship and Near
Eastern solidarity, shattered by World War I,
there arose an Arabic literature suffused with
the provincial spirit. The regional literary de-
velopment owes its inception to two major
events of the late i9th c.: (i) In 1860 civil
war in Lebanon between the Druzes and
the Maronites disturbed the status quo in Mos-
lem-Christian relations. It led to the secession
of Lebanon from the Ottoman Empire under
an internationally guaranteed autonomy. The
new consciousness of national dignity en-
couraged Lebanese poets and writers to en-
shrine the poetical productions of the age in
new patterns of style. (2) In 1882, the British

occupied Egypt. Thereafter Egyptian litera-
ture took up the cudgels against foreign dom-
ination, giving birth to a national literary
technique and temper that swept through the
other Arabic countries. Creative literary pro-
duction, since 1914, proceeds in several di-
rections. While preserving the local, regional
color, it permeates the life of the Arab states,
and particularly through the novel and the
theater inspires a new revision of cultural
unity and a profound sense of social com-
munity. Of deep significance at this stage was
the integrating influence of Ya'qub arruf*
(d. 1927), whose pure Arabic prose cut across
regional and religious frontiers and proved
the efficacy of the language as a vehicle of
scientific thought as well as elegant literary
sentiment.

The modern Arabic novel owes its origin to
the fictional writings of Syrians at home and
abroad. The Egyptian 'Uthman Jalal (1829-
98), following the lead of Syrian pioneers,
who based their works on French originals,
published in 1892 an adaptation of Paul et
Virginie. Ahmad Shawqi (1868-1932), "the
poet of Egypt," wrote 'Adhra al-Hind (Maid
of India), a fantastic but attractive novel, in
the historical tradition set by Jurji Zaydan
(1861-1914). Writers had in the meantime
given thought to the possibility of condition-
ing the medieval maqamah (assembly) to
serve the purposes of the modern novel. Thus,
Muhammad Ibrahim al-Muwaylihi (1846-
1906) in Hadith (Story ofyisa ibn-Hishdm;
Hafiz Ibrahim (1871-1932) in Layali (Nights
o/) Satih; and Muhammad Lutfi Jum'ah in
Layali al-Ruh al-Ha'ir (Nights of the Per-
plexed Spirit; 1912). The first Egyptian novel
to set the pace for other works is Zaynab
(1914; filmed in 1929) by Husayn Haykal
(b. 1888). Betraying the influence of the
French psychological novel, it is nevertheless
constructed out of definitely Egyptian in-
gredients. Two other Egyptian authors, 'Abd-
al-Qadir al-Mazini (b. 1890) and Muhammad

ARABIC LITERATURE

'Abdullah 'Inan (b. 1896) have investigated
the development of the Arabic novel. They
urge enlightened support by the upper classes,
recognition of woman's role in society, and a
painstaking cultivation of the finer aesthetic
imperative among the masses. Muhammad
Taymur (18921921) made an attempt, in
his collection of stories, al-Shaykh Jum'ah, to
legitimatize the use of colloquial dialogue.
But the imperturbable tenacity of classical
Arabic is still strong; thus al-Mazini's Ibrahim
al-Katib (Ibrahim the Writer; 1931) rejects
the vulgar idiom, as lacking flexibility and
prohibitive of literary polish.

Arabic literature does not record the ex-
istence of an active theater until the mid i9th
c. While non-Arabs entering Islam brought
with them, sometimes in order to prove their
racial superiority, compositions such as
Kalilah wa-Dimnah and much of the original
Arabian Nights, there seem to have been no
Arabicized Greeks who sought to leave such
an impression. The staging of the Greek
drama, moreover, involved the appearance of
women comedians intolerable to Moslems
and scenes in which actors addressed gods
and goddesses, an unthinkable phenomenon
in a civilization whose official religion waged
ceaseless war against idolatry. The cultured
Arab, furthermore, was conservative in taste,
relishing no substitute for pre-Islamic poetry.
The Koran does not proscribe pictorial art, nor
drama; but later exegesis thus interpreted sura
22:31: "And whosoever magnifies the sacred
things of God it is better for him with the
Lord . . . and avoid the abomination of idols,
and avoid speaking falsely." Hence Islam
flatly rebuked the production of figurative art,
making no exception of the drama. The staff
of scientists and artists accompanying Na-
poleon Bonaparte into Egypt included a num-
ber of dramatists who set up a theater in
Egypt for army entertainment. It vanished
with the evacuation; nevertheless, Egypt had
seen a theater for the first time, even though

she had nothing to play. Fifty years elapsed
before the first Arabic play appeared, not in
Egypt but in Lebanon. Qasim Amin (1865-
1908), whose Tahrir al-Mar'ah (Emancipa-
tion of Woman) and al-Mar'ah al-)adidah
(The New Woman) had shaken Arab society
to its foundation, together with his associates
and successors prepared the public mind for
the new theatrical development.

Within the Christian Lebanese community,
in his own home, Marvin Naqqash (1817-
55), born in Sidon and domiciled in Beirut,
sponsored the staging of al-Bakhil (The
Miser'), a translation of Moliere's L'Avare.
Two years later, his Harun al-Rashid was
played. The influence of the Italian stage
upon Naqqash's activity is apparent. The new
movement gained momentum, encouraged by
increasing interest among educational insti-
tutions and private clubs. The plays of
Najib Haddad (1867-97) translations of
Corneille, Hugo, and Shakespeare as well
as those of Najib Hubayqah (d. 1906),
gained wide popularity, paving the way for
more ambitious efforts. Another step was the
development of poetical dramas, in which
Khalil al-Yaziji (1856-89) and the noted
lexicographer, 'Abdullah al-Bustani (1850-
1930), exercised leadership. The real turning
point in the history of Arabic theatricals came
with Ahmad Shawqi* (1868-1932). With
all their shortcomings, his Masra Kliyubatrah
(Death of Cleopatra; 1929), Majnun Layla
(1931), 'All Bey al-Kabtr (1932), 'Antarah
(1932) and Amirat al-Andalus (Princess of
Andalusia; 1932) provided the stage with
effective material. Perhaps surpassing Shawqi
is the aforementioned Khalil Matran "poet of
the two lands": Egypt and Syria who in 1934
was made president of the National Egyptian
Society for the Promotion of the Dramatic
Profession. His friendship with Egypt's great-
est actor, George Abyad, dating from 1911
when the latter had completed his studies at
the Conservatoire of Paris and sought transla-

ARABIC LITERATURE

tions of Shakespeare for his performances,
stimulated Matran to render the great English
dramatist into Arabic. His Othello, Merchant
of Venice, and Hamlet were warmly received.
Thus the drama was further encouraged.

Shawqi's drama is nationalist in character.
It was committed to defend the native heri-
tage, going back to Pharaonic times; it spared
no opportunity to stress the excellences of
Arab culture, holding out the vision of pan-
Arabism. His craftsmanship is evidence of the
change experienced by Arabic literature as a
whole. As an implement of erotic and heroic
expression, as a medium for the description of
scenic beauty and the conveyance of lyrical
art, Arabic poetry now found numerous mas-
ters. As a vehicle of wisdom and philosophical
ideas, it does not fall short. Sulayman al-
Bustani (1856-1925) proved, by his transla-
tion of Homer's Iliad, the adequacy of the
language for poetical narrative. Yet one looks
in vain for an Arabic equivalent to the Spen-
serian stanza or the Alexandrine meter. In-
stead there is the phenomenal growth of 16
different meters, buhur (singular bahr, sea),
each designed to carry an especial form of
thought or emotion. Shawqi in his theatrical
compositions sought to reduce the network
of rules and meters drawn about Arabic
versification. His task was the enfranchise-
ment of prosody, not by rebelling against rules
but by broadening their scope in every direc-
tion and asserting that primarily Arabic verse
must be a living thing. With the exception
of Khalil al-Yaziji (1856-89) and 'Abdullah
al-Bustani (1850-1930), such playwrights
among his predecessors as are known had
not been first-rate poets, and even these
two found it difficult to break the shackles
of meter and rhyme. Shawqi used meter and
rhyme as means to an end. He further per-
fected the art of dialogue and introduced the
use of the vocative and the rhetorical apos-
trophe. As a prose writer he broke virgin
soil in Atmrat al-Andalus. Here he abandoned

the archaic pattern of exaggeration, tossed
away pretentious verbiage and empty em-
bellishment, taking the direct course of a
modern writer. Between his earlier essays, al-
Shawqiyat, born out of the old-fashioned
spirit, and tlie prose compositions of his later
maturity, he had traveled the whole road
from literary medievalism to the vision of a
fuller day.

Among the bards of Syria, Egypt, and Iraq
there awakened a broad world outlook with
cosmopolitan, even cosmic, implications. The
ideals of emancipated men, the perplexities of
a changing life, the torch-bearing task of an
exploring mind, the longings of the soul in
its mystical endeavors, the materialistic goals
disguised in the garb of piety and meekness:
these, though not yet fully mature, are dis-
cernible in contemporary Arabic verse. Con-
temporary Arabic literature is breaking with
its ancient moorings, and forging ahead to-
wards the modern world. An outstanding,
though somewhat bewildered, critic of Arab
environment was the Egyptian Mustafa Lutfi
al-Manfaluti* (d. 1924). He sounded grim
warnings against a blind march towards the
new world. His literary and moral admoni-
tions may be said to stand alone in Arabic
literature.

Perhaps owing to its disproportionate stature
in the political and economic arena, Iraq,
though in no way occupying the center of the
literary stage, is representative of the new
vision. Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi (b. 1863), in bis
peculiar rhythm, contagious humor, prophetic
tone and cynical style, blends the atheism of
'Umar al-Khayyam with the skepticism of
al-Ma'arri. His Thawrah ft al-]ahim (Revo/t
in He//), in 430 couplets, is illustrative of his
luminous mind. He knows, but does not
follow, Dante and al-Ma'arri. The narrative
opens when the angels Munkir and Nakir
visit the poet as he rests buried in the grave.
He parries their questions with the stock re-
plies of a believing Moslem. Then he stalls;

ARABIC LITERATURE

"I believed, then denied
Till they thought me a fickle man.
In truth, I am without the means to say
what my belief can be."

The poet digresses to weigh woman's legiti-
mate place in -society. Suddenly he soars
heavenward. Of the existence of God he of-
fers the classic Islamic evidence, then lapses
again into rank agnosticism. Presently he
emerges fearless with the announcement that
"God is verily the ether/' perhaps an adapta-
tion of the Buddhist nirvana: "From him has
this world of being sprung. In all its forms,
to him it shall return." The description of
Heaven is Koranic. Paradise turns up a char-
acteristically Lebanese summer resort, with
its ravishing females and pleasure-seeking
males, its sensate objects, delectable dishes,
intoxicants, and the fragrant aroma of the
mountain-top haunts. Al-Zahawi's closing pic-
tures of Hell introduce the character of Layla,
bride of his verse, and her beloved Samir. A
galaxy of bards, including al-Farazdaq, al-
Akhtal and Jarir, are also there. Scholars,
scientists, philosophers, all that denied a here-
after, people the region. One of these brilliant
inmates invents a fire extinguisher, making
possible the revolt against the custodians of
Hell. The insurrectionists are subdued only
through the intervention of the Divine
Throne.

Al-Rusafi (b. at Kirkuk; 1875-1945), an-
other Iraqi bard of note, is of Kurdish descent,
though bred in the Bedouin tradition. His
Arabic has a desert twang, luring and capti-
vating: "I prize my frankness in word and
deed, loathing to brook hypocrisy. Ne'er did
I cheat another soul, or give my word deceit-
fully. Little think I that good accrues from
holding truth in secrecy."

Traveling throughout the Near East al-
Rusafi saw many extremes of Turkish and
Arabic life. He opposed the British mandate,
devoting his literary talent to the service of

the extreme nationalist cause. When Iraq
achieved independence and joined the League
of Nations (1932-), he rose to membership in
the Chamber of Deputies. Al-Rusafi links
poetical potency and manliness. Hence his
invariable continence while writing an ode,
on the assumption that his vitality goes into
the creation of verse. In his opinion, the
Prophet Muhammad himself was a master of
verse, who composed his finest poems the
early suras at a time of moderate sex life,
that is, while his marriage to one wife only
(Khadijah) lasted. Thereafter, his much-
married career opens and his sura-odes decline
in quality. In his study of the Koran, al-
Rusafi employed a rationalism somewhat com-
parable to "higher criticism" of the Bible,
though he knew no western language. An un-
published biography of the Prophet by him
demonstrates a non-conformist spirit. Thus he
substitutes for the Islamic confession: "There
is no God save Allah" the formula, "There is
no God save Being." There is, thus, a pan-
theistic principle underlying both his and
al-Zahawi's religious beliefs.

Muhammad Rida al-Shabibi (b. 1890) of
al-Najaf, the Shi'ite center of pilgrimage
where 'Ali is interred, is another poet of Iraq,
and since 1924 a minister of education in the
Iraqi government. Through the changing cir-
cumstances of his career, his dour religious
allegiance remained unshaken in the Shi'ite
Arab tradition of his forebears. His literary
works bear the marks of religious distinction.
His poetry is pietistic and devotional; he views
the future with optimism and composure.
Nonetheless, he opens his mind to certain
scientific shibboleths, as "the survival of the
fittest," and, in the same breath, assails the
contemporary manifestations of idolatry. In
the final analysis, he takes refuge in the
mighty fortress of fatalism, rinding no ob-
stacle therein to the progress of Arab youth.
In an essay, The Alleged Superiority of the
West, he writes, 'We are living in the age

ARABIC LITERATURE

of doubt, as some in the West say. Our doubt
extends to the very roots of the culture which
most Westerners desire the East to adopt.
Deep at these roots one finds a contempt for
the East and Easterners, a denunciation of the
values for which the East stands. Small won-
der, therefore, that the youth of the East
should lose confidence in their own compe-
tence and the heroism of their ancestors. In-
deed that confidence has vanished completely
from the souls of some Easterners, being re-
placed by a sincere faith in the superiority of
Westerners. . . .

"One must concede that the members of
the human race approximate one another in
talent and ability. In this sense there is neither
East nor West. There are only human beings
who successively alternate in leadership and
conquest, in accordance with the unalterable
cosmic laws of society and civilization."

The decade closing in 1940 was marked by
a wave of literary ingenuity in Syria and
Lebanon. Bisharah al-Khuri, editor of the
Beirut paper al-Barq (Lightning), became a
poet noted throughout the Arab world. Shibli
al-Mallat, together with the late Amm Taqi-
al-Dm and Ilyas Fayyad, drew public atten-
tion by their timely odes. In the new orienta-
tion of poetry, Lebanon's first trail blazer had
been Salim 'Anhuri (b. 1855), author of a
dtwdn known as al-Jawhar al-Fard (Unique
Gem; 1904). Together with his successors:
Iskandar al-'Azar, Felix Paris, Dawud Maja'is,
he made a determined effort to abandon the
beaten paths. In the meantime writers and
poets in the Americas deepened the link with
modern forms and modes. On the crest of this
tidal wave appeared 'Umar Fakhuri's weekly,
al-Marad (the Exhibit) in Beirut, and Shakir
al-Karmi's al-2,aman (Time) in Damascus. To
this decade also belongs a more serious con-
cern with the history of literature, represented
by the three treatises, entitled al-Marahil
(Stages*) of Butrus al-Bustani, not to be con-
fused with his more distinguished namesake

and kinsman of the i9th c., and Jtbran by
Mikhail Nalmah (b. ca. 1894), who has
lifted modern Arabic biography to a high
peak. In the more learned and critical domain
stand out the contributions of Fuad Afram
al-Bustani, author of al-Rawai* (Wonders),
the orator and romanticist Niqula Fayyad, the
distinguished man of letters and renowned
professor of Arabic literature Ams al-Maqdisi
of the American University of Beirut, and
Tana Husayn* (b. 1889) of Egypt, long rec-
ognized as zalm al-mujaddidm (leader of the
modern school), who undoubtedly ranks as
the foremost figure in the present nahdah
(awakening).

Oral Literature. There is an extensive,
hitherto little known, oral literature, current
among the Bedouins, tribesmen, fallahm and
illiterate masses of Arab society. Nor are the
more enlightened classes of society immune
to its beauty and vigorous expression. Much
of it has roots in the ancient mythology of the
Near East, or in medieval folklore. Stories
have always had an appeal in Arab countries,
from those recounted in the Koran and the
competing translations from Persian, to the
modern hadduthah (story) told in the collo-
quial tongue. The riwayah ("report") first
appears as an oral recital of a narrative, or a
poem, by a rawi (rhapsodist). Today this is
the ordinary word for "story," the usual word
also for a "play," comedy or tragedy. During
the early centuries of Islam, hihayah (now,
a tale) meant imitation and action by a
hakiyah (professional rhapsodist). Narratives
are akhbar, sometimes ahadith, and stories
told for entertainment are asmar (night con-
versations) or khurafat (humorous myths).
Perusal of the well-known maqamat, from
al-Hariri down, of the amthal (beast fables)
in Kalllah wa-Dimnah and elsewhere, as well
as of the hikayah strain in the Arabian Nights,
shows the debt of all these to a strongly en-
trenched oral literature.

The codification of folklore began as early

ARABIC LITERATURE

as al-Nadim (d. 995), compiler of al-Fihrist.
Ibn-al-'Anbas was known both as astronomer
and nadim (conversationalist, boon compan-
ion) of al-Mutawakkil (847-61), and pur-
veyor of sex (bah) literature. In time, how-
ever, stories tended to become anonymous and
to be associated with dubious subjects, such
as the yarns of the battalun (worthless
heroes) and of Jiha, the male villain and
clown of many fairy tales. The conception of
literary art as an "imitation" of life led to the
employment of the "story" in the portrayal of
contemporaneous events. This is the nearest
point reached by Arabic literature to the life
of the road, where one lived by one's own
wits, which is the hallmark of the picturesque
novel. Such an oral cycle grew around the
name of 'Ali al-Zaybaq, the Hunchback of
the Arabian Nights.

In the contemporary folk songs of the
Arabs one detects religious themes and his-
torico-dogmatic traditions. The 'ataba (plain-
tive complaint) oral verse of Syria-Palestine,
the mawwal Bedouin songs of camel-drivers,
the zalghutah and jalwah wedding songs of
rural and semi-urban communities, preserve
the time-honored mores of the Arabs in mod-
ern garb. The popularity of this literature
invades the most cosmopolitan areas. The
Finnish scholar Aapeli Saarisalo (Songs of
the Druzes, Helsinki, 1932) discovered at a
group of Druze villages in northern Palestine
a variety of folk songs revealing, in addition
to Syrian characteristics, influence radiating
from Egypt and Iraq. Specialized oral poetry
includes the matlu' (plural matali^) overtures
and the Umawih, lamentation and funerary
songs, akin to festivity at an Irish wake. Other
gradations of folk song are commonly recog-
nized by singers as ghina (or ghunriiyah;
plural aghdni, ghanam*), popular warbles. The
mljana type may be illustrated by these sam-
ple lines:

O Mijana! O Mijana! O Mljana!

The turtle-doves join my plaintive song!
Reclining beauty, within the palace gates,
May peace caress thy lovely face!
Thy eyelids taste this hour's bliss,
In leisure through the morning rest.
To thee, thy lover soon will come,
Imploring: "Why shuns us the beloved so?"

Another characteristically rural carol opens
with the couplets:

'Ala Dal'ona, 'ala Dal'ona!
Shdyib Zamanak, hawwil min honal
Dearest Dal'ona, fondest of women,
Luring me an old and wasted fellow.
Thou knowest that I am old and ugly,
Why callcst thou me then to be thy suitor"?
Thy marriage paper sure I shall hand thee
Followed by divorce, thou little ladyl

A frequently heard refrain, bearing the
desert gusto, begins in this vein:

Nan, ya nan y nari'alayhim

Talat al-ghurbi wishtaqna layhiml

Fire, fire, fire!

The fire of long-suppressed desire,

Burning within for those far away.

Long has thy forsaking lasted,

Fire-like my craving rages!

A fairly representative anthology of con-
temporary folk songs heard at funerals, wed-
dings and similar occasions was collected by
Enno Littmann (Neuarabische Volkpoesie,
Berlin, 1902) during his sojourn in Syria-
Palestine.

A more sober strain runs through the oral
literature identified with the tdziydh (fu-
nerary) passion play of 'Ashura', religiously
observed through the Shi'ite Moslem world.
The performance takes place in the first third
of al-Muharram, first month of the Moslem
year, climaxed in the grand finale of the
tenth day, which is also a voluntary fast day

ARAMAIC LITERATURE

with the Orthodox Sunnites. The local tech-
niques adopted in the execution of this reli-
gious drama vary in India, Persia, and Iraq.
To a great extent, however, the plays have a
similar core, considerably elaborated in its
oral features. The last stages, reached on the
closing day, are marked by great mourning,
celebrated along pilgrimage and processional
routes to the sacred places, particularly Kar-
bala in Iraq, shrine of the martyr al-Husayn,
'All's son. The death of 'Ali's two sons, al-
Hasan and al-Husayn, dominates the action,
for which the term drama may be used only
arbitrarily, with reference to the chain of 40
to 50 independent presentations which are
generally given. The scenes derive their con-
tent from various sources and are mainly re-
cited in the liazaj (trilling song) meter. Un-
derlying the simple plot is a definite sotcri-
ology, brought out in accordance with the
historical events but expressed above all in
the fits of frenzy to which the professional
mourners work themselves, in their ad lib.
denunciations of the murderers of 'Ali and his
two sons, and their heart-rending asides. In its
elaborate, oral form the sacred play has re-
ceived Hindu, ancient mythological, and local
additions. Beyond the ten-day celebration,
there is a sequel lasting forty days, during

which the faithful await the return of the
martyr's head which has been carried away
to Damascus.

Both in folk literature and in the more
complex forms of the written arts, there is
every evidence that Arabic will continue its
rich flourishing.

Charles C. Adams, Islam and, Modernism in Egypt
(London), 1933; N. A. Fans, ed., The Arab Herit-
age (Princeton), 1944; Carl Brockelmann, Ge-
schichte der Arab. Litt., 8 vol. (Weimar), 1898; vol.
2 (Berlin), 1902; supplement, vols. 1-3 (Leiden),
1 937-40; Encyclopaedia of Islam; H. A. R. Gibb,
Arab. Lit. (London), 1926; "Studies in Contempo-
rary Arab. Lit.," Bulletin School Oriental Studies,
Vols. 2-7 (London), 1928-35; A. Gonzalez-Palencia,
Hist, de la lit. ardbigo-espanola (Madrid), 1928; G.
von Grunebaum, "The Early Development of Islamic
Religious Poetry," /. Am. Oriental Society, Vol. 60,
No. i, March, 1940; "Arab. Literary Criticism in the
loth Century A.D.," op. cit., Vol. 61, No. i, March,
1941, "Pre-Islamic Poetry," Moslem World, Vol. 32,
No. 2, April, 1942; Philip K. Hitti, Hist, of the
Arabs, 2nd ed. (London), 1940; Clement Huart,
Litt. Arabe (Paris), 1902, Eng. tr. (New York),
1903; Hist, des Arabes, 2 vols. (Paris), 1912-13;
Reynold A. Nicholson, A Lit. Hist, of the Arabs,
2nd ed. (Cambridge), 1930; O. Rescher, Abriss der
Arab. Litt.-Geschichte (Stuttgart), 1925-33; George
Sarton, Introd. to the Hist, of Science, Vol. i (Cam-
bridge), 1927; Die Welt des Islams, ed. George
Kampffmeyer, Vol. 5-16 (Berlin), 1918-32; ed.
Kampffmeyer and G. Jaschke, Vols. 17-22 (Berlin),
1935-40.

EDWARD J. JURJI.

ARAMAIC

ARAMAIC is the common denominator for a
group of very closely related North-West
Semitic dialects. The name first appears in
cuneiform texts around 1100 B.C., as an adjec-
tive qualifying the Akhlame nomads. Instead
of Aramaic the name of Chaldean was for-
merly in common use for the designation of
the linguistic group; this misnomer was de-
rived from an erroneous interpretation of

Daniel ch.2,v.4, where the Chaldeans are
introduced as speaking Aramaic to king
Nebuchadnezzar.

Aramaic comprises the following major dia-
lects: Old and Official Aramaic, Nabatean
and Palmyrene (both of which are known to
us only from inscriptions of comparatively
little literary significance), Jewish Aramaic
(in two dialectical forms as used in Palestine

ARAMAIC LITERATURE

and Mesopotamia), Samaritan, Christian
Syro-Palestinian Aramaic, Syriac, and Man-
daic. Some modern Aramaic dialects are still
being spoken by a dwindling number of per-
sons.

Historical circumstances have assigned to
some of these dialects roles of great im-
portance as linguistic and cultural media.
Consequently, the significance of Aramaic for
the preservation and transmission of the lit-
erary heritage of the Near East cannot easily
be overestimated. But it is difficult to form a
definite judgment with regard to the original-
ity of Aramaic literature. It would not be un-
reasonable to say that throughout its history
Aramaic literature has been greatly dependent
on outside influences. Moreover, some of the
most noteworthy products of the Aramaic
literary genius are either, as the writings of
early Christianity, not preserved in their orig-
inal language or, as the books of Mani, the
founder of Manichaeism, appear to be en-
tirely lost.

Old and Official Aramaic. In the 8th c. B.C.
the rulers of various small Aramaic states in
northern Syria had their deeds recorded in
votive, memorial, and building inscriptions.
These inscriptions are valuable as the Aramaic
contribution to historiography and autobiog-
raphy in their ancient oriental form. They do
not represent the pure Accadian type, but
show a distinct though as yet not clearly
definable admixture of elements derived from
the civilizations of the great powers of Asia
Minor, like the Hittites and the Hurrians.
Foremost among this group of inscriptions
are those left behind by the two men named
Panammu and by Barrakab, rulers over the
principality of Ya'udi, which was situated
half-way between Antioch and Mar'ash. An-
other such document was carved in stone by
Zakir, the ruler of Hamah and Lu'ush (?).
He described the victory he gained with di-
vine help over Damascus and her allies.

By that time international treaty-making

had evolved a highly developed literary form.
The solemn invocations of various deities,
and the description of the dire misfortunes
that were to befall the party that might break
the treaty, were largely formulary. But it was
left to imagination and local usage to add a
new touch here and there. A stone monument
inscribed in Aramaic, which has been found
near Aleppo, contains a treaty between Bar
Ga'yah of Katikka (?) and Mati'el of Arpad.
Formed after Accadian models, this treaty
also appears to have undergone certain other
influences, most probably Hittite.

The small though continuous trickle of
Aramaic material assumes considerably larger
proportions with the end of the 6th c. B.C.
By then the administration of the Achaemenid
Empire had spread the use of the Aramaic
language and script as its official literary
medium from Egypt to India. Among the in-
scriptions of the 5th c. the epitaph of an
Egyptian woman called Taba, the daughter
of Tahapi, appears to be the oldest specimen
of Aramaic poetry. Its metre seems to disre-
gard the quantity and number of syllables
and to consist only in a fixed number of beats.
This type of prosody, familiar to us from
Hebrew literature, also occurs in the Aramaic
portions of the Book of Daniel, as well as in
Mandaic and, apparently, in some stray rem-
nants of Aramaic poetry in other dialects.
Syriac poetry, on the other hand, makes use
of metres that count the number of syllables.

The papyri and leather documents, mostly
of the 5th c., which have been discovered in
Egypt, deal to a large extent with legal and
administrative matters. But, in the papyrus
archive of the Jewish military colony on
Elephantine, an island in the Nile opposite
Assuan, a few literary documents have also
come to light. High upon a rock near Be-
histun, on the road from Susa to Hamadan,
Darius I had recorded his res gestae in a
factual and at the same time personal report.
The original inscription, which was written

ARAMAIC LITERATURE

in three languages (Babylonian, Persian, and
Elamite) was read by the Jews of Elephantine
in an Aramaic translation.

Here we also encounter the oldest known
version of the Story of Ahiqar, the wise coun-
cillor of Assyrian kings. Being childless,
Ahiqar adopted Nadin, his nephew. He
brought him up and instructed him with
many wise sayings. When Ahiqar grew old,
he recommended Nadin to the king as his
successor. But once in power Nadin con-
trived to destroy his benefactor. Ahiqar man-
aged to save his life and, in the hour of na-
tional need, he reappeared and rescued the
king with his wisdom. Nadin was handed
over to Ahiqar, and for his punishment had
to listen to a new collection of wise sayings,
a torture under which he died! Being a mas-
terpiece of wisdom literature, the Ahiqar
story has become the property of many na-
tions. It is referred to in the Book of Tobit
and has found entrance into Greek literature
through the Life of Aesop. Through transla-
tions it became known to the Syrians, Ar-
menians, Arabs, Turks, Rumanians, and
Slavs. The Aramaic version from Elephantine
is in a way less elaborate than the later texts.
But it lacks no essential traits, with the pos-
sible exception of the fact that the first col-
lection of educational sayings may have had
no place in it. Ahiqar's wisdom was not an
original creation of the Arameans. As far as
the available evidence goes, it appears to have
come to them from Accadian sources.

Through the discovery of the Elephantine
papyri, modern scholarship became acquainted
with genuine legal and administrative docu-
ments of the Achaemenid Empire. This fact
has proved valuable beyond its intrinsic worth.
For it served to confirm the disputed au-
thenticity of the Aramaic passages in the
biblical Book of Ezra, ch.4 v.j ch.6 v.i8 and
ch./ v.i 2-26. It has thus become clear that
we must recognize in those passages an early
instance of the use of original documents in

a language other than that of the context (and
with apparently only minor adaptations) in
historical literature.

The Old Testament has preserved further
remnants of Aramaic literature in the Book
of Daniel. The folklore motifs, which appear
in ch.2 v-4 to ch.6, seem to have been familiar
to the inhabitants of Mesopotamia. Native
story tellers might occasionally have given
them a political slant. By the religious genius
of Judaism they were shaped into a series of
stirring short stories and as such incorporated
in the Book of Daniel. Chapter 7 is also writ-
ten in Aramaic, but it is of an entirely dif-
ferent character. Together with the following
(Hebrew) chapters of Daniel, it forms the
second part of the book and treats of eschato-
logical visions, the most powerful theme of
the (Jewish) Aramaic literature in the fol-
lowing centuries.

Another ancient literary form, which had
been assiduously cultivated by the peoples
of Mesopotamia, made its appearance in
Aramaic about 300 B.C. Incantations were
widely used to prevent all kinds of demons
from bringing disease and death, bad luck in
love affairs, and many other misfortunes. One
of the formulas which had been worked out in
order to combat the bad consequences of
anger and wrath has been preserved in an
Aramaic text from Uruk (Erech). The text
was written in cuneiform characters, prob-
ably in order to increase its efficiency. The
literary metier of fighting evil spirits lived
on in Mesopotamia. In later centuries there
appear, among other forms of incantations, a
great number of bowls inscribed in their con-
cave sides with incantation texts in Jewish-
Aramaic, Syriac, Manichaean Aramaic, and
Mandaic.

Lost Aramaic originals of Jewish and early
Christian literature. Aramaic was the vernacu-
lar of an area extending from Palestine to
Mesopotamia. It was used as such from the
Persian period to the Arab conquest (539 B.C.-

ARAMAIC LITERATURE

641 A.D.). These facts have slowly found gen-
eral recognition among scholars. On the basis
of this knowledge, attempts have heen made
to prove that many works, which have been
preserved not in Aramaic, but in other lan-
guages, especially Greek, are translations
from Aramaic originals. Flavius Josephus
stated himself that he had originally written
his Jewish Wars in Aramaic. But if this was
so, it is necessary to recognize that the Greek
text, as we read it today, cannot be a literal
translation, but must be an independent re-
cension originally composed in Greek. Other
works, however, have been shown through
indirect methods to be translations from
Aramaic. Among the writings, for which an
Aramaic origin has been suggested, we find
the Book of Tohit, the Greek translation of
the Book of Esther (even for the Hebrew
Scroll of Esther, as well as for Ecclesiastes, an
Aramaic original has been claimed), the "Con-
test of the Three Youths" in the Greek First
Esdras (chapters 3-4), the letters prefixed to
II Maccabees, the Book of Enoch, the Four
Gospels, Acts, Revelation, the Fourth Esdras,
etc. The aiguments for the probability of an
Aramaic original are not equally convincing
in all these cases. But the available evidence
tends largely to support such probability for
the majority. To judge from the preserved
texts this literature, together with the Book of
Daniel, must be considered as the finest
artistic expression of religious feeling and crea-
tive imagination in Aramaic. Broadness of
vision and poetical sensitivity are combined
here with much intellectual clarity and pur-
posefulness. These qualities are hardly ever
found together in later Aramaic literature.
Jewish Aramaic has lost part of its old gran-
deur and sweep, and Syriac Christian nearly
all true poetical feeling, while Mandaic is
devoid of intellectual discipline.

Jewish Aramaic literature. When the He-
brew language of the Bible was no longer un-
derstood by the common people, the recital

of the Hebrew text had to be accompanied
by the recital of an Aramaic translation
(tergww). A simple literal translation was not
always sufficient. Certain passages required a
short explanation. Others had to be re-inter-
preted in the light of the theological concepts
of the day. Occasionally a homiletic excursus
was added to the translation. The preserved
targums show the development from simple
translation to theological commentary. As a
rule, the more recent the texts are, the more
additional mateiial they contain. The Targum
Onkclos to the Pentateuch and the Targum
Jonathan to the Prophets seem to have re-
ceived their final form in Mesopotamia, in
the first centuries of our era. The targums
that were composed in the Palestinian dialect
exist in different recensions. They are replete
with interpretational and homiletic as well as
poetical material, some of which may have
been added at a comparatively recent date.
The targums to the Hagiographa likewise
received their present form at a recent date.

In addition to the interpretational and
homiletic fragments found in the targums,
special collections of such material have been
made. They are called midrash. Most of the
preserved midrash works are written in He-
brew, but some of them, which certainly
antedate the Hebrew works, are Aramaic, as,
for instance, the midrashic commentary on
Genesis entitled Bereshith Rabbet. All stylistic
patterns and forms of oratory which are known
to the preacher, and many a perfect example
of story-telling, have found their way into
Targum and Midrash.

The Jewish religious law as discussed in
the Babylonian and Jerusalemian Talmuds is
written down in Aramaic. But it so happens
that Hebrew terminology frequently domi-
nates the legal discussions to such an extent
as to reduce the Aramaic element to a few
connecting phrases. In addition to the legal
discussions, both Talmuds contain narrative
passages. Largely free from Hebrew admix-

ARAMAIC LITERATURE

52.

tures, these relate in a simple language the
stories of wisdom, superstition, and fancy,
which in the course of centuries and under
the impact of many civilizations had become
the intellectual property of the Jews in Pal-
estine and Mesopotamia.

Through its use in Targum and Talmud,
Aramaic became a sacred language to the
Jews, second only to Hebrew. It was used for
literary purposes long after it had ceased to
be spoken, and in regions where it had never
been a spoken language. The main work of
the Qabbalah, the Zohar, which appears to
have been composed in Spain shortly after
1275, is written in such artificial Aramaic.

Samaritan. Much of the literature of the
Samaritans, who today count about two hun-
dred persons, is written in Hebrew and
Arabic. Their Aramaic literature consists of
a translation of the Pentateuch, a small num-
ber of liturgical hymns, and a very extensive
poetical commentary on the Pentateuch, the
Memar Marqa. Its author, Marqa (Marcus),
appears to have flourished in the 4th c. A.D. In
no way does his work differ from the Jewish
midrash. But the Icngthiness of the Memar,
even though it is not preserved in its entirety,
accentuates the lack of variety in form and
constructive ideas peculiar to it.

Christian Syro-Palestinian Aramaic. From
about 300 A.D. to the time of the Arab con-
quest in the 7th c., Christian groups in Syria
and Palestine used their own dialect in their
writings. Large portions of their translation
of the Old and New Testament have come
down to us. A few liturgical pieces and stories
about saints in this dialect likewise are no
original compositions.

A closely related Aramaic dialect is today
still being spoken in Ma'lula and two neigh-
boring villages of the Anti-Lebanon. But it
has not developed a written literature of its
own. Folk tales in this dialect have been col-
lected by several scholars. They are told in
the prolix, repetitious style of the little edu-

cated and contain interesting examples of the
preservation of ancient stories and folkloristic
motifs.

Mandaic. The Mandeans are a gnostic sect
that presumably came into being in Mesopo-
tamia no later than the 4th or 5th c. A.D.
Mandean communities have survived until the
present day, mainly in southern Iraq, where
they have lived for many centuries. The most
important of their holy writings is the Ginza
Rabba (The Great Treasure, also referred to
as The Book of Adam). The Ginza appears
to have received its present form in the 8th
or 9th c., but it contains many much older
portions. In verse and prose the Ginza pre-
sents the Mandean views on cosmology and
history. It includes various accounts of the
religious mythology of the sect, as well as the
ethico-religious code that governs the life of
its members. It tells of the fate of the human
soul after death and of the struggle of the
elements of light and darkness for domina-
tion over mankind. Passages that are the prod-
uct of an unrestrained and incoherent, though
at times majestic and powerful, imagination
alternate with others that are the simple, sin-
cere expression of human feelings in the face
of the divine. Thus the Ginza becomes the
true mirror of a religion which combines an
abstruse theory with a high ethical standard.

The other writings of the Mandeans do
not differ in character from the Ginza. As
far as their contents and form are concerned,
the Book of John and the various diwans (i.e.,
scrolls illustrated with crude drawings) could
as well have been parts of the Ginza. The
liturgical literature is represented in rituals
like those for the ordination of priests, the
consecration of the cult-hut, the departed
soul, or in prayers for the dead. Here, too,
the burning desire of the soul to free itself
from the darkness and corruption of this
world and to behold the world of light and
life has found manifold expression, as, e.g., in
one of the prayers spoken at daybreak:

ARAMAIC LITERATURE

In the name of the Great Life

let the supranatural light be exalted!
From my sleep I arose early;

splendor that was abundant I have

seen.
I have seen splendor that was abundant,

and light that had no end,
While I was clad in garments of splendor
and light was placed upon my

shoulders . . .
Rise, O you who have been asleep!

Rise, O you who have been brought

to fall!
Rise, worship and praise the Great Life,

and praise the image, the image of life
That is sparkling and glowing in supranatural
light!

An astrological work and a number of
magic rolls are further literary products of the
Mandean priests.

Syriac. The Aramaic vernacular of the re-
gion centering around Edessa (Orhai, ar-
Ruha', Urfa) became the literary language
of the Christian churches in the area. Since
the beginning of the 3d c. Christianity is
found there, firmly entrenched. After the
christological schisms of the 5th c. Syriac was
used by Nestorians and Jacobites, later also
by Melkitcs and Maronites. A vast literature
was written in Syriac, by far the most ex-
tensive existing in any Aramaic dialect. The
flourishing of Syriac lasted well into the pth c.
Then it gradually gave way to Arabic, in a
slow process that continued until modern
times. The i2th and i3th c. saw another
short period of an exceptionally active literary
life among Syriac writers; but, by then, they
were profoundly influenced by Arabic litera-
ture.

Few of the preserved Syriac works antedate
the 4th c. There can be little doubt with re-
gard to the great antiquity of the Letter of
Mara Bar Serapion, in which he exhorts his
son to shape his life after the tenets of popu-

lar Stoic philosophy. A dialogue between
Bardesanes (Bar Daysan) and a certain Awids
appears to have as its author a pupil of thi;
great heretic of the early 3d c. In Syriac thf
title of the dialogue is The Book of the Law:
of the Countries. This title is derived from i
chapter which describes the differences in the
customs prevailing among different nations
in order to refute the contention of the as
trologers that the stars determine all humai
activity. The Greek translation of the dialogu<
is known under a more exact title: On Pate
For Bardesanes offered in the dialogue hi
solution of the problem of predestination. Flu
man life, according to him, is governed b]
three factors: by natural laws, which are th<
same for all beings, by fate, which affect
each individual differently, and by the free
dom of the human will. Another fragment b 1
Bardesanes, expounding his cosmologica
views, appears to have been preserved ii
his own words. An old gnostic poem is foun<
embedded in the Acts of Thomas, the leg
cndary Apostle of the Indians. It describes ii
allegorical form the descent of the soul unt
earth and its return to heavenly splendor. Th
vivid, realistic account of the flood catastrc
phe, which befell Edessa in 201, seems t
have been written by a contemporary of th
event, although the Chronicle of Edessa, ii
which it is contained, dates from the 6th t
The oldest translation of the Bible also count
among the earliest literary products in th
dialect.

Syriac literature is predominantly eccles
astic in character. Scientific, scholarly, an<
philosophical literature was cultivated to
considerable extent, but comparatively littl
of it has survived. We have translations c
Pseudo-Isocrates, Plutarch, Lucian, an
Thcmistius. Some philosophical treatises an
collections of sayings, the Greek originals c
which are not preserved, are known throug
Syriac translations. Two Books by Home
concerning llion are said to have been th

ARAMAIC LITERATURE

work of Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785). The
book is lost, and it is uncertain what its con-
tents might have been; but Homer, in Greek
at least, was well known to Syrian scholars.
The Physiologus and the Geoponica were
translated into Syriac. Ptolemy, too, was no
stranger to the Syrians. With Galen's works
they became acquainted mainly through the
efforts of Sergius of Resh'ayna (d. 536). He
was a fertile translator, whose activity ex-
tended into many fields of Greek scholarship.
Aristotle and some of his Greek commenta-
tors were translated and commented upon.
Preserved commentaries, like those of the cul-
tured Bishop of the Arabs, George (d. 724),
are dry and technical. Yet, the Book of Treas-
ures by Job of Edessa (d. after 832), one of
the few extensive, genuinely Syriac works of
science that have come down to us, is an ex-
position ot physical philosophy, which does
not fall short of the high standard of similar
medieval works. Through Iranian intermedi-
aries the popular philosophy of the fables of
Kalila and Dimna and the legendary History
of Alexander the Great found its way to the
Syrians. The famous Grammar of Dionysius
Thrax was translated. Syriac national gram-
mar, in general, is much indebted to the
Greeks. But, in the service of theology, it de-
veloped into one of the most impoitant, orig-
inal Syriac contributions to scholarship.
Rhetoric, too, can boast of at least one original
work, On the Science of Rhetoric by An-
tonius of Taghrit (9th c.). Perhaps the most
lasting effect of all these literary efforts is
that which they had upon the formation of
Arab civilization. Practically every branch of
scholarship, each literary form, as it was culti-
vated by the Arabs, derived one of its forma-
tive elements from Greek sources. In the
transmission of those sources, Syriac inter-
mediaries played an important (though not
exclusive) role.

The ecclesiastic literature also draws upon
translations from the writings of Greek

churchmen, especially in the first centuries
of Syriac literary life. But the original output
is large and at times of equal, if not superior,
quality. In prose and verse, in the form of
books, tractates, sermons, epistles, dialogues,
there was produced a long scries of exposi-
tions of dogma and ritual. Polemical works,
directed against the heretics and heterodox,
exist in equally large numbers. Liturgies and
hymns are as well represented as Bible com-
mentaries and homilies. Church and world
history is not neglected, the latter is thor-
oughly imbued with the theological point of
view of the respective authors. The biogra-
phies of churchmen and saints occasionally
contain some fine, life-like passages. Martyr-
ologies, such as the Acts of the Persian Mar-

O ' '

tyrs, or the Book of the Himyarites, which
describes the persecution of the Christians in
southwest Arabia, paint good and evil in stark
colors and succeed in creating a peculiar ef-
fect upon the reader. Mystical thinkers ap-
pear from time to time.

Aphrem (Ephraim Syrus) represents to the
Syrians both the beginning and the culmina-
tion of their national literature. Born in Nisi-
bis shortly after 300, he died in Edessa in 373.
His life work was enormous, but many of the
writings ascribed to him are not genuine. The
fact that his work was to a large extent trans-
lated into Greek attests to his popularity. He
wrote Bible commentaries, letters, polemics,
homilies, but his fame rests on his achieve-
ments as a poet. His readers greatly appre-
ciated the emotional fervor of his often un-
realistic imagery. Thus, in order to express
Edessa's hope that her heretical children
might return to the fold of orthodoxy, he says
(Carmina Nisibena No. 26):

O Physician prove

your skill on my limbs;

The torn-off parts of
my body restore,

ARAMAIC LITERATURE

So that all might think

they'd ne'er been torn off.
Since the Fiend loves my

faults and scorns my limbs,
Make them more beauteous:

The hideous one, grieved,
My beauty he'll see

and regret his ?eal.
Let this knowledge of

pain warn me 'gainst it!
How sad, I am maimed

and those are torn off!
Let's beware, in last

health, lest we be lost!

The denunciation of worldly sins and of
life's legitimate pleasures forms the dominant
theme of his compositions. Within the limi-
tations of this subject, the resourcefulness of
his artistic craftsmanship is considerable. An
older contemporary of Aphrem was Aphrahat,
surnamcd the Persian Sage. His homilies deal
with the ethical and dogmatic problems of
the church of his days as well as the political
events, which were of importance for the
growing Christian community in Mesopo-
tamia. They have earned him recognition as
a writer of lucid and exemplary Syriac.

Church poetry after Aphrem was further
developed by men like Qurillona, Balai,
Naises, and the elusive personality of Isaac
of Antioch. It found another outstanding
representative in Jacob of Serugh (d. 521).
The broad flow of his homilies, which fill
many volumes, leaves untouched few of the
religious topics that were of interest to his
readers. Among Jacob's letters, one addressed
to Stephen Bar Sudhayle is significant for
Syriac literary history. For Stephen is con-
sidered the piobable author of a mystical
work, which, in its unorthodox pantheism,
has not its like in the whole Syriac literature.
The work goes under the fictitious name of
the Holy Hierotheos. In the Pseudo-Dionysian
writings, which were composed around

500 A,D. and which tried to reconcile Neopla-
tonic philosophy with Christianity, this Hiero-
theos figures as the principal teacher of
Dionysius Areopagita. The Book of the Holy
Hierotheos appears to be a genuine Syriac
representative of the Pseudo-Dionysian litera-
ture; other works were translated from the
Greek, by Sergius of Resh'ayna.

The type of churchman that combined
theology with scholarship found its best ex-
pression in the personality of Jacob of Edessa
(d. 708). He excelled as a historian and
grammarian. Essential literary problems did
not escape his acute mind. Thus, he recog-
nized that one of the greatest obstacles in
the way of any reform of an inadequate script
is the fact that such reform would consign
the whole literature written in the old script
to oblivion. Jacob of Edessa's age produced
a remarkable mystical writer, Isaac of Nini-
veh. As to his time, as well as his ideas and
his terminology, he stands on the threshold
of Muslim mysticism. He is, however, strictly
orthodox in his thinking and far removed
from that bold individualism for which cer-
tain Muslim mystics are remarkable.

Annalistic historiography had been culti-
vated by Yohannan Bar Penkaye in the yth c.
Among its well-known representatives we
count Dionysius of Tell Mahre (d. 845), who
found followers in men like Eliya Bar Shinaya
(d. after 1049) and Michael I (d. 1199).
Dionysius' world history is of course largely
dependent on its sources; only the treatment
of the last hundred years could reveal the
author's own concept of historiography.
Stories concerning the Christian community
are given most of the available space. They
are well told, but no real attempt is made
to integrate them into the larger framework
of contemporary history.

In the 8th and 9th c. the influence of
Aristotelian philosophy pervades the thinking
of Syriac writers. This influence is obvious
in the work of Timotheos I. (d. 823) and

ARAMAIC LITERATURE

Moshe Bar Kepha (d. 903). The latter espe-
cially was a fertile writer, who wrote com-
mentaries on the Bible and on Gregory Nazi-
anzen, a church history, dogmatical treatises
and polemics, and a book On the Sow/. In a
sense he marks the end of the great period of
Syriac literature.

The writers of the Syrian "renaissance" of
the 1 2th and 13111 c. include men like
Dionysius Bar Salibi (d. 1171) and the afore-
mentioned Michael I. (d. 1199). But the first
place among them is reserved for Gregory
Abul-Faraj, better known as Bar Hebraeus,
because his father, a physician, is believed to
have been of Jewish descent. Born in Melitene
in 1225/6, he lived through the stormy years
of the Mongol invasion. In 1264 he was
chosen to be Maphreyan of the Orient, i.e.,
the spiritual head of the Jacobites of Mesopo-
tamia and Persia. He died in 1286, leaving a
literary heritage remarkable for its size and
variety. He is the author of a Bible com-
mentary, a work on canonic law, and church
and world histories. His treatments of Syriac
national grammar have remained standard
works for the scholarly study of the dialect.
Astronomy and medicine were cultivated by
him. His philosophical books follow in the
footsteps of Avicennian Aristotelianism, and
his mystical and ethical writings are formed
after those of al-Ghazzali. He did not disdain
to write a volume of facetious stories and
anecdotes. His poetical production, however,
is of little significance.

Various modern dialects related to Syriac
have continued to be spoken by Jacobites and
Nestorians ( "Assyrians") , and the members
of the corresponding uniate churches, as well
as by the Jews of Kurdistan. The use of those
dialects can be traced back to the lyth c.
Stories of folkloristic and literary character as
well as worldly and religious poems have been
written down in the Syriac alphabet at the
instigation of western scholars. More material
has been taken down phonetically. In 1829
a gospel text in modern Syriac was printed in
London. Soon after (1840), American mis-
sionaries set up a printing press in Urmla-
(Rezaych) and tried to establish the spoken
dialect as a literary language, using the Syriac
(Nestorian) script. Other missions followed
their example. The works that have been
printed are largely religious and educational.
With World War I this activity ceased. Since
then the Nestorian diaspora in various coun-
tries appears to have carried on very little
literary activity in the native dialect.

G. A. Cooke, A Text-Book of North-Semitic In-
scriptions (Oxford), 1903, A. (E.) Cowley, Aramaic
Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford), 1923;
C. C. Torrey, Our Translated Gospels (N. Y.-Lon-
don), 1936; J. A. Montgomery, The Samaritans
(Philadelphia), 1907; E. S. Drower, The Mandaeans
of Iraq and Iran (Oxford), 1937; W. Wright, A
Short History of Syriac Literature (London), 1894;
A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur
(Bonn), 1922. Bibliographic references for the whole
field of Aramaic are found in F. Rosenthal, Die
aramaistische Forschung (Leiden), 1939.

FRANZ ROSENTHAL.

ARANDA See Australian Aborigine.

ARAWAK See South American Indian.

ARAUCANIAN-See South American In- AREKUNA-See South American Indian.
dian * ARGENTINIAN-See Spanish American.

ARMENIAN LITERATURE

ARMENIAN

THE cultural integrity of Armenia (Hayas-
dan) has been preserved despite intermittent
centuries of political domination by foreign
powers. The highway from Europe to Asia,
crossroads of civilization from its earliest days,
Armenia has felt the passage of many peoples,
whose tongues have left their mark upon its
speech. Armenian is an Indo-European lan-
guage, but early immixed with Semitic and
Old Persian words. Although there was prob-
ably a rich pre-Christian literature in Old
Armenian (Hayqan or Haikan; also called
Grabar), only a few traces of it have been
preserved. Early histories now lost, however,
as that of Marabas Catina, ca. 150 B.C., were
used as source books of later, surviving,
works. Grabar remained the literary language
of Armenia until the mid ipth c., and is still
used in the Armenian Church.

The adoption of Christianity, early preached
and dominant by the time of Tiridates (286-
342) the Armenian is the oldest Christian
National Church brought Armenia from Per-
sian cultural domination into the realm of the
Western World. About 404 A.D. the Armenian
alphabet (of 36 letters; in a form still in use
for capitals) was devised by Mcsrob Mash-
dotz (Mesrop Masdoty); Catholic writings
came rapidly thereafter. Hymns and prayers
were most frequent. Agathanage, secretary of
King Tiridates, wrote (in Greek, translated
into Armenian) a life of the King, and a biog-
raphy of St. Gregory the Illuminator (239-
325), first Patriarch of Armenia. Mcsrob and
Sahak (353-439) translated the Bible into
Armenian. Few translations of the Bible have
entered as fully into the lives of any people.
Many of the Bible stories parallel the Arme-
nian legends; many of its events occurred
upon Armenian soil. Mt. Ararat is in Arme-
nia; "Noah's vineyard" was swept off in an
avalanche as late as 1840.

While the Greek and Syriac Fathers were
being translated into the language, Moses,
Archbishop of Khorene (mid 5th c.) wrote a
history of Armenia; in this are preserved the
fragments of epics, the songs and legends, of
earlier times. Among the legends is that of the
Culture Hero, Hayq, a curly-haired archer
who, vanquishing the eastern hero Bel us,
established the kingdom of Hayasdan. The
tale of Semiramis is told in colorful detail 1
she sought the love of King Am the Beauti-
ful, who remained faithful to his wife, re-
pulsing these advances; thereupon Semiramis
sent an army to capture Arn, and he died
fighting. After his death, Semiramis remained
in Armenia, founding the city of Van. An-
other favorite among the legends is of David
of Sussan, a sort of Armenian Hercules, whose
lively pagan humor and boisterous exploits
are colored by interpolation of pious Christian
thoughts. In addition to legends and myths,
Moses tells of tueliatz (chronicle) songs, that
also deal with the deeds of early kings and
heroes. Other references suggest that there
may have been an early Armenian drama.

Recounting the earlier stories of Armenia
gave way in the later 5th c. to a veritable
flood of translations, especially of the Church
Fathers, from the Greek. During the admin-
istration (374-383) as Catholicos of Nerses
the Great, a contemporary records the estab-
lishment of over 2,000 monasteries and other
centers of learning, which in the ensuing years
poured forth Armenian versions of Syriac and
Greek originals. The Homilies of St. John
Chrysostom, two essays of Philo on Provi-
dence, the Chronicle of Eusebius, are among
the works otherwise lost preserved to us in
Armenian.

Among the original works of the period are
a vivacious account of current life and hap-
penings (344-392) by Faustus of Byzantium

ARMENIAN LITERATURE

later continued to 485 by Lazar of Pharp
(Lazarus Parbetzi); a History of Taron (the
story of Gregory) by Zenobius of Glak; a
history of Vartan Manikomian and the "First
Religious War" (451), by Eliseus (Eghishe)
Wardapet, still popular reading: Vartan fell
in the battle of Avarair, where the Armenian
Christians were overwhelmed by the Persians;
he remains the national hero. Such figures,
their devotion and their martyrdom, have held
the Armenians as a spiritual unity despite
their continual subjection. Over Avarair the
nightingales still cry "Vartan, Vartan."

Sahak was prominent among the early
writers of Church songs (sharakans; literally,
rows of gems), which were composed in
greater or less number continuously until the
1 3th c. Outstanding among later writers of
sharakans was the 8th c. poetess Sahakadukt,
in whose day rhyme (probably under Arabic
influence) was added to Armenian verse.

The next two centuries were troubled times.
Save for the regulation of the calendar, little
cultural development is recorded. Religious
writing, while extensive, consisted almost en-
tirely of retelling Bible stories. In the early
8th c. there were numerous commentaries on
religious works, notably those of Gregory
Asheruni and John (Catholicos 717-728),
and a history of the Caliphs by the priest
Leoncius. Outstanding in the 9th c. was the
Patriarch (Catholicos) Zachariah, whose elo-
quent homilies hailed the Church festive
days, and who wrote canticles and many
vigorous letters.

Lay as well as religious poetry helped make
popular (St.) Grigor Narekatzi (951-1009),
whose canticles are still sung in the Church;
but whose odes and elegies, and especially his
panegyrics, were widely known. He loved
elaborations; in one poem he accompanies the
word 'God' with 90 attributes. The flow of his
rhetoric is most colorful in Narek (1001-2),
a devotional work of 95 chapters of prose
prayers that constantly soar into verse. It is a

sincere and earnest outpouring, in rich and
colorful diction and imagery, declaring that
if all the world's trees were pens and the seas
ink, they could not record his sins; but even
greater is the lovingldndness of the Lord.
Among his panegyrics outstanding arc those
on The Holy Cross; The Virgins; The
A-postles.

Grigor Magistros (d. 1058) also wrote
poetry, his main work being a retelling, in
some thousand lines, of the Bible story from
Creation to the Resurrection. Writing this (in
three days, he states) for a Mohammedan
who wished to know the Christian story,
Grigor helped popularize the use of rhyme.

Arisdagucss Lasdivcrdctzi wrote a History
of Armenia covering the years 989-1071, em-
phasizing particularly the destruction of Ani
(1064) by Alp-Arslan.

For a period of almost two centuries, Ar-
menia was independent and comparatively
undisturbed. Her authors flourished. Chief
among the early writers of this period was
Catholicos Nerses Glayetzi, called Shenorhali
(the Graceful; 1100-73). Great-grandson of
Grigor Magistros, Nerses became the most
prolific poet of Armenia to his day. He wrote
long poems. In his elegy on The Fall of Edessa
(taken by the Turks, 1144), the city tells its
own story. Though his hymns are in varied
meters, he usually employed an 8 syllable
line, with one rhyme throughout the entire
poem. His Jesus the Son is in 4,000 such
8 syllable lines, almost every one ending in
-in. Nerses employs various artificial devices-
acrostics; starting successive lines with con-
secutive letters of the alphabet but deftly,
unobtrusively. His most lyrical and his best
poems, however, are his sharakans, mainly in
short lined couplets. He also wrote synodal
orations and many important letters. His nar-
rative poem of Armenian history was con-
tinued (1275) by Bishop Vahram Rabun.

In the 1 3th c. there was a renewed interest
in, if not a fresh flowering of, fable. Animal

ARMENIAN LITERATURE

stories, some of folk origin, spread widely.
Some were of known authorship, as in the
Book of Fables, containing 150 tales by
Mkhitar Kosh (d. 1213). The fables and
folklore, while containing many of the ele-
ments usually found in folk expressions, have
perhaps a deeper strain of mystic intent, or at
least of allegory. Amid their mountains the
people learned the power of natural phenom-
ena; Dew, e.g., appears in many of their leg-
ends and tales as a mischievous and sometimes
malevolent monster. The hero David of Sas-
sun, in one of his adventures, slays forty
Dews that have stolen "all the treasures of the
world." The constant presence of ruling forces
alien in race and religion gave to Armenian
piety a more intense tone. Many pages of their
histories read like martryologies; and among
the folk, abstract ideas are personified, politi-
cal or social impulsions slip into apparently
innocent stories. Thus the fable of the owl
and the eagle The owl asked the eagle's
daughter in marriage: "You rule by day, and
I by night; it is fitting that we should form an
alliance." The eagle acquiesced; but, after the
wedding, when the groom could not see by
day, nor the bride by night, confusion inter-
vened. The falcons twitted the unhappy pair,
is directed against intermarriage of Christian
Armenian and foreign pagan.

Long years of resistance, and the difficulties
of adjustment to alien sway, bred inner strife
as well, reflected in the bitter proverb: If a
brother were a good thing, God would have
provided one for himself/ Other typical Ar-
menian proverbs manifest the practical, if not
cynical, spirit their history induced: 'He that
falls into the water need have no fear of rain.'
'A devil with experience is better than an
angel without/ 'Before the fat grow lean, the
lean are dead/

Vartan Aigektzi (the Great; d. 1271) wrote
the Book of the Fox, containing 144 fables; he
was even better known for his Universal His-
tory, from the Creation to 1267; and was also

author of numerous Biblical commentaries.
The period produced many other fables.

Among many historians, grammarians, and
religious writers within this period, three
poetic figures stand prominent. Constantine
Erzingatzi (of Erzingan; b. ca. 1260) wrote of
nature, of love and beauty (which he identi-
fied). His is the first rich breath of spring in
Armenian poetry; a quiet but deeply sensi-
tive spirit speaks in simple terms of nature's
bounty:

"It was dark; every stone was ice-bound;
there was not a green herb; but now the earth
arrays itself anew . . . The birds sing
sweetly; the swallow chants psalms; the lark
comes, reciting the praise of the morning."

Arabic and Persian influence appear in his
work; the former, in many didactic poems;
the latter, in the lengthy romantic narrative
Farman and Aswan. Hovhannes (John)
Erzingatzi (b. 1250) wrote a Key to Ar-
menian Grammar; an astronomical treatise; a
commentary on The Gospel of St. Matthew;
panegyrics to St. Gregory; and many religious
and moral verses but also some love and na-
ture poetry. His work is particularly rich in
colorful and fanciful figures. Like John
Erzengatzi, the third of this group was a
priest, Khachatur Kecharetzi (known as Frik;
d. ca. 1330), of whose many poems, on love
or religious themes, the most vivid is a long
work addressed to God, complaining that evil
thrives, and asking that the Armenians come
within the blessing of the Lord.

The next four centuries found Armenia
again under foreign domination, passing from
power to power with the shifts of victory in
the Ottoman Empire and its successors. In-
ternal disputations also stirred the religious
writers. Various chronicles were written in
the 1 4th and i5th c., notably the (quite in-
accurate) History of Tamerlane, with a sup-
plement of events to 1447, by Thomas Med-

zopetzi. In 1565 the first book printed in
Armenian was published, in Venice; and
throughout this and the i7th c. the establish-
ment of presses for works in Armenian con-
tinued, not only within the country but at
many other centers: Milan (1624); Livorno
(1640); Amsterdam (1660); Marseilles
(1673); Constantinople (1677); Leipzig
(1680); Padua (1690). While these presses
were turning out, for the most part, religious
commentaries or translations of religious
works, native poetry continued to flourish.

Hovhannes Tulkourantzi (1450-1525) of
Sis was another nature poet. Like all the other
poets of Armenia, he wrote religious and ethi-
cal veises; but his heart throbbed in his
lyrics of love and death, which he placed in
opposition: how can one that loves a beauti-
ful woman grow old and die? Mkrtich Nagash
wrote love songs, and sad songs of exile and
wandering. Grigoris of Aghtamar (b. ca.
1418) wrote the allegorical The Gardener and
his Garden; The Rose and the Nightingale,
and other mystic verse. Nahapet Kouchak
(i7th c.) wrote charming lyrics of love.
Arakel Sunetzi, in the Book of Adam, a
lengthy narrative interspersed with lyrics
e.g., The Rib, comparing a woman's curved
face to the rib she is made fromtells how
Adam chose damnation for love.

Such non-religious songs, mainly anony-
mous, are vibrant with love of the Armenian
countryside. Despite the frequent sweep of
alien forces over the land, these songs show
little foreign influence; rather, they surge
with patriotism, or mourn the lost freedom
and glory. They may be grouped in four main
divisions: (i) festive songs, gay and lively,
rich in references to nature; (2) love and
marriage songs, tender, often beautiful, re-
flecting the stern morality of the pious Ar-
menian, with its emphasis on closely bound
family life; (3) emigrant songs, of the spirit
or the adventures of those that, from the
many invasions, sought refuge abroad; and

(4) laments. Their meter is syllabic, varying
from 4 to 13 syllables in the line. The most
popular forms are the 7 syllable quatrain, in
tiiplc rhyme, and the quatrain of alternating
7 and 8 syllable lines with 3 accents each,
called from the frequent subject an touni
(emigre).

These songs have long been popular
throughout the Near East, being sung at festi-
vals and friendly gatherings, by the ashongh
(minstrel). A lew of the composers are known.
Thus Sayat Nova (1712-95) both wrote and
sang love songs. He later retired to a mon-
asteiy; but came forth to sustain the reputa-
tion of his native Tiflis when an ashough
from another town became noted there. Tri-
umphant, he went back into the monastery.
When Agha Mohammed Khan stormed the
monastery, Sayat refused to turn Mohamme-
dan, and was slain, His story is a frequent
tale for later minstrels. These ashough both
chant the songs and tell prose tales, which
also have stock patterns, repeated phrases and
other conventional devices for which the
listeners wait such as the signal that the
telling has come to an end: "And three ap-
ples fell from heaven: one for the story-teller;
one for the hearer; and one (this recipient
varies) for the whole world."

Toward the close of the i8th c., the Rus-
sians swept into Armenia. In 1701, the Cath-
olic Petro Mekhithar (Mkhitar Sepastatzi;
d. 1749) had founded a Brotherhood in Con-
stantinople, later this moved to the island of
St. Lazarus, Venice, where it became the
center of Armenian scholarship and culture,
flourishing to this day. Fiom its presses came
a vivid and noble History of Armenia by
Michael Tchamitch; a new version of the
Eible; and a constant flow of patriotic and
religious literature, as well as translations of
great works, ancient and modern. Lord Byron
studied Armenian at St. Lazarus, and helped
in the publication of an Armenian-English
dictionary. Byron said of the Armenians:

ARMENIAN LITERATURE

"Their virtues are those of peace; their vices,
those of oppression." The oppression con-
tinued; but in such centers as that of the
Mekhitharian Brothers in Venice the Ar-
menian spirit and culture were sustained.
Throughout the i8th and i9th c. religious
studies and translations continued to pour
from Armenian presses all over Europe.

After the mid ipth c., however, a new
spirit entered Armenian literature. The vari-
ous forms of the vernacular, especially as at
Ararat and at Constantinople, had grown so
different from the classical Grabar in which
all writing had continued as to set a great
gap between the literature and the people.
This the new writers set about bridging, by
the bold step of abandoning Grabar in non-
religious works, and presenting their poems
and stories, drawn from the lives of the Ar-
menian people, in vigorous and direct Mod-
ern Armenian. Begun by Khachatoor Abovian
in Verk Hayastani (Wounds of Armenia;
1858), this enriched vernacular found its first
great use in the novels of Raffi (I lakop Melik
Hakopian; 1837-88), who wrote over 30
novels of wide popularity including the ro-
mance, Khent, and the historical novel of the
years 364-400, Samouel and won the field
of lay writing for the contemporary tongue.
In 1871, Grigor Ardzrounian founded the
periodical Mschak, which championed the
new directions of Armenian literature, and
in which many of the new writers found their
first welcome.

The misfortunes of Armenia, crossroads of
the continents, were unending. Massacres by
the Kurds in 1876 and 1877, by the Turks
in 1896, sent many of the Armenians into
Russia; there they were closely watched. I lope
of security brought many back about 1905,
for the greater and more systematic massacres
of 1915. For about two years (191820)
Armenia was an independent country, with
its own Parliament; then once more it was
parceled between Turkey and Russia. It is

thus inevitable that the literature of these
years should ring with echoes of the strife,
or in other ways reflect the disorders of the
country. Many of the Armenians, having
been forced to take residence abroad, wrote
also in French, Italian, English, or Russian;
some wrote only in Armenian though in other
lands; all manifest a deep concern for the
fate of their country.

Avetik Isahakian (b. ca. 1860 in the Cau-
casus) wrote a novel Master Karo, a well
written satire on contemporary life; then in
the epic poem Abu Lala Maliari he pictures
a man that turns from his wife, his home,
and all the troubles of the land, to live at
peace in the desert.

Earlier in the revival, first to give it power
in strong and noble verse, was Kamar-Katiba
(Raphael Batganian, 1830-92), who edited
at Tiflis the short-lived weekly The North,
to exalt his countrymen with ideals of lib-
erty, and in the poem The Tears of the Aras
presents the sacred river of Armenia lament-
ing the foreign domination over the land.
Still in the classical Grabar the Catholicos
Mkrtich Khrimean (Hairik; 1820-1907)
wrote the vivid poem The Meeting of the
Kings (1900), in which each monarch around
the world tells wherein he sees his security
--cannon; large spread of land; national
wealth until the King of Belgium rebukes
them for not finding safety in God. Mikael
Nalbantian (1830-66) was fervent in his
preaching of humanitarian ideals; he helped
the spread of socialism among the Armenians
of the Caucasus; his Song of Liberty is a
vibrant and vigorous appeal.

More lyrical are the simple strains of
Archbishop Khoren of Lusignan (called Nar-
Bey, Prince Light; 1841-93), who translated
Lamartine into Armenian, and in his own
works reflected the tenderness and love of
nature of Lamartine's spirit. Most mournful
of all Armenian poets is Bedros Tourian
(1852-72), whose short life was worn with

ARMENIAN LITERATURE

poverty and wretched 1 strain. His brother
Eghishe* Tourian (b. 1860) won to a greater
calm; he became Patriarch of the Jerusalem
Armenians. Few poets have had a greater
command of the language, more power to
win its words to musical rhythms, than
Eghishe* manifests, as in The Pastoral Flute
(1909).

Sibylle (Mme Zabel Hrant-Asadour; b.
1863) is the favorite Armenian woman poet.
Her verses, collected in Reflections, show a
delicacy of phrase, subtly colored turns of
expression, and fine nuances of feeling.
Hovanes Thoumanian (b. 1 869) tells a legend
of Tamerlane in the narrative poem The
Convent of the Dove turning that tale of
the conqueror to contemporary application;
there are vivid imagery and power in his
With My Fatherland (1916). Yergat Tigran
(1870-99) wrote moving verse, as in The
Dying Poet, collected in the posthumous vol-
ume A Few Hours. There is a more ardent
imagination, with deep sensitivity and patri-
otic ardor, in the volumes as The Flowers of
Memory; The Oasis of Roupen Vorperian
(b. 1875).

Among the more recent poets the French
influence is strong: the power of Baudelaire,*
the comprehensive reach of symbolism. Love
of country is, if possible, still more persistent
a theme. Natalie Shahan (b. 1884) wrote
Songs of Love and Hate (1915), which in-
cludes the poignant The Agony of My Faith;
and, after World War I, The Cos-pel of Re-
venge. Astour Navarian (b. 1881) wrote the
melancholy The Sultanates (1903) and the
more tranquil Autumn Sun (1917), which is
none the less fervent in devotion to the coun-
try. Daniel Varoujan (Tchiboukiarian; 1884-
1915; killed by the Turks) was a vigorous
poet, in his early Shudders and in The Heart
of the Race. There is a more delicate sensi-
tivity in the three volumes of Vahan Derian
(1885-1920); in his Tirilight Dreams the
Autumn Song, though individual, is haunting

with echoes of Verlaine. Roupen Sevag
(1885-1915; killed by the Turks) in The
Red Book (1910) wrote rousing verse about
the massacres in Silicia; his poem The Last
Lullaby has a deep and tender pathos. Bitter
and concentrated are the Crucified Dreams
(1912) of Hrant Nazariantz (b. 1884).
Eghish6 Tcharentz (b. 1897) has written
brilliant verse in free rhythms, revolutionary
in form and thought. Among those that have
written Armenian poems in other lands are
Alexander Kludjian, with Poems (Boston,
1938) and Khadjig Margosian, with Palpita-
tions (N. Y., 1938).

The work in prose started by Raffi was
carried along by many hands. Archag Tcho-
banian (b. 1872) not only popularized Ar-
menian works abroad he translated Chirvan-
zade, e.g., into French but wrote poems
in prose, fantasies, and stories (Life and
Dream) in effective, colorful Armenian. An-
other leader in the use of a vivid vernacular
prose was Roupen Zartarian (1874-1915;
killed by the Turks). Forced to flee from
Turkish Armenia, he edited Razmigue (The
Warrior^) from 1905 to 1908; after the 1908
Revolution his journal Azatamart (The Free
Fight) was in the forefront of the intellectual
movement in Armenia. His non-political
writings have a quiet charm; they reveal a
poetic spirit, sensitive to nature. The title of
his Tsaygalouiss (.Night Light; 1909) sym-
bolizes the flame of the Armenian spirit shin-
ing through the dark hours of Turkish dom-
ination. One of the legendary stories in that
volume, The Bride of the Lake, tells of a
woman in love with the waters; her suspicious
husband strangles her on the shore; the
waters of the lake rise and engulf the vil-
lage.

The Oriental Tales (1874) of Minas
Tcheraz (b. 1852) were prefaced by a dis-
cussion of grammar his innovations had be-
gun as editor, in 1870, of Ergrakount (The
Globe) in Constantinople which touched

ARMENIAN LITERATURE

off a series of polemics; continuing the attack
on Grabar in National Education (1876),
Tcheraz helped greatly in the establishment
of Modern Armenian diction and style. His
bold innovations in language and grammar
produced striking turns of phrase, and lent
a vigor to his political writings. When not
urging the cause of his country against the
Turks, ^Tcheraz worked a light and lively
vein, as in the short vignette The Pasha with
forty wives, revealing how the Pasha kept his
harem always at peace.

A pacifistic spirit marks the career, and
gleams in the tales and stories, of Hambart-
zoum Arakelian (pseudonym Chahriar; b.
1855). At Tiflis in 1910 he founded the
periodical Aror, to promote his aims for a
peaceful world; in 1916 he was editor of
Mschak. He had been earlier moved to write
Djhoud-Douchan (The Slaughter of the
Jews; 1902). In addition to his utterances on
social themes, he wrote direct and pleasing
narratives, the story Zeythoun (1896), and
Twelve Tales (1908).

Keen psychological observation, an objec-
tive realistic spirit, animate the varied writ-
ings of Chirvanzade (A. M. Movsissian,
1858-1935). His early works include novels
of the industrial world (Fire at the Naphtha
Plant; 1883), of business (Memoirs of a
Manager; 1883); psychological studies of love
(Mme Lisa; 1884), and increasingly of the
Armenian intellectual of the day (Owe of the
Moderns, 1884; Vain Hopes, 1886; The
Exile, 1890). His masterpiece is Chaos, its
first draft banned by the Turks when it ap-
peared in Arevelkh; published in book form in
1895. Chaos on a wide canvas studies with
objectivity and insight the clash of various
types and races in Armenia, and the con-
flicting ambitions and ideologies that tore the
land. Chirvanzade has also contributed to the
new art of the theatre in Armenia, with for
that land of close family tiesa daring drama
of a wife who leaves her husband for another

man, Was She Eight? (1903), and a dramatic
study of the Armenian business man, On the
Ruins (1906).

More closely involved in the political for-
tunes of his country, but contributing largely
as well to the cultural rebirth, was Avetis
Aharonian (b. 1866). As a boy of ten he
saw the horrors of the Kurd massacres; they
give a melancholy tinge to his first volume,
Horkine (1893). The massacres of 1896
brought a series of sketches and stories pub-
lished in Mschak A Drop of Milk; A Piece
of Bread; Neighbors in which grief, horror,
and indignation fuse with deeply sympathetic
portraiture of his countrymen. More and
more Aharonian's life and writings were dedi-
cated to his nation's fight for justice and free-
dom. He edited first Mourch (The Hammer),
then Arach (forward). His infrequent but
rousing poems are mainly on national themes.
His short stories, collected in Toward free-
dom (1906), vary from stark tragedy (Honor)
to poetic pathos (The Mothers; The Abysm).
With the same purpose, he wrote a novel,
The Black Knight, with warm pictures of
various Armenian types across a wide and be-
loved landscape. He was also author of sev-
eral plays. The Valley of Tears (1906), a
symbolic drama against tyranny, was played
with great success in Tiflis; it was forbidden
in Russia. While in prison (1909) Aharonian
wrote The Predestined, played to enthusiastic
audiences in Tiflis and Bakou, showing the
inevitable martyrdom they are predestined to
glorious death of those that seek to serve
humanity, justice, freedom. During the two
years that Armenia won of precarious free-
dom, Aharonian was elected (1918) Presi-
dent of the first Armenian Parliament.

In essay, short story, and novel, many other
writers added to the national picture and the
national protest. Berjouhi Barseghian whose
husband was killed in the 1915 massacres,
and who was a member of Parliament, 1919-
20 wrote the realistic and sympathetic After

ARMENIAN LITERATURE

The Storm and In Scorching Days. Hamas-
degh (Hambartzoum Gclcnian; b. 1895 in
Turkey, now in the U.S.A.) has written two
volumes of short stories, Rain and The Vil-
lage; a novel, The White Horseman; and an
epic poem The Sacred Comedy. There is a
kindly satire in his works, which picture in
realistic vein the life and legends of the
peasants. Grimmer studies of peasant life are
in the masterly short stories of Steven Zonan
(b. ca. 1880 in the Caucasus), who remained
in the part of Armenia that became a Soviet
Republic. Constant Zaiian (b. ca. 1885 in
the Caucasus) has written in French, and
considerably in Italian, as well as in Arme-
nian. He is thus more European than native;
but in his many novels he lashes out in violent
criticism of the times. Mari Beylerian wrote
a realistic novel, Upwards, published in
Smyrna, 1914. Eli Agsar's novel of Armenian
family life, The Will, was published in New
York in 1923. Short stories and sketches of
Peniamin Noorigian are collected in the vol-
ume The Vintage (New Jersey, U.S.A.,

I937)-

In addition to the Armenians that remained
and wrote, in Turkish or (mainly) Soviet
Armenia, many as we have observed left
their country for refuge elsewhere. (There
are some 2,500,000 in Soviet Armenia; some
200,000 in the U. S. A.) A number of the
refugees have continued writing in their na-
tive tongue; perhaps more have become citi-
zens and without losing their concern for the
freedom and the valid growth of Armenia-
have used the language of their new land.
Thus Michael Arlen (Dikran Kouyoumdjian;
b. 1895 in Bulgaria) became an English citi-
zen and author of striking novels and plays,
especially The Green Hat (1931). In the
United States, William Saroyan (b. 1908)
captured the public with the fresh fancy of
his short stories, as in The Daring Voting
Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934) and the
imaginative lilt and warm human sympathy

of his plays, as My Heart's in the Highlands
C 1 939)5 The Beautiful People (1941). With
Saroy aii's encouragement, the periodical
Hairenik (.Fatherland) founded as a daily in
Boston, 1900, its weekly supplement with lit-
erary features edited since 1934 by Reuben
Darbinian collected from its pages into a
volume the writings of almost sixty Ameri-
cans of Armenian ancestry.

In Soviet Armenia not only has writing in
the Armenian language continued shaping
itself fully into the thought-patterns of Soviet
life but there has been a steady interest in
the language itself, culminating, under the
editorship of Stepan Malhasyan, in the pub-
lication of the first complete Armenian Dic-
tionary (4 v., 1946).

Armenian secular drama is entirely a prod-
uct of the last one hundred years. There is a
story that King Tigranes II (ist c. B.C.) in-
vited Greek actors to Armenia, and that his
son Artavazd wrote some plays. The next
reference to the drama speaks of an Armenian
tragedy, Ripsime, as having been presented in
Poland in 1668. We know that in the early
1 9th c. the Mekhitharist Brothcis in Venice
began writing religious plays, over 100 being
composed during the century. A theatre was
opened in Trcbizond in 1815; in Smyrna in
1836; these presented almost exclusively
translations (into Turkish or Armenian) of
French and Italian plays. In 1840 G. Chir-
maghanian wrote a comedy satirizing corrup-
tion among the Armenian clergy, which was
produced in Moscow. The emphasis in the
drama, for some time, continued to be more
pious. In 1845 Father Minassian wrote a
classical tragedy in prose, Khosrow the Great.
In 1856 Mkrditch Bechiktachlian (1828-68)
lent great impetus to the drama, beginning
his many productions of plays by other drama-
tists as well as his own. His own best plays
are Gornak; the tragedies Vahan Vahe and
Arsaces II; and the very popular The
Brigands.

ARMENIAN LITERATURE

After the mid-century, theatres opened in
other Armenian centers, as Orta-Keuz (1859.).
In these, lay comedies came increasingly to
the fore, such as those by Hcldnian satirizing
the Armenians that were tending to abandon
their own language and culture for those
of their conquerors or of the land of their
temporary refuge. Karekin H. Rechdouni
(1840-79) as an actor was a favorite of the
Constantinople stage. From monologues and
one-act comedies The Trunk handed over
to a distant heir is a rollicking farce of the

squabble over what proves to be a valueless
inheritance he moved on to effectively comic
presentation of the customs and foibles of
the Turkish Armenians, in such plays as
Niks-Niks; The 400 francs; The Lover with
his collar in a box. Gabriel Soondookian
(Sundukianz; 1825-1911) was successful
with Eeho and The Ruined Family.

Hagop II. Baronian (184091), though
distinguished in the theatre, was even more
widely popular. Beginning with The Oriental
Dentist (1868), his satire was revenlcd as
caustic if not savage. In the periodical Tha-
dron (The Theatre"), which under his editor-
ship was banned eight times in its four years,
he attacked the current hypocrisy among his
countrymen in a series of biting profiles, 24
of which were collected as National Big Hais
(1878). His realistic studies, his fierce satires,
brought sharp attacks upon him; he went into
business (1880) to finance the journal Khikar,
but died in poverty. After his death he was
acclaimed as a national genius, and his works
were enthusiastically revived. Among his

most successful comedies are Gentleman
Beggars; The Dowry; Uncle Balthazar.

About 1870 the Turks, sensing the power
of the theatre in sustaining national ardor,
began to exercise a closer censorship; soon
thereafter, and for a period of over thirty
years, plays in Armenian were forbidden.
Among the more recent productions are
Whom shall we follow after? (1912) by
Hovhanncs Haroutuinian; The Calvary of
My Race (1923) by Vahan Chrokasjian:
Cluck, Cluck by Ervant Der Megerditchian
(b. 1888; now in the U.S.A.). In Soviet
Armenia, in addition to the already men-
tioned Sundukianz, Chirvanzadc, and Aharon-
ian, plays have been written by Mikael Pat-
kanian, Hagop Garinian, A. leritsian, Ter-
Krikorian, V. Papazian, L. Manvclian. There
seems every likelihood that writings in Ar-
menianthough with absorption into Soviet
culture they may lose the national ardor and
the tone of melancholy or protest that have
long characterized them will continue to
flourish as a valid artistic and cultural ex-
pression.

II. F. B. Lynch, Armenia, 2v., 1902; V. Langlois
(from the French of), Hist, of the Armenian Mon-
astery of St. Lazarus-Venice, with a compendium of
the Hist, and Lit. of Armenia (Venice), 1899; Z. C.
Boyajian, Armenian Legends and Poems, with essay
by A. Raffi on Armenia, Us epics, folk songs and
medieval poetry (London), 1916; C. F. Neumann,
Geschichte der Armenischen Lit. (Leipzig), 1836;
M. Banker, Armenian Romance (Grand Rapids,
Mich.), 1941; Hairenik 1934-39 (Boston), 1939;
F. Macler, cd. Petite Biljlioth&que armenienne
(Paris), 1910-1919; A. Navarian, Anthologie des
poetes armeniens (Paris), 1928.

HAGOP E. MIKELIAN.

ARMORICAN-S*? Breton.
ASHANTI-See African.
ASHKENAZI-See Yiddish.
ASSAMESE-See Indian.

ASSYRIAN-See Accadian; Canaanite.
ASTIGIANO-See Italian.

ATHEBASKAN-See North American Na-
tive.

ASSINIBOIN-See North American Native. ATTIC-See Greek.

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

AUSTRALIAN

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE is a British theme
with Australian national variations. Immedi-
ately this generalization has been made, the
question arises as to what emphasis should he
placed upon the elements specified. To the
uncompromising British Imperialist and the
partisan of deracinated supranationalist liter-
ature, allegedly founded in universal and
eternal values, the Australian variations are
trivial, embarrassing, or anathema. On the
other hand, the nationalists, whether tepid or
rampant, seize upon the variations with glee
as proving the growing maturity of the liter-
ature. A great deal of literary discussion in
Australia oscillates between these extremes,
falling either into the error of unduly prizing
local color or into the opposite error of assum-
ing that the absence of local color is one of the
criteria of excellence. Only the best critics
assume that the essence of their task is to sift
out of the very considerable body of Austral-
ian writing, much of which is difficult to come
by even in Australia, those works that have
strength, substance, literary merit. These
books should eventually form a canon to
which readers seeking a knowledge of the
literature can turn with confidence. Such a
canon does not exist today, except in the
faintest and most debatable of outlines. The
most profitable approach to literature in
Australia, therefore, is along the lines of a
study in cultural evolution. This allows one
to designate certain works as of exceptional
importance and value while at the same time
including others which, though their intrinsic
value as literature is slight, are nevertheless
classics-by-default in that they admirably illus-
trate or epitomize phases of the literary story.
In a singularly complete sense the men and
women who established the first Australian
settlement had a new world to explore and
report. Beginning in 1606 Carious Europeans

had coasted along the shores of the continent,
but none had closely circumnavigated it and
none had gone ashore except for strictly tem-
porary visits. Because Captain James Cook
had, in 1770, the good luck to survey the
hitherto unknown Pacific Ocean coast the
British, a few years later, selected it as a place
to plant a settlement. They wanted an isolated
but humanly tolerable place for a penal estab-
lishment. When in 1788 the first few hun-
dred settlers convicts, their military guard,
and civil officials planted the original settle-
ment at Sydney, not only was the exact shape
of the continent unknown but the character
of the interior was a total mystery. When un-
veiled, the country was found to be utterly
different from the British Isles. The early
pioneers found the land difficult to exploit
and difficult to "understand." Even today,
over fifteen decades later, complete mastery
and understanding have yet to be won.

Several pioneers of the First Fleet, all from
the governing group, left books on their ex-
periences. Only later on did convicts able to
write, draw, and paint arrive. Native-born
free men did not begin to express themselves
until the 1 820*5. By 1840 the transportation
of convicts began to be abolished; after 1868,
no more were sent to any part of the con-
tinent. Literature in Australia has been, in all
but very minor early particulars, the creation
of free men. The First Fleet narratives, how-
ever, have yet to be assimilated to the literary
record, perhaps for the reason that they were
strictly utilitarian in purpose. However, the
two books of Captain Watkin Tench (1759-
1833) of the Marines, A Narrative of the
Expedition to Botany Bay (1789) and A
Complete Account of the Settlement at Port
Jackson (1793), have an attractive and defi-
nitely literary flavor. Such personal narratives
have been remarkably plentiful in Australian

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

writing, but while the historians have found
them immensely useful, their literary impor-
tance is still to be determined. Especially
valuable are the narratives of the pioneer
pastoralists, of the period before 1850.

The literary record is conventionally con-
fined to works that were literary in intent, no
matter how short of the mark they fell. From
1788 to the great goldrushes of the 1850*5,
which multiplied the population rapidly, the
works of literary pretension that have sur-
vived, even as curiosities, are few. Conspicuous
among them are Barren Field's First Fruits of-
Australian Poetry (1819), a book of short
pieces that forms a most unpoetical introduc-
tion to Australian poetry, and William Charles
Wentworth's Australasia (1823), a patriotic
ode that won for the author a second prize in
competition for the Chancellor's medal at
Cambridge University. Wentworth (1790-
1872) was a native-born Australian who had
already made a name for himself in explora-
tion and later had a distinguished career in
politics. Field (1786-1846) was a British legal
officer temporarily serving in Australia. These
two versifiers were succeeded by Charles
Tompson (1806-83), who produced a volume
entitled Wild Notes from the Lyre of a
Native Minstrel (1826) and Charles Harpur
(1817-68), also native-born, who published
his first volume, Thoughts, in 1845. Harpur
is definitely the superior of the two and has
claims to being the pioneer of poetry, as dis-
tinguished from verse. (See Selected Poems
of Charles Harpur, edited by H. H. Gifford
and D. F. Hall, Melbourne, 1944.) In prose
fiction the pioneers were Charles Rowcroft
(d. 1850), whose Tales of the Colonies
(1843) is rather pale stuff in which fiction
and the promotion of immigration go hand
in hand; Henry Kingsley; and Catherine
Helen Spence. The latter two have definite
claim* to permanent remembrance. Catherine
Helen Spence (1825-1910) had a long career
in social reform and journalism, during which

she wrote several thesis novels, of which the
one most often recalled today is Clara Morri-
son (1854). Henry Kingsley (18301876),
brother of the more famous Charles, wrote
The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn (1859)
as the result of a lengthy visit to Australia. It
established firmly two traditions: the tradition
of novels of pastoral life and the tradition of
an Anglo-Australian exchange of talent. Sev-
eral Englishmen notably Anthony Trollope,
Havelock Ellis, D. H. Lawrence have es-
sayed Australian novels as the result of a
visit or temporary residence, and many Aus-
tralians have made literary careers in Eng-
land, among them Haddon Chambers, the
playwright, Helen Simpson and, above all,
H. H. Richardson. Also in this early period
there is that enigmatic figure Daniel H.
Deniehy (1828-65), who did a good deal of
literary and political journalism and wrote a
political satire, How I Became Attorney-
General of New Barataria (1860), which is
still amusing.

These writers did not succeed in naturaliz-
ing literature in Australia, nor were they
encouraged to do so. While those colonists
who were literarily inclined and many of the
pioneer pastoralists, as their books show, were
highly educated imported books and other
reading matter very freely from England,
they gave little patronage to local productions.
The way of the wnter was excessively hard,
as Deniehy 's career illustrates; but the three
decades from ca. 1860 to 1890 were years of
definite progress. The task still remained one
of plowing virgin soil, but the plowing had
permanent results and if none of the writers
of this time reached the first rank, they never-
theless advanced the arduous task of subduing
the new environment to man's imagination,
made a permanent record of some memorable
experiences, and even foreshadowed some
permanent Australian values. The period is
dominated in poetry by Henry Kendall and
Adam Lindsay Gordon, in fiction by two men,

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

Marcus Clarke and Rolf Boldrewood, and
three women, Ada Cambridge, Mrs. Camp-
bcll-Pracd, and "Tasma." Of these Clarke,
Boldrewood and Kendall established perma-
nent reputations.

Henry Kendall (1839-82) had a slight
but pure lyric gift, a charm of diction, and a
genuine sensitivity to the Australian environ-
ment, especially the coastal river valleys of
New South Wales. The superficially contra-
dictory strains of melancholy and utopianism,
which are found rather frequently in Aus-
tralian writers, appear clearly for the first
time in Kendall. Although a minor poet on a
world scale of values, he looms large in the
Australian record, because he took a long
step forward beyond Harpur and because no
work unquestionably superior to his was writ-
ten until after his death.

Certainly Kendall was a far more signifi-
cant poet than his contemporary Adam Lind-
say Gordon (1833-70). Gordon, however,
has enjoyed vastly more popularity. He has,
indeed, been acclaimed time and again the
greatest of Australian poets, in recent years
especially by politicians and Englishmen
seeking to say the "right thing" about Aus-
tralian literature. The illusion is sustained by
the fact that there is a bust of Gordon in
Westminster Abbey, placed there in 1934 as
a direct result of an intensive publicity cam-
paign conducted by his English admirers, led
by Douglas B. W. Sladen. Moreover, tags of
Gordon's verse spring spontaneously to the
lips of many Australians who otherwise are
innocent of memories of poetry read or heard.
But it is nevertheless the case that Gordon's
poems will hardly bear the same weight of
critical scrutiny as Kendall's. Professor Walter
Murdoch said all that can be said for Gordon
when he remarked in 1941, "I lis swinging
ballads of action in the open air, with their
simple philosophy of courage, endurance, and
loyalty, appealed strongly to the Australia of
his day; and some of them will, I believe, ap-

peal to the Australia of tomorrow." This much
would be freely admitted by Gordon's most
persistent critics, were it not for the fact that
the ludicrous over-valuation of his work
stands obviously in the way of an under-
standing of more mature and substantial
Australian poets.

Marcus Clarke* (1846-81) and Rolf Bol-
drewood^ (1826-1915) both wrote far more
than the two novels by which they are chiefly
remembered. Clarke arrived in Australia as a
boy of 1 8 and before he died at 35 dissipated
his talent in a wide variety of journalistic
undertakings. But when he was commissioned
by a fiction journal to write a novel of convict
life he produced a story that still stands as the
best of its kind in Australian literature. For
the Term of His Natural Life (1874) is per-
haps not a truly great novel; it is a "classic by
default" of anything better of its kind, but it
is a vivid and memorable story, which sooner
or later almost every Australian reads. Boldre-
wood wrote a long string of novels after an
adventurous career as pastoralist and police
magistrate. Today it is a rare person that has
read more than two or three of his books,
most commonly Robbery Under Arms, serial-
ized in 1882, published in book form six years
later. This novel is a consistently interesting
account of bushranging during the goldrush
period. Boldrewood's observation of the Aus-
tralian scene is conceded to be sound social
historians will one day make good use of his
books and he could manage a story, but
there is no density in his work to make it true
literature. Robbery Under Arms is, like
Clarke's story of convict life, a classic-by-
default. Although Australians have been con-
sistently fascinated by bushranging, especially
by the last of the bushrangers, Ned Kelly, no
better novel on the subject than Boldrewood's
has been produced. "Ned Kelly," writes Clive
Turnbull, "is the best known Australian, our
only folk hero." (See Ned Kelly, Melbourne,
1942.)

6 9

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

The novels of the three women of this
period Ada Cambridge (1844-1926), Mrs.
Campbcll-Pracd (1851-1935) and "Tasma"
(1852-97) show definite signs of passing
from popular memory into the exclusive keep-
ing of the historians. In a brief preface to
Longleat of Kooralbyn Mrs. Campbell-Praed
remarked, "It is ... to all English readers
that I, an Australian, address myself, with the
hope that I may in some slight degree aid in
bridging over the gulf which divides the old
world from the young." This is a non-literary
purpose, of course, but apparently it was pres-
ent in the minds of most Australian writers
of the time. Indeed then and for years after,
the patronage of English readers was neces-
sary if an Australian writer was to enjoy a
vogue in Australia. Even a man so obviously
catering to Australian interests as Rolf Boldre-
wood had to wait upon success in England
before he was really successful at home. In
recent years, therefore, the inevitable process
of sorting out the work of the past has led to
the rejection of many writers that once were
accepted as authentically Australian by Eng-
lish reviewers and readers with little or no
direct knowledge of the country. What may
be called Anglo-Australian literature perhaps
had to precede truly Australian literature, but
once the ascendancy of the latter became
established, the Anglo-Australians were sure
to be "written down." The three women
novelists of this period have thus far suc-
cumbed even more completely to this kind of
literary analysis than, say, the poet Adam
Lindsay Gordon. Yet in each instance they
produced one or two books that should be
reprinted in any series attempting to present
the history of the Australian novel; e.g.,
Longleat of Kooralbyn (1881) by Mrs.
Campbell-Praed, Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill
(1889) by "Tasma," and Not All in Vain
(1892) by Ada Cambridge.

Up to about 1890 the story of literature in
Australia is, in an important sense, a prelude

to Australian literature. With the 90*5 the
Australians arrived. The 1890'$ were a time
of crisis and reassessment. Between 1890 and
1914 the period loosely called "the nineties"
those Australian writers that today are most
often cited as characteristically Australian
produced their most considerable books. It
was a crowded period in which a very great
deal was written and published. Major figures
of this time were Henry Lawson (1867-
1922), Tom Collins (1843-1912), Bernard
O'Dowd (b. 1866), and A. G. Stephens
(1865-1933). Minor figures whose niches are
defined include A. B. Paterson (1864-1941),
Dowell O'Reilly (1865-1923), Barbara Bayn-
ton (1862-1929), Louis Bccke (1855-1913),
Louis Stone (1871-1934), C. J. Dennis
(1876-1938), Randolph Bedford (1868-
1940), Steele Rudd (1868-1935), Mrs.
Aeneas Gunn (b. 1870), E. J. Banfield
(1862-1923) and C. E. W. Bean (b. 1879).
Debatable figures arc Victory Daley (1858-
1905), Price Waning (1855-1911) and E. J.
Brady (b. 1869).

Henry Lawson* wrote a long list of vivid
stories and sketches of life in the bush on
the farms ("selections"") and stations, and
along the bushtracks between as well as in
the cities, and a considerable quantity of
popular verse. His art is instinctive rather
than self-conscious. He wrote of what he saw
and heard, inventing little, imagining hardly
at all. He was an articulate common man,
but a common man of temperament. His
stories are clearly etched their environmental
circumstances are intensely real his charac-
ters, while not profoundly explored, stand
out vividly, the situations are almost invari-
ably memorable, and his sentiments are un-
questionably Australian. Even in his ambi-
valence Lawson is Australian: if there is a
streak of melancholy in him, there is also an
hilarious humor (even farce); if he can tell
stories of callous cruelty, he can also indulge
in tedious sentimentality. Probably no writer

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

ever got closer to the heart of Australia, a
fact that accounts for his wide and continuing
popularity. Somehow his stories, while hardly
touching greater heights of sentiment and
idea than his verses, are markedly superior.
The verses enjoy a popularity equal to the
fiction, hut they definitely have small claim
as literature. His best stories, nevertheless,
could with profit he collected in a single
volume. They are chiefly to be found in
While the Billy Boils (1896) and Joe Wilson
and His Mates (1901).

Tom Collins* poured the experiences of a
lifetime into one book, Such Is Life (1903).
He was over forty before he began to write
professionally; he had been in turn a farm
laborer, a farmer, a contractor for road build-
ing, a contractor carrying supplies to and
wool from outback sheep stations, and an em-
ployee in the family's smalltown iron works.
Yet he turned all this miscellaneous experi-
ence to very good account. Moreover he had
thought deeply of politics and literature. He
poured everything he had gathered into one
huge manuscript, using the diary form to
divide it into manageable sections. His story
has to do with the life of the bullock drivers
and their associates, friends, enemies, and
hangers-on, in the outback during the i88o's.
It also includes discursive essays on every
topic that would occur to a thoughtful man
in Australia. It is thus a compendium of dis-
tinctively Australian thoughts and conclusions
about life, literature, and society. From no
other single book can one learn so much
about what constitutes the basic elements of
the Australian leftwing outlook. Even though
these have often been overlaid and distorted,
they have a way of suddenly reappearing at
crucial moments. It is for this reason that
Such Is Life has waxed in reputation while
books far more popular in their day have
already waned. Even Collinss style, which
has a Johnsonian ponderosity, has not been
the handicap it might at first glance seem.

The slow pace of the book forces all but the
most careless readers to soak it up rather than
hastily swallow it. The result is that, once
really read, passages have a way of recurring
in the mind long after. The book is written
at a pace analogous to that of bullocks slow,
deliberate, easy-going, conducive to rumina-
tion. Such Is Life is an Australian classic, the
most important single book yet written out of
unmistakably Australian experiences. Collins's
other book, Rigby's Romance (1921), is an
anabranch of the main stream. It was sub-
tracted from the original manuscript of Such
Is Life to reduce its portentous bulk.

A. G. Stephens* was the outstanding liter-
ary critic of his generation; in fact, he is the
only figure in Australian literature whose
reputation rests on his criticism. From 1896 to
1906 he was editor of the literary section of
the Sydney Bulletin, a weekly paper founded
in 1 88 1. The Bulletin had, while Stephens
was literary editor, a more profound influence
on the direction of Australian literary devel-
opment than has ever before or since been
exerted by a critical journal. Almost all the
major figures, and most of the minor, felt the
Bulletin influence. If only the weaker writers,
whose work is now getting dusty, totally suc-
cumbed to the limitations of the paper a
weakness for local color and a passion for the
laconic it nevertheless reached out to em-
brace Tom Collins, Henry Lawson and all
the other stars of the time. For Stephens had
a passion for literature and an equal passion
for Australia. He desperately wanted an Aus-
tralian literature. After he parted with The
Bulletin he continued to exercise a wide in-
fluence through his own paper, The Book-
fellow, and his occasional booklets. "Yet the
effect of all these books is fragmentary:"
writes Vance Palmer in his memoir of
Stephens; "added together they do not equate
the vital, integrated personality that was
Stephens. They are, in truth, merely a by-
product of his active working life. He was a

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

journalist-critic, pouring his power into the
weekly column, scattering his wit, badinage,
common sense with a free hand, seeming to
take letters lightly, yet, through the manly
directness of his approach, making them an
important and exciting part of life for his
readers."

Bernard O'Dowd,* who stands in this com-
pany as poet, believed in poetry with a pur-
pose. In Poetry Militant (1909) he pleaded
for a poetry that would speak to the people
about the problems and thoughts nearest to
them, most important to them, most likely
to lead them to higher accomplishments. Yet
somehow he managed to escape the reproach
of being a merely "inspirational" versifier.
There was a strength in him that made him
a great poet. His lyric gift is slight; his poems
are burdened with a heavy weight of literary
learning; like Tom Collins, with whom he
has a definite affinity as a thinker, he spoke
from a leftwing point of view. O'Dowd had
in full measure that recurring Australian
interest in Utopia in the prospect of building
in Australia a far better society than man
had ever hitherto known. There is a density
and a drive in O'Dowd's poems that cannot
fail to appeal to all who look for more than
a song in poetry. Rough-hewn as his work is,
it stands as a great monument in the midst of
a vast plain strewn with the works of versifiers
who were trivial singers to beguile an empty
hour.

The minor figures of the time make a
varied array. A. B. Paterson is remembered
today for ballads though he wrote prose also
The Man From Snowy River, Clancy of the
Overflow and perhaps above all, Waltzing
Matilda, which achieved worldwide fame
during World War II. (See The Story of
Waltzing Matilda, by Sydney May, Brisbane,
1944.) Dowell O'Reilly wrote a handful of
poignant and moving short stories. Barbara
Baynton produced a small book of somber
bush studies which won the praise of Have-

lock Ellis. Louis Becke brought the South
Sea islands into the Australian short story.
Louis Stone left a novel that is a minor
masterpiece, Jonah (1911), a study of slum
life. Randolph Bedford dissipated his talent in
a dozen directions, but his Explorations in
Civilization (1916) is well worth reading.
Steele Rudd wrote the funniest book in Aus-
tralian literature, On Our Selection (1899)
and created Dad and Dave, characters that
have an active life quite outside the book.
Mrs. Gunn wrote a classic of outback squat-
ting life, We of the Never Never (1908) and
a perennial favorite for children, The Little
Black Princess (1905), a charming story of
aboriginal life. E. J. Banfield carried nature
writing, in which Australians have shown a
persistent interest for several generations, to
a high plane in such books as Confessions of
a Beachcomber (1908). C. J. Dennis put the
Australian "mug" into vernacular verse in
The Sentimental Bloke (1915). C. E. W.
Bean showed how journalism can become
memorable writing in such books as On the
Wool Track (1910) and Dreadnought of the
Darling (1911). Victor Daley wrote a deli-
cate lyric poetry that will always have fierce
partisans; Price Warung left some tales of
convict days that are in the genre comple-
mentary to Clarke's novel; and E. J. Brady
brought saltwater ballads into Australian lit-
erature. It was an extraordinarily satisfactory
period.

In the years between the two great wars
Australian writers continued very active, but
the magnetic power of The Bulletin had de-
clined and no single journal of equal signifi-
cance took its place. Old problems of getting
books published and making contact with the
Australian reading public were not as yet
completely solved. Writers worked in isolation
from one another. But if no critic gained the
authority of A. G. Stephens, a number of
able critics, including Furnley Maurice,*
Vance and Nettie Palmer, Frank Dalby Davi-

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

son, M. Barnard Eldershaw and T. Inglis
Moore, were certain to seize upon each worth-
while book as it appeared and celebrate its
virtues. By printing their work in a variety of
papers they wielded a wide influence and they
raised standards markedly in the face of popu-
lar indifference. As the period ended with the
outbreak of World War II it was apparent
that the most important figures of the time
had been Henry Handel Richardson (b.
1880?), Katherine Susannah Prichard (b.
1884), Brent of Bin Bin (true identity un-
known), Vance Palmer (b. 1885), Miles
Franklin (b. 1883), Eleanor Dark (b. 1901),
M. Barnard Eldershaw (a collaboration of
Marjorie Barnard, b. 1897, and Flora Elder-
shaw, b. 1897), Leonard Mann (b. 1895),
Frank Dalby Davison (b. 1893), Christopher
Brennan (1870-1932), Furnley Maurice
(1881-1941), Hugh McCrae (b. 1876),
William Baylebridge (1883-1942) and Shaw
Neilson (1872-1942). Some of these com
pleted careers begun much earlier, while
others were definitely post-war figures.

Henry Handel Richardson* is the greatest
of the many Australian expatriates. Born in
Australia and educated there, she for her
real name is Henrietta Richardson has made
her career in England. Yet she nevertheless
thinks of herself as contributing to Australian
literature, in the development of which she
takes a keen interest. Certainly The Fortunes
of Richard Mahony, a trilogy completed in
1929, is one of the really great novels of
Australian life. Yet the focus of Miss Richard-
son's interest is not primarily the Australian
scene at all, but the character of Mahony.
She is, above all, one of the most brilliant
and satisfying of contemporary literary psy-
chologists, Miss Richardson completely over-
shadows as a writer all other Australian ex-
patriates of her time. The Australian books of
Helen Simpson lack rewarding substance, as
her other books lack durability; and after
writing one memorable Australian novel, The

Montforts (1928), Martin Mills took to writ-
ing light comedies of manners, English in
setting. H. H. Richardson, like Henry James
in American literature, is an expatriate that
rose to greatness.

The strongest home-dwelling novelist of the
period is Katherine Susannah Prichard/ In a
series of novels of which Working Bullocks
(1926) and Coonardoo (1929) are the best,
she has made a major contribution to Aus-
tralian fiction. Hardly less important are her
short stories, some of which are collected in
Kiss on the Lips (1932). A powerful com-
petitor for first place in this period is Brent
of Bin Bin, a mysterious figure whose pseudo-
nym has never been penetrated, who has
written a many-volumed novel of pastoral life
of which three volumes have thus far been
published: Up the Country (1928), Ten
Creeks Run (1930) and Back to Bool Bool
(1931). Brent's books carry the novel of pas-
toral life, initiated by Henry Kingsley, to its
highest expression thus far. Miles Franklin,
after producing a remarkable study of fem-
inine adolescence, My Brilliant Career
(1902), was for many years resident in the
United States and England, engaged in labor
journalism and social work. After the first
war she returned to Australia and fiction with
All That Swagger (1936), a novel of pastoral
life and (in collaboration with Dymphna
Cusack) Pioneers on Parade (1939), a witty
satire on the socialites of the time. Miss
Franklin is today the most active survivor of
the nineties. It is appropriate that she wrote
the most elaborate account of Tom Collins
and his career (1944).

Vance Palmer's many novels are quiet and
competent psychological studies. While lack-
ing the robustness of Miss Prichard's, his
books are, within their limits, distinctly meri-
torious, especially The Passage (1930) and
Legend for Sanderson (1937). M. Barnard
Eldershaw is primarily interested in psycho-
logical studies also, with a pronounced con-

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

cern for the stylistic graces as well. Her best
novel is probably Green Memory (1931). As
Vance Palmer has experimented with all litci-
ary forms poetry, drama, short stories, novels,
criticism so Eldershaw has branched out into
history, biography, and literary criticism. Mr.
Palmer has written some first-class memorial
essays, e.g., on A. G. Stephens and Furnley
Maurice, while Eldershaw has produced a
fine study of the founding governor of Aus-
tralia, Phillip of Australia (1938). Leonard
Mann has specialized in the hard-boiled novel.
Perhaps his best to date is The Go-Getter
(1942). Frank Dalby Davison wrote a classic
story of animal life, Red Heifer (1931) and
has also produced a series of skilful short
stories and short narratives on Australian and
foreign subjects. He is profoundly interested
in style, but not at the expense of substance.
Eleanor Dark combines psychological insight
with stylistic brilliance in novels, of which
the most substantial thus far is The Timeless
Land (1941).

Standing by himself, but touching litera-
ture and life at many points, is Professor
Walter Murdoch (b. 1874), who made the
familiar essay a popular form in Australia
when it had practically disappeared overseas
(see Collected Essays, Sydney, 1938).

Among the contemporary poets pride of
place must go to Christopher Brennan,*
deeply influenced by the French symbolists;
almost all of his work was done well before
World War I, but his reputation was consoli-
dated and extended in the inteiwar period.
Brennan is a poet that should be known
throughout the English-reading world; he has
suffered obscurity from having lived and
worked in Australia. William Baylebridge* is
a deeply philosophical poet whose work de-
mands "attention of perusal" but rewards the
efforts spent upon it. In form and manner he
is traditional. Furnley Maurice,* on the other
hand, was an experimental poet who wrote in
many styles, skilfully in all, and whose influ-

ence will wax as the traditionalist strangle-
hold on Australian verse wanes. Shaw Neilson
wrote lyrics of supreme delicacy of charm.
Hugh McCrae* represents a tradition in Aus-
tralian poetry, initiated in some measure by
his father and continued by Victor Daley,
which combines lyricism with a passion for
decoration for nymphs, fauns, and satyrs.
Around these major figures was a standing
army of versifiers, for in no country in the
world do more people lisp in numbers than
Australia. There is hardly a literate person on
the continent who has not, at some time,
written verse, and an astonishing number
have published books of verse. Single poems
of merit are remarkably common; Australia
is a paradise for anthologists.

As in poetry, so in fiction and other
branches of literature. The number of minor
writers (or writers still minor as this survey
is concluded) creates a puzzle for any critic
determined on justice for all. Mention may
properly be made of Ion Idness (b. 1890),
whose numerous books of adventure have en-
joyed stupendous popularity and have con-
tributed in their way to making the far
reaches of the continent real to city-dwelling
Australians; and of Frank Clune (b. 1894),
who writes inimitable travelogues from the
point of view of the "dmkum Aussie" (see
Frank Clune, Author and Ethnological
Anachronism, by Bartlett Adamson, Mel-
bourne, 1944), full of local history and sar-
donic evaluations. John Dalley (1878-1935),
Norman Lindsay (b. 1879), Brian Penton (b.
1904), Kylie Tennant (b. 1912), Xavier Her-
bert (b. 1901), Henrietta Drake-Brockman (b.
1901), Seaforth Mackenzie, and Patrick
White have all written distinctive novels,
many of which have been published overseas.
In the United States, e.g., Herbert and Ten-
nant have enjoyed outstanding successes with
Capricornia (1938) and The Battlers (1941),
and White has had a succes d'estime with
Happy Valley (1940). The outstanding ex-

AUSTRALIAN LITERATI/RE

patriate of this generation is Christina Stead,
who has become an American citizen. Dal
Stivens (b. 1912) and Gavin Casey have
produced volumes of distinguished short
stories. For the first time in the literary his-
tory of the country numerous plays have
found publication, but no major playwright
has appeared. Kenneth Slessor (b. 1901) and
Robert Fitzgerald (b. 1902) are poets that
have gained substantial reputations in the
last few years.

The difficulties of writing and publishing
during wartime have been enormous. But the
energy is productive; the next period of Aus-
tralian writing may be the most fruitful of all.
A viable tradition is shaping up for writers
to draw upon, for sustenance, for faith in the
importance of their work. The younger writ-
ers (and some of the older ones), of whom
the poets are the most active, have gathered
around such magazines as Angry Penguins,
which is self-consciously avant garde, or
Meanjin Papers, which is intelligently aware
of modern currents of literary thought, or
associated themselves with such emphatically
nationalist groups as the Jindyworobak poets.
From the ranks of the young men and women

whose work is now appearing in the little
magazines will come the major figures of
tomorrow.

E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature: front Its
Beginnings to 1935: A Descriptive and Bibliograph-
ical Survey, 2 vols. (Melbourne), 1940; H. M.
Green, An Outline of Australian Literature (Syd-
ney), 1930; T. Inglis Moore, Six Australian Poets:
McCrae, Neilson, O'Dowd, Baylebridge, Brennan,
Fitzgerald, Foreword by C. Hartley Grattan (Mel-
bourne), 1942; M. Bernard Eldershaw, Essays in
Australian fiction: Richardson, Prichard, Davison,
Palmer, Mann, Mills, Stead, Dark (Melbourne),
1938, Nettie Palmer, Modern Australian Literature,
1900-1923 (Melbourne), 1924; A. J. Coombes,
Some Australian Poets: Harpur, Kendall, Gordon,
Lawwn, Paterson, McCrae (Sydney), 1938; P. R.
Stephensen, The Foundations of Culture in Aus-
tralia, (Sydney), 1936 (an expression of the ex-
treme nationalist point of view); C. Hartley Grattan,
Australian Literature (Seattle, Wash.), 1929 (Sup-
plemented and elaborated in Chap. 9 of Introducing
Australia (N. Y.), 1942); H. M. Green's essay, "The
Development of Australian Literature," The Aus-
tralian National Review, vol. 3, no. 14, Feb., 1938,
and C. Hartley Grattan's essay, "On Australian
Literature, 1788-1938," The Australian Quarterly,
vol. x, no. 2, June, 1938, represent summaries of
series of lectures delivered independently of one an-
other under the auspices of the Workers' Educa-
tional Association on the occasion of the xjoth
anniversary of the founding of Australia.

C. HARTLEY GRATTAN.

AUSTRALIAN
(Aborigine)

WHEN AUSTRALIA was made known to Euro-
peans it was found to be inhabited by several
kinds of primitive, savage hunters. The most
primitive of these hunting peoples were found
on the island of Tasmania. They were dark-
skinned, crisp-haired, short, negrito people,
who used implements made from chipped
stone flakes, unbarbed spears and small
baskets. They were able to travel over the

sea near land on crude rafts. They possessed
no domestic dog.

On the Australian continent itself were
more advanced types of hunting peoples.
Those of the northern part of the continent
tended to be tall, spindly legged, dark-brown-
skinned with relatively sparse body-hair. Their
head hair was usually dark and low-waved.
The outstanding items of their material cul-

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

ture included ground-edged stone axes, bark
canoes, stone and wood-barbed spears and a
domestic dog.

Australians of the southern half of the con-
tinent tended to be shorter in stature, stouter
of limb, a light tone of brown skin and their
bodies were relatively thickly covered with
body hair. Their head hair tended to be
either low or deep waved with an occasional
tendency to crispness. These "Southerners"
were not as the "Northerners". Typically they
did not know how to make their own cdgc-
ground stone axes, and except in parts of
Victoria either lacked them entirely or traded
for them with peoples living to the north and
north-cast.

The Australians were divided into many
hundreds of small tribes, each with a separate
name, dialect, and tribal area. (Tindale 1940;
has a map). Family groups of tribesmen wan-
dered over their own territories whose bound-
aries were usually rather rigidly fixed.

Meagre as were their material cultures, all
these people were well adapted to their en-
vironments, indicating long sojourns in their
present homes. Their social organizations,
unlike their material cultures, were complex
and their stores of mythological lore and tra-
ditions were large. Their nature knowledge
was often deep and of surprising accuracy,
indicating strong powers of observation and
deduction.

In the earliest days of white occupation of
Australia, few took any interest in their cul-
ture. There were a few learned travelers who
recorded their experiences objectively. The
principal observers were missionary zealots,
unfortunately eager to discover that the primi-
tive beliefs were bestial, and they recorded
them only as demonstrating how necessary
it was to replace them by tenets of Old World
faiths.

The early contacts between white European
and aboriginal Australians led inevitably to
the decimation and engulfment or disappear-

ance of the Aborigines. Today they survive
only in small isolated or degraded communi-
ties in settled districts, and, in a state of full
cultural activity, only in the remotest confines
of the Great Western Desert of Central Aus-
tralia.

The legends and mythological tales of the
Australian are all orally transmitted. In most
tribes the spoken record is amplified by illus-
trative dance routines, ornaments, mnemonic
rock paintings and carvings, and caived cere-
monial objects of wood and stone. Stories of
fixed form may occur over wide areas and
may retain their principal elements, even when
they are related in languages that are now
distinct in structure and in word content.
This seems to imply they are based on themes
of considerable antiquity.

Elements of a stratification are evident, prob-
ably related to the historical sequences of
events which follow the early occupation of
Australia.

The stories range from the simple hunting
tales of the more primitive Southern people,
typified by the Tanganekald, through the
aetiological stories of the peoples of the
Darling River Basin to the complex totem
animal and totem plant myths of such people
as the Kukatja and Aranda of Central Aus-
tralia and of the people of the northern areas
of the continent.

The stratification of the forms of myths is
not simple, and survivals of older forms may
occur even in areas of the more advanced
cultures. Traces of the clashes that arose from
profound ethnic disturbances are seemingly
preserved in the oral literature of the Aus-
tralian Aborigines. They typify the endless
frictions that must have accompanied the
successive peoplings of the continent. The
patterns for the stories must have been cut
a very long time ago, but traces of the orig-
inal form seem evident even in the stories of
today.

Negrito versus Australoid stones are perhaps

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

best illustrated by tbe folk tales told in south-
ern Australia. The Tanganekald for example,
relate several stories of tbe Thaknni, tiny
people that lived long ago among the coastal
lagoons of the Robe district of South Aus-
tralia. The Thakuni were feared for their
staring eyes; one full glance from them could
kill a man. It was proper to look at them only
out of the corner of one's eye. They were
able to make themselves invisible, living in
mud huts hidden away on the remotest parts
of the swamp lagoons. Ancestors of the
Tanganekald combined to drive them away,
and in one of the stories finally succeeded
in pushing them into the sea where they be-
came metamorphosed into jagged limestone
boulders on the outer reef. In other stones
they became transmuted into the fairy pen-
guins (Eudyptuld) that nest in burrows on
small islands off the coast.

Similar stories, which may go back to days
of ethnic clash between successive waves of
Australoids, can be recognized in endless va-
riety among the inhabitants of the southern
and south central areas of Australia. The tale
of the struggle between Eagle and Crow is the
stock story of the "dual-moiety" peoples. As
told among the Barkindji of the Darling River
there is a clash of interests between an an-
cestral Eagle being (Kilpara) and the Crow
man Makwora. Kilpara was tall and fair
haired, Makwora was short, stout and dark
haired. '

Apart from the stories of possible cultural
and ethnic clash, the oldest story elements,
and also the simplest, seem to be represented
by the tales of hunting and of food-gathering
adventure. They seem to be most character-
istic of the coastal peoples of South, South-
west, and Southeast Australia, where they
are not overlaid by any heavy overburden of
more complex culture myth. The few Tas-
manian tales that have survived fall into this
class. The patterns of the tales are simple
and are kept alive by their intimate associa-

tions with the daily necessities of the food
quest and the seasonal struggle for existence.
These hunting stories reflect the narrow lives
of their participants, chained as they are to
the simple domestic activities that engross
the greater part of the day of hunting and
food-gathering peoples. To these simple ele-
ments are added the dramatic touches of sur-
prise of the individual storyteller, based on
either some half remembered cataclysm of
nature, or an eclipse, or a meteoric shower,
or some special food event of the past, such
as the gastionomic wealth provided by a
stranded whale. These talcs are garnished
with the petty mendacities that seem to be
shared by hunters and fishermen the world
over. The actors in these hunting and do-
mestic dramas are almost always everyday
human beings, or they behave like them.
"The great hunt at Jurutung" is typical. It
describes with a wealth of detail how kanga-
roos were driven onto a peninsula of land in
the Coorong lagoon in South Australia, pro-
viding a slaughter and a feast that was an
epicurean dream to a meat-loving and ever
meat-hungry people. The "Story of Prupe"
(Tindale 1938) is similar. It relates the can-
nibalistic behavior of an old woman, as an
unusual variant of everyday life, and intro-
duces a further element of the unusual in her
sudden and dramatic destruction.

Overlying these stories and widespread in
South Central Australia, the Darling Basin,
and part of South Western Australia are the
"man hero tales" merging into the "Eagle and
Crow" type of story transitional to the com-
plex animal and plant totemic stories of North
Central Australia.

The man hero beings of these tales are gen-
erally conceived to be of gigantic size and to
be capable of heroic feats impossible to pres-
ent-day man. They were in no way considered
god-like, nor were they the subject of any
form of worship, although an earlier genera-
tion of missionary scholars did seek to identify

AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE

elements of a deity among them. The Wati
Kutjara or the "Twin-men" of the Great
Western Desert were able to "make moun-
tains", to travel deep underground at will, to
throw boomerangs with great effect, often
cleaving mountain ranges and forming lakes
and lake beds where their weapons fell to
earth. Witness also the Jarildekald tribe's hero
Ngurunderi, who by a single spear thrust cut
the hundred mile long and 200 foot deep
gorge of the lower Murray River, and who,
when his truant wives were escaping across
the sea towards Kangaroo Island (in a
Ramindjeri story), transmuted them by a
gesture of the hand into two rocky islands off
Fleurieu Peninsula. Baiame, a heroic being
of the Bigambul and Kamilaroi tribes of
Northern New South Wales, was a man of
similar capabilities.

In one sense these heroic beings were the
"first comers" or "explorers" who "discovered"
the country, ventured into it, fought the
previous inhabitants, or braved its terrors; as
one Jarildekald narrator said of Ngurunderi,
"he made the country, prepared it for us so
we could live in it". Ngurunderi formed and
shaped the country for the Ramindjeri; he
placed a sand bar here suitable for seine net
fishing, a cockle beach there to provide women
with a food-gathering place, and a rock hole
elsewhere to give water to those that were
to follow him. Not all of these ancestral beings
were noted for their beneficent actions. Thus
Mulda flashed a great light across the sky, as
though he were pointing a magic "bone".
(This may have been an astronomical phe-
nomenon such as a comet or meteor.) Mulda
caused a pestilence like smallpox so that many
people died of the "sickness of Mulda"; he
beckoned to them with his "pointing bone"
and "the people had to die".

North of the areas dominated by the man-
hero tales are to be found the animal-totem
stories, typified by those of the Aranda of
Central Australia. These stories extend north-

ward almost to Cape York (McConnel, 1935-
1936) and northwestward to the Kimberleys.
In this great area human heroes are replaced
by animals (and even plants) with the at-
tributes of men. These animal beings are born,
grow up, wander over their tribal country,
fight, mate, live and die just like the present-
day human folk, who are their descendants.
In their full expression, these tales not only
embody all that is remembered of past events
but also serve as the vehicle by which newly
initiated youths learn the names and charac-
teristics of each place in their territory, to-
gether with the routes by which it is possible
to travel across the oft inhospitable plains
and mountains that form the country in which
they live. The stories recall by name each
water hole where the ancestral animal-being
drank, even the saline or bitter springs he
encountered, as he journeyed across the tribal
territory. The animal-being, in the course of
his adventures, killed other animals in certain
places; these places remain prolific in provid-
ing the same kind of animal for the human
descendants of the totem. Thus the rocky
mountain pile where the ancestral Kangaroo-
being with a heap of rocks formed an ambush
for euros (the rock-dwelling species of Kanga-
roo) will provide euros in the proper season
for the modern hunter. The stories have a
useful basis for the living and they provide
the geographical nomenclature of the country.
Thus Kulaia Kutjara, ("two emus") is the
place where two rocks remain at the site of
the ancestral killing of two emus. During the
1931 Anthropological Expedition to Mount
Liebig conducted by the University of Ade-
laide, an initiate Ngalia youth recited a list
of over 300 totemic places he had visited dur-
ing the previous year as part of his education
into the mysteries of his totemic story.

In Central Australia these stories and their
associated rites reach their most detailed ex-
pression. Possession of a totemic myth is there
essential to the life and wellbeing of every

AUSTRIAN LITERATURE

man, woman, and child. A woman never is
told the secrets of her myth, possession of it
is a prerogative of her male kinsfolk and her
husband. The responsibility of narrating the
stories, and the right to enact the "increase"
dances associated with their dramatic high-
lights, are the great motivating features of
aboriginal culture and the mainspring of all
native life, art, and music.

In ceitain places such as near the tip of
Cape York late cultuial elements seem to
have entered Australia, and myths of possible
Papuan origin make their appearance. The
degree of this Papuanization is a matter of dis-
pute. Still farther north in the Torres Straits
Islands the people, due to infiltration from
the Papuan littoral, bear but little physical
resemblance to their Australoid ancestors and
their mythology is foreign to that of the rest
of Australia (Hadclon, 1912).

E. H. Davics, 1932, Oceania, li, p. 454 ( Aborig-
inal Songs of Central and Southern Australia), F.

Fenner, 1941, Records of the South Australian
Museum (Adelaide), v. 7, A. C. Hadclon, 1912, Re-
port of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition
to Torres Straits, v. pp. 9-120 (Folk-tales), J.
Mathew, 1899, Eaglehawk and Crow (London);
U. H. McConncl, 1935, Oceania, vi, pp. 66-93
(Myths of the Wikmunkan); 1936, Oceania, vi, pp.
452-477, vii, pp. 69-105 (Totemic Hero Cults in
Cape York Peninsula, North Queensland); K. Lang-
loh Parker, 1897, Australian Legendary Tales (Lon-
don), W. Ramsay Smith, 1930, Myths and Legends
of the Australian Aboriginals (London); C. Streh-
low, 1907-1911, Die Aranda-und Loritja-Stamme in
Zentral Australian, v. I (Frankfurt-am-Main); My-
then, Sagen and Marchen des Aranda-Stammes in
Zentral Australian), N. B. Tmdalc, 1935, RecorctTof
the South Australian Museum, v, p. 261-274, (The
Legend of Waijungari, and the Phonetic system Em-
ployed in its Transcription); 1938, Trans. Royal
Society of South Australia, Ixii (Story of Prupe and
Koromarange); 1939, Records of the South Austral-
ian Museum, vi, pp. 243-261 (Eagle and Crow
Myths of the Maraura Tribe, Lower Darling River,
New South Wales); 1940, Trans. Royal Society of
South Australia, Ixiv (Map showing the distribution
of the Aboriginal tribes of Australia).

NORMAN B. TINDALE.

AUSTRIAN

AUSTRIAN literature has been regarded, in the
main, as an integral part of German litera-
ture. Still, although they are written in the
same language, they differ as human, as cul-
tural, as political expressions. Austrian litera-
ture may be said, like that of Switzerland, to
hold an intermediate position distinctly
linked to, distinctly separate from, that of
Germany.

Austria was an ancient monarchy, once a
part of the Holy Roman Empire, later ex-
tending more and more to the east of Europe;
during the iQth c. the only large supra-
national state on the continent. Then, be-
tween the two World Wars, a small republic
of German nationality, a mere fragment of

the old Austria. And then, a victim of
Hitler's "Reich."

Austria, though not in the political, is in
the linguistic sense German. Its autonomy is
not easily defined. Yet it exists. Identity of
written and spoken language does not mean
identity of inner language.

This Austria starts with the counter-
reformation, with the Barocpje period; its lit-
erature started soon after the political separa-
tion (1804) from the Holy Roman Empire.
The characteristics of this literature, as com-
pared with that of Germany, are: It is not
nationalistic, but mirroring the old monarchy
supranational, cosmopolitan, one of the
cross sections of Europe. Not philosophical,

AUSTRIAN LITERATURE

not Protestant, not abstractly ethical: Catholic
in the sense not of a faith but of a cultural
atmosphere, with Latin, Slavic, Jewish over- ,
tones; never excessively individualistic or
collectivist. It is the expression of a society
never separated from Europe. It might be
called the Mediterranean form of German
civilization.

Vienna and Prague constituted centers of
an autonomous Austrian literature. Both cities
open more toward the east and south and
west than to the north. Like Byzantium, or
Rome, or Paris, they have the gift of assimi-
lating and transforming. Their society is a
hierarchy. Among its permanent institutions
is a theatre. Its authors are not easygoing, but
often of sad if not heavy mood.

Since 1804, there have been two genera-
tions distinguished in Austrian literature. The
two most eminent representatives of the first
took up the tradition of Goethe, which, dur-
ing the solitary decades of his old age, had
not been followed in Germany; while here, in
Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872) and Adalbert
Stifter (1805-68), it was alive. They shared
Goethe's reverent concern for the conserva-
tion of human values; his attitude (in a
humanistic sense totalitarian) was theirs;
Grillparzer's in the historical vistas of his later
plays (Em Bruderzwist im Hause Habsburg,
Family Feud in Hapsburg; Libussa); Stifter 's
in the insights into the forming of the indi-
vidual, in his novels and stories (Der Nach-
sommer, Late Summer; Studien; Witiko).
Grillparzer summed up two centuries of Euro-
pean civilization: "From humanism through
nationalism to bestiality." Contemporary with
the work of these two men are the fairy and
folk plays of Ferdinand Raimund (1790
1836) and the brilliant, insolent farces of
Johann Nestroy (1802-62), both rooted in
the Viennese dialect. Contemporary, too, was
an Austrian form of the European Welt-
schmerz and melancholy, as in the lyric poetry
of Nikolaus Lenau (1802-50).

In the works of the generation born about
1870, Austria became fully conscious of itself.
Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), Richard
Beer-Hofmann (1866-1945), Hugo von Hof-
mannsthal (18741929), Leopold Andrian
(b. 1875), were all bred in a rich cultural
tradition. The plays and stories of Schnitzler
present only a part of his personality. They
are close to French literature, and show evi-
dence of deep human insight. The dramatic
poerrts of Bccr-Hofmann Qadkobs Traum,
Jacob's Dream-, Der junge David, Young
David^), fervent in their belief, are built on a
grand scale. The work of Andrian 's youth,
symptomatic of Europe at the century's end,
is akin to that of Holmannsthars. The latter's
poetry, while continuing the spirit of the
great Romantic, Novalis, and in its later stages
a renewal of the Baroque drama, is at the
same time the expression of an authentic
individuality (Gedichte, Poems; Der Tor und
der Tod } Death and the Fool; Das kleine
WeUtheater, Little Theatre of the World;
Andreas, Der Turm, The Tower). The con-
templative and descriptive prose of his essays
is among the most significant since Goethe.
Apart from and opposing these men was Karl
Kraus (1874-1936), eminent as a satirist and
probing critic of civilization, and in his use
of language. To a younger generation belongs
Georg Trakl, of Salzburg (1887-1914), a
strange and solitary dreamer (Gedichte) .

From Prague rose two figures widely signifi-
cant. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), a
lyrical poet of very high rank, unique and
strange in the continuity of his evolution, is
no less great in his prose than in his verse:
New Poems I, II; Die Aufzeichnungen
(Notebook) des Malte Laurids Brigge; Duin-
eser Elegien; Later Poems; Brief e (Letters).
The unfinished stories and novels of Franz
Kafka (18831924), with their peculiar in-
tensity of thought and vision, are eminent in
the development of modern fiction: Das
Schloss (The Castle); Der Prozess (The

BASQUE LITERATURE

Trial). After Rilke and Kafka came Franz L- Andrian, Osterreich in Prisma der Idee (Graz),

Werfel (1890-1945), writer of poems, novels, ^37; J. W. Nagl, J. Zeidler E. Castle, Deutsch-

^ y ;^;i 1 > > tisterreichische Literaturgeschichte, Bd. 3, 4 (Wien),

plays; passionate, humanitarian, hater or war I930j I937; G. Bianquis, La poesie autricUenne de

and wrong. Hofmanmthal a Rilke (Paris), 1926.

HERBERT STEINER.

AZERBAYJAN-See Turkish.
AZTEC-See Mexican.
BABYLONIAN-See Accadian; Canaanite.
BAKAKRI See South American Indian.
BAMBARA-See African.

BANKS ISLAND-See Polynesian.
BANTU-See African.
BARKINDJI-See Australian Aborigine.
BAS BRETON-See Breton.

BASQUE

WE ARE considering here not Basque litera-
ture in Spanish (Baroja, Salaberria, Una-
muno, etc.) or in French (P. Lhande and
others), but Basque literature in the Basque
language. In spite of the antiquity of the
Basque people, references to whom we find
even in the old Roman writers, the oldest
work we have is a scries of poems written by
a priest (Bernard Dechepare) in 1545. Before
that year we find only scattered material, like
glosses or incidental paragraphs in Spanish or
French books. After 1545 the production of
Basque literature increases, especially in the
hands of priests (Lei^arrague, Larramendi,
Cardaberaz, etc.) who translated or wrote
works of a religious character (the Bible,
catechisms, etc.). There are, however, some
profane works such as the proverbs of Ohie-
nart (1657) and others, but not until the
1 9th c. does Basque literature become inde-
pendent of the religious.

In 1802 we have the prose and poetry of
Moguel, as well as his translations from the
Roman classics; in 1826, the narration of

dances and the history of Gipuzkoa by Iztueta,
and the prose of the fantastic Chaho. In 1876
Mantcrola created for the first time a new
literary school in San Scbastidn, to be followed
by others in the different capitals of the
Basque country (Bayonne, Pamplona, Bilbao)
each with its own periodicals.

At the besinninp of the zoth c., thanks to

o o 7

the patriotic movement of Sabino Arana
Goiri, all the literary tendencies centered in
a patriotic literature which, together with a
strong popular government, gave birth to
Basque nationalism. After 1920 there has
been a real renaissance of all forms of Basque
literature (poetry: L. Jauregi, E. Urkiaga,
J. M. Agirre; novel: Barbier; drama: T.
Alzaga, A. Labayen; translators like J. Altuna
of Oscar Wilde, Larracoechea of Grimm, Arr-
gei of Heine) and above all patriotic litera-
ture with several important publications.

Outstanding material of folkloric value are
the popular tales and legends collected by
Azkue and Barbier. They show the vitality of
traditional and oral literature among the

BELGIAN LITERATURE

Basques and how they preserved it through-
out the centuries. It is easy to trace in them
the different influences (Celtic, Latin, Ro-
mance, etc.) that the Basque people have
undergone. After the destruction of Guernica
and the fall of Bilbao into General Franco's
hands (1937), the Basque Government, which
was the aim of all of these literary and polit-
ical movements, fled to France and afterwards
to America. Thus Basque literature has sur-
vived in periodicals published first in Paris
and after the occupation of France by Ger-
many, in Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, Argen-
tina, and to some extent in the United States
(Idaho). In the Basque country itself literary
production has been discontinued, due to the
Spanish government's proscription of all forms
of Basque literature. Some writers in exile,
however, have been able to produce works

in the best Basque literary tradition, which
show clearly the future tendencies of Basque
literature. These are T. Monzon's poems
Urrundik (From far away; Mexico, 1945)
written in popular form and even using popu-
lar Basque musical melodies; Yolanda, a novel
by J. A. Irazusta (Buenos Aires, 1945) and
the translation by I. Zaitegi of Longfellow's
Evangeline (Guatemala, 1945). Reflecting
the spirit of its staunch people, rich in local
tradition and love of the land, Basque has a
secure, if not a major, place among the litera-
ture of the world.

Del espintu de los Vascos (Bilbao), 1920;
Pinceladcu* vascas (^Buenos Aires), 1942, A. Allende
Sala/ar, EMiotcca del bascofilo (Madrid), 1887;
H. S. Dodgson, Some Notes on Baskish Books, Notes
and Queues ser. 9, v. 8, 1901.

JUAN MANUEL BILBAO.

BASUTO-See African.

BEDOUIN-See Arabic.

BELGIAN

FROM THE Middle Ages on, Belgium, then
part of the Lowlands, has had a bicephalous
literature: it was Dutch in the northern
provinces, French and to a certain extent
also Walloon in the southern part of the
country. When the French kings began to
centralize their administration and to expand
their possessions, the balance between the
wealthy, thickly populated but poorly pro-
tected Flemish cities and the dynamic French
state was upset. French influence made itself
felt also in the cultural field. At that time the
long pageant of Flemish authors who express
themselves in French begins. It leads from
Chastellain to Maeterlinck. It complicates the
picture of literature in Belgium, but it makes

evident the particular role that literature has
played as a cross-road of cultural influences
and reconciler of Gallic and Germanic in-
fluences, a melting pot of diverse tendencies.
LIsually economic conditions determine, to a
great extent, the progress or the regression of
a language: in modern times nationalistic feel-
ings have often succeeded even in defeating
the pressure of economic and political factors.
The story of Belgian literary expression,
therefore, is as interesting from the social
point of view as it is from the purely
aesthetic.

As the language of the He de France as-
serted its supremacy over the many French
dialects and finally became the French Ian

BELGIAN LITERATURE

guage, so the language spoken in West
Flanders and in Ghent was in the Middle
Ages the most elegant among the Dutch dia-
lects. Through force of circumstances it lost
that position in the 15111 c. to the Brabant-
Antwerp dialect, but when after the wars of
religion the southern Netherlands were sep-
arated and isolated from world economy by
the Dutch, the elegant tongue became the
dialect of the Holland province, a prominence
it thenceforth kept. But almost the entire
Dutch literature of the Middle Ages was
written in the Flemish provinces. It is inter-
esting and abundant: besides a number of
delightful ballads and love lyrics, many of
which still survive, as well as the highly
valued mystic writings of Jan van Ruusbroec,
and the probably not so orthodox poems of
Hadewych, there exist the usual variants of
the talcs of the knights. A good many of the
ancient writers, mostly poets, are highly didac-
tic and encyclopedic in their compositions.
The lyrical comments they made on con-
temporary events or fashions still have
stiength and value.

Three works stand out among an enormous
production: Reynard the Fox, Beatrijs and
Elckerlyc. All three are written on interna-
tional themes which have been treated in
practically every European country. Beatrijs
is a short poem on a theme that has been
recounted about 300 times from 1222 to our
days: the story of the vergeress who leaves
her convent to follow the call of her blood,
who fares ill with a fickle lover and who after
a sinful life returns to the convent to find
that the Virgin has hidden her shame by
taking her place. The Flemish version is by
far the purest, most human, and most beauti-
ful of all, ancient or modern. Together with
great literary beauty it gives a deep psycho-
logical insight into the heart of man. (The
Tale of Beatrice, New York, 1943), Reynard
the Fox gives voice to the people, to the
critical spirit. It glorifies the cunning of the

fox who has to depend on his wits to defend
himself against the powerful, the jealous, or
the prejudiced. He is not exactly a moralist;
in fact he is amoral, but he is faithful to his
brood and fights for them. Theory does not
embarrass him, functions do not impress him.
He makes fun of the nobility and of the
clergy alike, of the knights and of the stupid
worker. It is a sarcastic epic, as depressing in
its conclusions as the cynicisms of La Fon-
taine, but it is penetrated by such gallant lust
of life that the amorality of the hero is thereby
nearly obliterated. The third outstanding
work is the drama in verse Elchcrlyc or Every-
man. It may or may not be the oldest version
extant and therefore may precede the English
counterpart, but as it stands, it constitutes an
impressive presentation of the Christian ars
moriendi, enlivened by symbolic figures of
great presence and illustrative power. All
three of these masterly and anonymous works
of the i4th and i5th c. are still part of the
active literature of Dutch-speaking countries
today.

Among the didactic poets Jacob van
Maerlant (ca. 1235-?), Jan van Boendale
(ca. 1280-1365), and Jan de Weert should
be mentioned, the first being considered "the
father of all Dutch poets altogether." Besides
Elckerlyc, the plays of Lancelot and especially
Marleke of Nymwege are of significance.

Under the Burgundian dukes in the I5th c.,
literature, especially poetry, became mechan-
ized through all too clear-cut classifications:
poems had to be either pious, amorous, or
gay; they were to be in the ballad form with
envoi, etc. . . . Poetry spread out, but
by spreading lost depth. The pious ballads
were usually pedantic, the amorous often
coarse and vulgar, the gay trivial and obscene.

Every village, every township, had its
poetry society; the butcher and the baker as
well as the candlestick-maker were supposed
to produce their yearly dozen of ballads or
their drama or comedy in verse. Ever so

BELGIAN LITERATURE

often the representatives of the townships met
and competed for days in a kind of Sangerfest
or poetical Olympic games. Very little of that
writing had literary value. What exists still
of the Seven Joys of Mary (the First and the
Seventh) is good theatre: some of the comical
pieces have verve and a Rabelaisian power.
One of the poets who displays uncommon
acumen in his vision of social conditions and
who has some of Villon's macabre humor is
the Bruges city architect Anthonis de Roovere
0-1482).

The Dukes of Burgundy were French by
origin and language. They had taste and en-
couraged art and letters: the luxury and bril-
liance of their court attracted a number of
writers who found a tradition of French-
writing authors already in Belgium. In fact,
some of the oldest French texts had their
origin on Belgian territory: the famous
Cantilene d'Eulalie shows signs of Walloon
dialect and there is no doubt that Aucassin
and Nicolette was written in Hainaut. Real
writing of significance in French, however,
begins with the chroniclers: Froissart, Corn-
mines and Chastcllain, Colin de Hainaut
and Jean d'Outremeuse. They are to an un-
equal degree masters of French prose, al-
though Chastellain, e.g., rightly apologizes
for his sometimes inelegant French. The
poetry produced by the Burgundian poets in
French is not at all remarkable: it is weighed
down with symbols and literary artifices whose
subtle meanings escape us today.

The 1 6th c. was one of profound drama
in the spiritual and artistic life of the Low-
lands. Literature became a weapon for or
against the Church or for or against Reform.
The Reform produced a great number of
anonymous songs, glorifications of Protestant
martyrs, satires of the Roman hierarchy and
of Roman dogmas, some of great literary qual-
ity. The champion of orthodoxy was Anna
Bijns (1494-1575), a virile poetess who for
many years attacked Lutheranism and the so-

cial upheaval created by the Reformation in
the most masculine and eloquent language.
Seldom has a faith been defended with such
vigor; she excused the weakness of the Cath-
olic clergy as all too human, chaffed about
the wordly troubles into which the nuns and
monks who had left their orders fell, and
stated the Catholic position with perfect
orthodoxy. Her work contains also some
charming love lyrics, besides a number of
religious poems which are purely verbal
acrobatics of doubtful taste. An ironist of de-
lightful humor was her fellow citizen Cornelis
Crul 0-1551).

When the religious conflict had assumed a
political aspect, the Refoimation found a
bilingual defender in one of William the
Silent's counselors and aids, Philip Marnix
van Sinte Aldegonde. Marnix was a poet of
distinction and a good linguist. Against Rome
he wrote a voluminous and frankly venomous
book: the Beehive of the Roman Faith. The
attack is fierce, coarse, and trenchant. With
a vigor at least equal to that used by Luther,
Marnix denounces the Church. He uses a
Rabelaisian vocabulary; his images are strik-
ing; his wit, although not always of the best
vintage, irresistible. In the literature of the
Reformation scarcely any other book received
more attention and had more convincing
power. There was a Dutch as well as a French
version of the book; translations appeared in
English, in German, and in Latin.

Among the French authors, Jehan Lemaire
de Beiges (1473-?) was recognized as a fore-
runner of the Renaissance; among the Flem-
ish writers, Jan van der Noot (1539 or 1540-
ca. 95) played the same role. Both had more
talent than real genius.

During the i7th and the i8th c., the Bel-
gian provinces were economically cut off from
Europe, unable to regain their former pros-
perity. Intellectual life was nearly at a stand-
still and that which did subsist was not very
original. A fluent poet like Michiel de Swaen

BELGIAN LITERATURE

(1654-1707) was an epigone of the Great
Vondel. The revival of the Walloon dialect
in the mid i7th c. produced charming poetry
of but limited importance, as was also the
work of the French writers of the Academic
de Flemalle. Flanders was flooded with the
picturesque writings of apologetic humorists
like Adriaan Poirters (1605-74), of coarse
descriptions of morals like the comedies of
Willem Ogier (1618-89), who wrote a play
on each of the cardinal sins.

In the 1 8th c., Hainaut gave birth to a
French writer of eminence, the Prince de
Ligne (1735-1814), a man of the world, a
soldier in many parts, a diplomat, and a
mellow cynic. I le is sometimes more Voltairian
than Voltaire, wrote exquisite French, and
became wise through experience. His
Memoirs are a prodigious panorama of Euro-
pean society on the verge of collapse and after
the catastrophe. On his deathbed, during the
Congress of Vienna, he asked himself: "What
could I offer them in the way of amusement
that they haven't had? The funeral of a
Marshal?" There is not much that denotes his
origins in this author of cosmopolitan taste
and swaying loyalties. His reputation, like
his ambition, was at all times European.

From the standpoint of literature, there is
little to say about the publications in Belgium
in the i8th c. and during the Napoleonic
era: much scholarly work was done; foreign
authors were gracefully imitated; here and
there a minor talent blossomed, but there was
in fact no literary life of any importance:
somehow the soul of the country seemed in
bondage.

With the birth of Belgium as an inde-
pendent nation in 1830, literature in the
country had its first chance in two hundred
years to express the national characteristics.
It labored, however, under a handicap which
is inherent in its particular situation: the
authors who wrote French belonged morally
and intellectually to the orbit of French let-

ters, while the Flemish authors had to fight
for recognition in the field of Dutch letters.
For both groups provincialism was the main
danger, the more so since social conditions in
Belgium had not kept pace for two centuries
with the progressive ideas of France nor with
the -stolid bourgeois civilization of Holland.
The first manifestations of a national Bel-
gian literature produced a rather paradoxical
spectacle: two French-writing poets expressed
the current Weltschmerz as well as the patri-
otic spirit. Both were of Dutch origin, Andre*
van Hasselt (1806-74) and Theodore Weu-
stenraad (1805-49). They were influenced
by Lamartine and the other French romantics
and wrote charming, melodious verse. The
Flemings were luckier; they had from the
beginning a novelist of talent to express their
longing for greatness in a centralizing state
that neglected their mother tongue. Hendrik
Conscience (1812-83), an Antwerp school-
teacher whose father was a French immigrant
from the Napoleonic period, published an
historical novel, The Lion of Flanders, which
besides possessing definite literary qualities,
especially in the picturization of mass move-
ments and battle scenes, gave them a tre-
mendous inspiration. It exalted in the Walter
Scott tradition the great deeds of Flanders in
the heroic past and it became the bible of
the national renaissance of Flanders. Con-
science was a born storyteller who published
more than a hundred volumes, in which he
wrote of country life in the idyllic manner,
and with a kind of afflicted scepticism about
existence in big towns. Although social prob-
lems did not escape his attention, he never
was either an accuser or a revolutionist. By
nature he was essentially peaceful. He was
never a stylist or even a purist, but the poor
linguistic qualities of his writings are over-
shadowed by the warmth and the sympathy
with which he tells his always enchanting
and simple tales. He was extremely popular
both in Belgium and abroad. Translations of

BELGIAN LITERATURE

practically all of his works exist in every
European language, and in Flemish letters he
may be considered as a Dickens devoid of
humor.

The brothers Renier (1812-80) and
August Snieders (1825-1904) followed in
his wake, as did Mrs. ]. D. Courtmans (181 i-
90). They adopted his philosophy of life,
which was one of optimistic realism. In the
same vein, Anton Bergmann (1835-74)
wrote a charming book of pleasant memoirs,
Ernest Staas, which is still a Flemish classic.
Among those who insisted on a more realistic,
i.e., pessimistic view of life, were E. Zetter-
nam (182655), whose brief career was de-
voted to the portrayal of social miseries, and
Virginie Lovcling (1836-1923), who in a
great number of novels wrote movingly and
accurately of provincial life without idyllic
fringes. Poets like Julius dc Geyter (1830-
1905) and Julius Vuijlsteke (1836-1903) de-
veloped identical themes. Jan van Beers
(1827-88) did so too, but with a distressing
sentimentality. Karel Ledeganck (1805-47)
was a purely romantic poet of the Lamartine
school.

Strangely enough, Flemish writing became
world-conscious through the strongly nation-
alistic poetry of Albrecht Rodenbach (1856-
80), a cousin of the French author Georges
Rodenbach. He applied to the historical
themes of Flemish medieval history a com-
bination of Schillerian pathos and Greek
classicism that inspired the youth of the col-
leges and that possesses real power of evoca-
tion. His significance is political as well as
literary, although in his very brief existence
he never dealt with politics. His drama,
Gudrun, has great lyrical qualities.

The one poet of genius Flemish literature
can point to in the i9th c. is Guido Gezelle
(1830-99). He combined a miraculous gift
for melody and music-in-words with a purely
medieval mystic conception of life. Untouched
by modern discontent with the world, he re-

mained as purely Gothic as the Flemish primi-
tive painters. The world to Gezelle is an
harmonious whole, inhabited by millions of
symbols which point to the Creator: he
depicts and interprets the fauna and flora of
Flanders, he exults on the occasion of the
church feasts. He is deeply and simply re-
ligious; life to him is seldom if ever a drama.
He liberated Flemish prosody from pedantry
and academicism by writing in a spontaneous,
versatile, and always natural rhythm that put
the classicists of his time to shame. An ex-
cellent linguist, he translated Longfellow's
Hiawatha with grace and fidelity. Recogni-
tion of his great talent came rather late.
Ideologically his poetry asserted few ideas; it
implied, however, a thoroughly Christian
conception of life in which submission to
God's will was a sound antidote for aggres-
siveness in the social domain. There exist
good English translations of some of his best
poems, although the substance and form of
his poetry is usually so well interwoven that
justice cannot be done to it in another lan-
guage.

In the latter part of the i9th c. Flemish
authors reacted energetically against provin-
cialism. Pol de Mont (1857-1931), a figure
of transition, was the first to do so in several
volumes of poetry, influenced by the French
symbolists. I le introduced into Flemish let-
ters a note of sensuous and erotic Epicurean-
ism that was entirely new. He preceded the
movement for the liberation of Flemish let-
ters undertaken by the writers of the review,
Van NU en Straks, (1893).

About 1 88 1 the French authors of Belgium
had been moved by the aims of Max Waller,
and had rallied round a review called La Jeune
Belgique; they reacted against the conserva-
tism, the stuffiness, and the lack of universal-
ity that were apparent in the fortunately for-
gotten local lights that were then officially
enthroned. Among the living they spared only
Octave Pirmez (1832-83), a talented philoso-

BELGIAN LITERATURE

pher of great distinction and, to a certain de-
gree, of originality. Another exception in
their auto-da-f 6 was Charles de Coster ( 1 827-
1879) who, although basing his great work,
Ulenspiegl, (1867; American trans., Pantheon
Books, N. Y., 1943) on purely local charac-
teristics, on linguistic acrobatics and on his-
tory and folklore, succeeded in writing a book
that still has international significance. It
pictures the fight of the Lowlands against the
Spanish domination, Flanders being sym-
bolized by a joyous knave, the traditional Tyl
Owlglass. It is a ribald tale permeated by the
spirit of liberty, the will to defeat bigotry
in any form. It takes great liberties with his-
tory, is fierce in its rather primitive anti-
clericalism, but it has all the qualities of the
wood engravings that illustrate the in-
cunabula or the pamphlets of the i6th c. It
stands alone in the rather drab literary scenery
of French letters in Belgium between 1830
and 1881.

La Jeune Belgique, as well as the Van Nu
en Straks movement, wanted the Belgian
authors to write not with an eye on local
success, which could always be easily achieved
by insisting on the colorful folklore and syn-
tactical peculiarities of their countrymen.
They wanted also to free them from conven-
tions that were, in conservative Belgium at
least, as strong as those that greeted Baude-
laire's frank poems. Both movements suc-
ceeded very well, thanks to the fact that
writers of real dimension understood the ne-
cessity for such a reform and dared to impose
it on their countrymen. The shock was
slightly heavier in Flemish letters than in
French letters in Belgium, because the at-
mosphere in Flanders was even more behind
the times.

Camille Lemonnier (1844-1913) intro-
duced the Belgians to naturalism, which in
some of his novels leads even to a sensuous
pantheism. He was a "populist" without
knowing it, but his writing often suffers from

a baroque style and a heavily loaded vocabu-
lary. His passion for nature in its physical
aspect, his tempestuous lust for life, were an
inspiration and a guidance for many young
writers. Another naturalist of less stylistic
power, Georges Eekhoud (1854-1927), de-
voted most of his work to a pessimistic pic-
ture of the ravages that rapid industrialization
had made in Flanders; his short stones and
novels about the peasantry of the Kempen
region constitute a rogues' gallery which, how-
ever colorful, is not always convincing (L
Nonvdle Carthage, 1893; Kees Doorik, 1883).

Eugene Demolder (1862-1911) and
Georges Rodenbach (1855-98) sought refuge,
the first in charming evocations of a pink-
tinted past, the second in a combination of
neuiotics and medieval accessories which re-
sulted in a well known novel, Bruges La
Morte (1892). This is a remarkable attempt
to represent the heroes of a tale as completely
dominated by the atmosphere of a quaint,
lovely 1 5th c. town, but it is purely arbitrary
and smells of the literary workshop.

The two writers of international signifi-
cance who came to the fore at the end of the
1 9th c. were French authors of Flemish
origin: Maurice Maeterlinck (b. 1862) and
Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916). Both had the
advantages of intellectual freedom and frank-
ness; both used abundantly the local motifs
of the past and present, but in such a way as
to decant their universal value. Maeterlinck
undoubtedly brought new elements to mod-
ern poetry: Serres Chaudes (1889) bypassed
symbolism in a subtle and extremely personal
way and introduced poetry into regions not
yet trodden. His dramatic works, as well as
his philosophical essays, have somewhat ob-
scured his importance as a poet, which is con-
siderable in itself and capital in the history
of poetical sensibility. Fame definitely came
to him, and deservedly, when he published
La Princesse Maleine (1890), Pelleas et
Melisande (1892), and L'Oiseau Bleu

8 7

BELGIAN LITERATURE

(1909). Fatality as harsh as the Greek Ate
leads man to love or death. In the brooding
atmosphere of old castles the essential
happenings of life almost all take on an ill-
boding significance: the actors and their ges-
tures are unreal; reality is elsewhere and
what we do and say is but sham and echo.
Maeterlinck's influence on modern drama has
been world-wide. The solemn melancholy of
his characters is the expression of the poetical
mysticism that pervades all his essays on nat-
ural history, of which he always was an ardent
student and a very eloquent interpreter.

Verhaeren's function was entirely different.
To French poetry he brought a truly Ger-
manic excessiveness, violence, abruptness. He
sang his country's past in what to the French
reader sounded like savage rhythms. They
were, however, perfectly suited to the things
he had to say: the barbaric splendor, the
hubris of the Burgundian dukes, the clash of
arms or the thundering noises of the modern
machines. For like Whitman, he had become
the poet of modernity, the bard of the rail-
roads and the dynamos, of the steel ovens
and the coal mines. He felt the great city, not
as a cultural or civic center, but sitting like
an octopus on the land, grasping the country
yokels and sucking them into the drabness of
the steel and cotton mills. He was eloquent
and brutal, sonorous and convincing. The
unpleasant beauty of modern industrial so-
ciety and its workers was splendidly, some-
times inhumanly, sung by him. A drama in
verse, Le Cloitre, deals with a psychological
problem, and in the later part of his life he
wrote quiet verse of married bliss which has
a warm intimacy of tone. His fame, once
universal, has somewhat faded, although it is
solidly founded.

Maeterlinck had had a precursor in Charles
Van Lerberghe (18611907), who wrote a
short play, Les Fkireurs (1889), which con-
tains the themes of terror, agony, and destruc-
tion familiar in Maeterlinck's plays. His real

significance, however, lies in his long sym-
bolic poem, Chanson d'Bve (1907), which
tells of "that divine childhood of the first
woman" in pastel tones and subtle rhythms.
So harmonious is her soul with nature that
the original "fall" becomes a mere slip or
stumble.

With these three important writers and
some lesser figures like Gr6goire Le Roy,
Georges Virres, Hubert Krains, and Edmond
Glcsener, Belgian literature in French be-
came entirely mature and independent of
narrow moral censorship. It had proved its
national character as well as its universal
human value.

The Flemish writers grouped around Van
Nu en Straks relied for their artistic credo
and for their philosophical basis on the guid-
ance of August Vermeylcn (1872-1944). He
was a truly European mind, bent on getting
Flanders "out of the ruts of the heavy,
homely clay." A severe and inspiring critic,
his leadership was undisputed: he asserted
himself not only through vigorously written
essays, but especially through a philosophical
novel, The Wandering Jew, in which he dis-
played great stylistic gifts and a brave and
noble thought.

The group under his able leadership de-
veloped along two parallel lines: a number of
talented young writers portrayed the Flemish
countryside and its inhabitants with no less
enthusiasm than their predecessors, but with-
out the complacent provincialism that had
limited these men. They were strongly influ-
enced by the impressionist school of painting
and devoted much time and energy to the
scenery and the climate. The inescapable in-
fluence of the environment upon man was
one of their favorite themes. On the other
hand, another group renounced entirely the
rural amenities and wanted to achieve uni-
versality through the portrayal of city life and
the study of the psychological motives of
man's conduct.

BELGIAN LITERATURE

Stijn Streuvcls (Frank Lateur, b. 1871), a
nephew of Guido Gezelle, was the outstand-
ing talent in the first group. In his books
nature absorbs man and reduces him to a
minor role, as is the case with the small
human figures in the first landscapes of the
1 6th c. His psychology appears rather simple,
but he writes with loving lyricism about na-
ture in every detail. His great novel, De
Vlawhaard (The Flax Field, 1907), is an
impressive fresco of the Flemish earth and of
the primitive passions of the peasant. Werk-
wenschen (Working People, 1927) has truly
epic qualities which make Streuvels akin to
the great Russian and Scandinavian novelists.
In his later works he broadened his mental
horizon, studying human nature more care-
fully and with success.

Cyriel Buysse (1859-1932), with far less
stylistic gifts, but a natural storyteller, gave a
picture of Flemish peasant life that was accu-
rate and not too enthusiastic. His novels are
a chronicle of the rapid evolution in rural
Flanders in the last fifty years. Maeterlinck
used to count him "among the three or four
great rural raconteurs of the last fifty years."
He knows how to tell an anecdote, but he
is devoid of the cosmic force that inspires
Streuvels. His most typical book is Het
Ezelken (The Donkey, 1914); his best, un-
doubtedly Tantes (Annties, 1930).

Those authors whom conservative public
opinion for quite some time considered "city
slickers" and "scoffers," pointed with pride to
the most worldly talent in their midst the
versatile, often precious, often irritating, but
always provocative Herman Teirlinck (b.
1879). His novel, Het Ivoren Aapje (The
Ivory Monkey^), demonstrates his great talent
for analysis and psychology, his elegant lyri-
cism, his penetrating wit. It shows also his
shallow sentimentality and triviality, but it
is definitely metropolitan and worldly wise.
He achieved real mastery in a novel of the
1 8th c., Mijnheer Serjanszoon, the story of a

wig-wearing connoisseur of gracious living,
professing a philosophy of Epicurean grace.
It is a perfectly written book that stands out
in Dutch letters, and none of his other novels
ever attained its perfection. Later 011 he turned
to drama: his influence in that field was rev-
olutionary and decisive.

Another stylist of accomplishment was F.
Toussaint van Boclaere (b. 1875), who writes
as if from a distance on familiar rural topics,
but who treats his subjects with a kind of
intellectual detachment. Landelijk Minnespel
is among his best short novels; Turren and
Jeugd are other proofs of his talent. Maurits
Sabbe (1873-1938) wrote gracefully of old
Bruges in a philosophical, unpretentious way.
Lode Baekelmans (b. 1879) devoted his nov-
els to the melancholy atmosphere of the
Antwerp harbor and to the shallow lives of
the local petty bourgeoisie.

The writers of the Van Nu en Straks group
insisted constantly on the right to individual
expression; they rebuked every kind of con
formity; and individualism, frankness, artistic
liberty were their slogans. No one among
them illustrated their theories better than
Karel van de Woestijnc (1878-1929). If he
had used a universal language, he would
have been recognized as the greatest lyric poet
of his time. I le spoke only about himself, a
tortured man constantly wavering between
mind and matter. Extremely sensuous, he ex-
pressed the age-old conflict in many volumes
of poetry which constituted a dramatic auto-
biography (llet Vaderlmis, 1903; De Gulden
Schaduw, De Modderen Man, 1920; God aan
Zee, 1926; llet Bergmeer, 1928, etc.). He had
a Gothic heart in a Renaissance body; the
pious simplicity of Gezelle was foreign to
him; everything in the world and in himself
tormented him and was a problem. Brilliantly
intelligent, very well read and hypersensitive,
no one ever felt the tellurian urge with more
strength and at the same time with more
objections. Many poets had spoken of woman

8 9

BELGIAN LITERATURE

in Flanders, either as the symbol of mother-
hood or as the image of sweet loveliness. He
spoke of the eternal feminine, of its mystery
and its menace, but with such a directness
and warmth that comparisons in modern liter-
ature are difficult to make: if one could com-
bine the burning heat of the mystics like St.
Juan de la Cruz with the sensualism of Ver-
laine, that would approach van de Woestijne's
permanent atmosphere. In his later life his
verse became increasingly religious and ended
in a mixture of self-castigation and mysticism.
Since the Middle Ages no greater poet has
lived in Flanders, and his influence on Dutch
letters has been considerable. An exponent of
modern baroque poetry, he dominated for a
long time the poets of the first pre-war period
and he still continues to cast his spell. Poets
like Firmin van Hecke (b. 1884) and August
van Cauwelaert (1885-1945) followed in his
wake, slowly developing a personal tone. Jan
van Nijlen (b. 1884), who owes nothing to
the great master, is as he was a perfect hu-
manist, looking at the world with deep sym-
pathy, a touch of melancholy, but so con-
tained that he never gestures wildly or shouts.
He is as harmonious in his verse as the French
poets of the Pleiadc who candidly chanted
the small but multiple pleasures of life.

Rene de Clercq (1877-1932) was the first
to use social elements in poetry. Later he be-
came a political poet. His verse was dramatic
and prosodically excellent.

On the eve of the first World War Flemish
letters were in full bloom: the traditional
complacent depictors of life in the country
as one sees it on the covers of seed catalogues
and almanacs went on saying that every idio-
syncrasy of every Flemish peasant was of
world importance; a powerful group of inter-
nationally minded authors, although using the
same raw material, raised it to a higher level;
a small group of modernists drew attention
to the social and sentimental consequences of
life in the city; and a few sophisticated writ-

ers-Andre de Ridder (b. 1888), P. G. van
Hecke (1887-1933), Gust van Roosbroeck
(1888-1937) and others tried to introduce
a conservative public to the intricacies of ex-
istence in night clubs and among the demi-
monde. These attempts remained rather
clumsy.

Under the shadow of Maeterlinck and
Vcrhaeren a number of French-writing au-
thors had come to the fore. The most signifi-
cant of them were poets: Iwan Gilkin (1858-
1925), who wrote in very different moods.
He was influenced by Baudelaire. He sang
coarsely of the city and her horrors and spleen
and all of a sudden published a volume of
poetical miniatures. Albert Giraud (1860-
1929) is certainly the most French of the
group, the purest Latin. His verse is nervous,
sonorous, often magnificent. He is essentially
and spontaneously an artist and his rejection
of the bourgeois world is complete. His nat-
ural abode is the ivory tower; his alibi, the
Parnassian doctrines. Valere Gille (b. 1867)
is the third ot the Parnassians, spiritually well
balanced, evolving more and more toward a
Hellenic quietism, which lends great charm
to his fluent verse.

The poetry of Albert Mockel (b. 1866) is
essentially musical and symbolic. He applies
with scholarly precision a formula which
tends to transform poetry into music. Ihs
prosody is extremely refined and studied,
subtle and precise. His philosophical poem,
La Flamme Immortelle, has great beauty and
penetration: arid thought never hampers the
aerial flight of fantasy and inspiration.

Although Fcrnand Severin (1867-1931)
belonged to the jenne Belgique group, he
stayed aloof from the symbolists and from
Baudelaire; his inspiration was derived from
the early romantic French poets and from
1 9th c. English poetry. He is a pastoral lyri-
cist, very close to nature. From the panthe-
istic exuberance that permeates the Chanson
d'iLve, by van Lerberghe, whose lifelong inti-

BELGIAN LITERATURE

mate friend he was, to the spiritualism of his
later years, it is a long way, but the evolution
is logical. The landscape is always there but
it becomes less and less real, more and more
poetical, acquiring the fine quality of the
typical Walloon scenery. His poems are trans-
parent and fluid, classical in the best meaning
of that word.

A symbolist of peculiar character was Max
Elskamp (1862-1931). In almost infantile
rhymes he tells of the joys and sorrows of the
small Antwerp people. His poems sound like
the tinkling of the arias on a slightly dam-
aged music box: indeed, grammar and vocab-
ulary suffer from time to time. They arc
unique and have a charm definitely their
own, although their artistic value may be
overestimated. He is a poet's poet, akin to
Mallarmc. However, one often has the im--
pression that the cave of mysteries he suggests
may, after all, be empty. To the generation of
poets of the 1920-1930 era, he was the mas-
ter. Most of his poems appeared in Louange.
de la Vie (1898). Of his later works, only
La Chanson de la Rue Sf. Paul (1922) added
to his stature.

The first World War created a spiritual up-
heaval in Belgium which found its expression
in literature even before liberation came.
Morally, the youth were uprooted and per-
turbed: they felt obscurely that victory was
being lost and that their elders, who before
the war had ensconced themselves in petty
individualism and sensualism, should be dis-
carded. They looked for guidance to writers
like Romains, Holland, Vildrac, while the
Flemish underwent the influence of German
expressionism, of Werfel, of Rilke, and of the
Frenchmen Claudel and Bloy. They revolted
against every tradition, against classical pros-
ody as well as the ideological heritage of the
symbolists. The former generation had en-
tirely neglected the social and political aspects
of life: they would integrate them into poetry.
The poet was no longer to contemplate his

navel. His object was the universe, his task
that not of an entertainer but of a judge, a
moralist, a high priest of humanity. Verse
became free to the point of anarchy; grammar
and syntax were subjected to acrobatics often
as painful to the eye as fo the mind of the
reader. These experiments coincide with what
happened in other countries. However exas-
perating they might have been, some good
finally resulted from them.

The opposition against individualistic liter-
ature was more marked in Flemish letters
than among the French-writing authors. It
had been heralded in 1916 by Paul van
Ostayen (1896-1928) in a volume called
Music Hall. This was influenced by the light
verse of the young Viennese poets, but in Het
Sienjaal (1918), the poet, adopting a free
meter, proclaimed his interest in political and
social problems and became a seer, a prophet
of a new world. Anti-platonic to the extreme,
he wanted the poet to be the spokesman of
the community: the result was in fact far
more political than poetical, and the poet
barely escaped a jail sentence. In Bezette Stad
(1921), he switched to dadaism with some
picturesque effects, and finally reached the
serene regions of pure poetry. In this last vein
he achieved extremely refined musical con-
struction (Het Eerste Boek van Schmoll,
1929). His experiments, his wild renuncia-
tions which drove his followers at a harrowing
pace, were an amusing spectacle. To Flemish
poetry he brought a refreshing impertinence
and alertness, and whatever he wrote was a
strong antidote against romanticism and pa-
thos. His influence on Dutch letters, in Flan-
ders as well as in Holland, was considerable
and his peccadilloes of poor taste and hasty
judgment were easily forgotten when his real
merits were put in the balance. His fellow
travelers were grouped around the monthly
Ruimte: Achille Mussche (b. 1896), Wies
Moens (b. 1898), Paul Verbruggen (b.
1891), Victor J. Brunclair (1899-1944),

BELGIAN LITERATURE

Marnix Gijsen (b. 1899). Moens' poems were
a mixture of the Bible and Tagore, solemn,
harmonious, noble, humanitarian. De Blood-
schaf) and De Tocht had a political and social,
as well as a poetical, appeal. Their popularity
was at one time very great. Verbruggen on
the contrary was a Mozartian dreamer, re-
fined and delicate, in whose verse the social
element played a minor role. Brunclair fol-
lowed closely, and with consistent talent, van
Ostayen's always changing credos. Mussche
was a social revolutionist, clamoring his dis-
gust, despair, and hopes in psalms of joy and
wrath. Of Marnix Gijsen (J, A. Goris), the
perspective of years lets me say that he started
out as a gesticulating, baroque expressionist
but that he quieted down and tried to create
a modernistic classicism. Jan Greshoff, the
Dutch poet, states that he "humanized the
modernism of Ruimte and modernized the
humanism of Het Fonteintje" Het Huis
(1925) contains most of his poems. His criti-
cal essays on poetry have been grouped in
two volumes, Peripatetisch Onderricht. These
young modernists were joined by a transfuge
of the older generation, the baroque poet
Karel van den Oever (1879-1926), who
caught the spirit of the time and wrote im-
pressive expressionist verse.

The standpoint of classical form and bal-
ance of mind was eloquently defended by the
review, Het Fonteintje: the poets of this group
were Maurice Roelants (b. 1895), Raymond
Herreman (b, 1896), Karel Leroux (b. 1895),
Richard Minne (b. 1891), with Urbain van
de Voorde (b. 1893) in their wake. Their
program was far less ambitious than that of
their colleagues. They contended that poetry
should have little to do with the ethico-social
problems of the day and that it must be above
all a confession. They were playful of mind
and expressed themselves with an easy grace,
achieving thus a goal that the neo-humani-
tarian poets, their opponents, all too often
missed or overshot. "They were far more

genuine, warmer, and more purely human in
fact."

Roelants and Leroux wrote melancholy, in-
trospective verse, intimate poetry of distinc-
tion. Herreman, an abundant poet and critic,
developed stoic serenity. Instead of being hu-
manitarian, he was simply human, adding
light ironical touches to his undertones of
sadness and resignation. Richard Minne was
the most personal of the group. Self-irony and
bitterness mix with sweetness and sympathy.
He is an altogether compelling personality,
although one may regret at times that he
willingly destroys the atmosphere of a poem
in -order to upset the reader or to vent a
cynicism that certainly conceals an unrest and
an unspoken tenderness. Urbain van de
Voorde writes philosophical sonnets about
cosmic discontent in a noble, solemn language.

The French authors were perhaps less vio-
lent in their revolt against tradition: free
verse was not new to them, and several of the
"isms" that fired the Flemish poets they had
already tried out. The poets that came back
from the war brought new themes: Maurice
Gauchez (b. 1884), Les Rafales; Lucien
Christophe (b. 1891), Le Filler d'Airaln.
Others sought to renew poetical inspiration
through a change of setting, but they avoided
the pitfall of bizarre exotism and consistently
kept "human values in the foreground." The
most brilliant was Marcel Thiry (b. 1897),
an original mind obsessed by adventure. He
interprets well the aspects of modern business
and trade and the drama of man, lost and
powerless among these anonymous forces in
La Mer de la Tranquillite. Thiry harmonizes
the elements of the conservative and the revo-
lutionary school.

In 1 93 1 the Journal des Poetes, led by P. L.
Flouquet and P. Bourgeois, gave impulse to
Belgian poetry. It became more diverse and
vivid, the differences were spanned, and there
was place for every manner of expression.
Georges Linze, Constant Horion, Armand

BELGIAN LITERATURE

Bernier, Maurice Quoilin, Robert Vivier,
Henri Dubois, Gaston Pulings, Robert
Guiette, are all poets with personal character
and distinct poetical features. Roger Bodart,
Auguste Marin, Maurice Careme, and Jules
Minne are among those that believe that
poetry should address itself not only to the
inner circle but to the masses. Jos6 Gers, Ren6
Verboom, Paul Vanderborght and Leon
Kochnitzky deserve not only mention but
praise.

The death of two gifted poets was a severe
blow to Belgian poetry: Odilon-Jean Perier
(1900-28) was a poet of exquisite grace and
sensibility; his verse is fresh and wise with a
Mozartian fluidity. Eric de Haulleville (1900-
41) was a disconcerting but charming fan-
tasist, playful and ironical, who died before he
had fully expressed himself.

When the oppositions between groups had
subsided and no more anathemas rested on
any style or artistic concept, attention was
diverted from poetry to the novel. In Flan-
ders, Felix Timmermans (b. 1886), an excel-
lent storyteller, a moderately sensuous opti-
mist, had acquired great popularity. It started
when he published in 1917 a loosely com-
posed book, Pallieter: a paean to life, describ-
ing the idyllic existence of a literary idler in
a paradisiac environment in Flanders. The
hero of this book enjoys mystic poetry as well
as fresh cranberries, the lyric poems of Gezelle
as well as pigs' feet and early rain in his
garden. By right he ought to be a pagan; he
prefers to be a sensual Christian with occa-
sional weaknesses. Pallieter was published at
a time when the occupation was starving the
Belgians. It sounded like a message from
Eden. It reminded them so well of the cornu-
copias of Jordaens and Rubens that they took
the book to their hearts. Timmermans' further
works were more or less decorative: he used
and abused the elements of the Flemish
primitives and of Breugel to garnish the
meager plots of his novels. In details he has

an extraordinary power of suggestion: the
world exists for him and he wants to enjoy it.
Among his most perfect and typical writings
is ]uffrouw Symfor&za, a plain, touching, deli-
cate tale. In 1937 he wrote a surprisingly good
book, B&erenpsalm, that celebrates Flemish
peasantry with the power of Breugel. He was
the chief exponent of the school of compla-
cency, at ease in its comfortable limitations
and unaware of problems of any kind. Among
authors who exploited the same vein with
popular success were Ernest Claes (b. 1885),
Anton Thiry (b. 1888), Jozef Simons (b.
1888).

Strong reaction against this kind of writing,
which represented Flanders as a permanent
carnival of sentimental half-wits and pictur-
esque yokels, was voiced by one of the older
novelists, Willem Elsschot (b. 1882), and by
three younger men, Maurice Roelants, Gerard
Walschap (b. 1898), and Lode Zielens (1901-
44). They had discovered that man's real
object of study is man himself. Elsschot is a
novelist of merciless humor and great moral
courage, believing only sarcasm can defend
man against his fellow men, and above all
against his own emotions. He writes about
average people, about their dreams of great-
ness, their frustrations and petty miseries.
His hero is a protean Milquetoast, defenseless
in a harsh world, constantly falling back upon
the devotion of his family. The decor of life,
the climate, has little or no importance; what
counts is the sad and vulnerable heart of
man. His best novels are Villa des Roses,
Lijmen, Tsjip en de Leeuwentemmer. As a
poet he wrote few but extremely powerful
verses on the same themes, Verzen van
Vroeger.

The novels of Maurice Roelants go back to
the great tradition of Benjamin Constant's
Adolphe and of other keen analysts of the
human soul. Little happens in them no dra-
matic incidents; the drama goes on in the
minds and in the hearts of his characters. His

BELGIAN LITERATURE

story as well as his style is perfectly simple
and limpid. The atmosphere is transparent.
As Greshoff puts it, "it is mystery in full day-
light." Disdainful of picturesque and decora-
tive descriptions, he centers his attention on
the inner life of his personages and gives
them an impressive stature. He is an excellent
analyst who never loses the generous enthu-
siasm of the raconteur. The ]azz Band Player
(trans. Harvest of the Lowlands, 1945), Het
Leven dat wij Droomden (Life as We Dreamt
It), AZ/es komt terecht (Everything Settles
Itself), and Gehed om een goed Einde (Prayer
for a Good End) prove his excellent crafts-
manship and a wisdom that has deepened
since his first novel, Komen en Gaan (Coming
and Going).

The artistic credo of Walschap is more
dynamic. To him a novel is above all a story,
a tale often of violence and passion, but
always full of events and conflicts. He reno-
vated naturalism by means of a style that had
no precedents- nature is non-existent, the
decor disappears, furniture is mentioned only
when thrown or demolished. He startled
Roman Catholic readers by depicting the
allegedly sane-living, devout Flemish villages
like one of Dante's circles in Hell. They are,
according to his penetrating analysis, sinful,
morbid, and violent, victims of atavism and
laboring under bigotries of every kind. Three
generations of such folk are depicted in the
trilogy, De Familie Roothooft, in which fate
as unavoidable as in the Greek drama pursues
its horrible course. In Celibaat, Trouwen,
Een Man van goeden Wil, Sibylle, and many
other novels, Walschap relentlessly continued
his bas-relief of the Flemish notables in villages
and small towns. His pessimism did not pre-
vent him from celebrating the family and the
life of the pioneer, who lived to the full re-
gardless of any accepted morality. In his later
works he voiced strong criticism against the
Roman Church. Although the psychopatho-
logical elements in his books are obvious, still

his profound belief in the greatness and good-
ness of life is no less evident. His style moves
at a tornado pace.

Lode Ziclens, who had fewer stylistic gifts
and preoccupations, found his inspiration in
his profound solidarity with the humblest
people. He was a generous writer, deeply
moved by his subject and often succeeding in
moving his reader. Social misery does not
incite him to declamation; he depicts it with-
out false sentimentality. In his books the
proletarians of the Antwerp docks and fac-
tories are no longer pitiful and colorful nit-
wits; they are real people, brave and weak,
suffering or revolting. I Ic overflows with the
milk of human kindness, and his socialist con-
victions are expressed in his writings without
any proselytism but as a natural background
of his faith in mankind. Among his books,
De Gele Roos, Het Dyistere Bloed, Moeder,
waarom leven wij, are the most notable.

Other writers joined this small, energetic
group- a philosophical essayist, Raymond
Brulcz (b. 1895), who used old tales as a
pretext to prove his biting wit and to display
his congenial epicurism (Sheherazade); Thco
Bogacrts (b. 1893), whose uneven production
contains at least one remarkable novel, Vasten-
avond; Filip de Filled jn (b. 1891), who excels
in suggesting poetical situations and who
writes marvelous prose; F. de Backer (b.
1891), a penetrating psychologist; Albert van
Hoogenbemt (b. 1900), and Maurice Gilliams
(b. 1900), both highly introspective. The
novels of August van Cauwelaert have an inti-
mate charm, and the psychological analysis in
Harry is a model of craftsmanship. Lode
Baekelmans (b. 1879) lovingly speaks of
Antwerp harbor and its international bums
and beachcombers.

Among the younger generation, Ren
Berghen, Marcel Matthijs, and N. E. Fon-
teyne (d. 1938) are the most interesting.
Among the authors that came to light during
or since the war should be mentioned Louis-

BELGIAN LITERATURE

Paul Boon, a vigorous talent, Piet van Aeken,
delicate and subtle, and Hubert Lampo,
whose alliance of poetical feeling and intel-
lectualism contains great promise. Johan
Daisne (b. 1906), an abundant and versatile
poet, wrote several lively novels.

Poetry again altered its course in Flemish
letters about 1930. The social and ethical
motives were forgotten. Pietcr Buckinx (b.
1903), Bert Decorte (b. 1915), Karel Jonck-
heere (b. 1906), Albe (b. 1902), Rene" Ver-
beeck (b. 1903), Jan Vercammen (b. 1906),
reverted to pure poetry or to a mixture of
styles. The most powerful, although at the
outset strongly influenced, is Bert Decorte, a
wonderful prosodist and a brilliant visionary.

Parallel with the action of the Flemish
authors to free themselves from the specific
Belgian background, the French writers also
tried to draw away from the lure of the
Heimatkunst to attain a more universal plan.
The pre-war novelists Georges Virres (b.
1869), Maurice des Ombiaux (1868-1943),
Georges Garnir (b. 1868), Georges Rency
(b. 1875), had continued their work. Marie
Gevers (b. 1883) had produced charming
novels of country life- in Flanders. The
younger generation broadened its scope. Al-
ready Andre* Baillon (1875-1932), a typical
Bohemian character, had written some mov-
ing and raw confessions which impressed the
French critics very highly; Jean Tousseul
(1890-1944), in a long and powerful novel,
Jean Clarainbaux (Eng. trans. Phila., 1939)
had written the patient chronicle of a small
Meuse village. It has the true aroma of the
Walloon countryside: in this landscape, even
suffering is harmonious. The book has the
lovely sadness of Gliick's ballet of the Elysian
fields. Utter simplicity gives the style a rare
nobility; a deep love of the humble makes it
moving and unforgettable.

Franz Hellens (b. 1881), one of the most
original present-day writers, moves on the
border of reality and fantasy. He has been

described as an explorer of uncharted realms
of mystery, and indeed his heroes live in a
world of their own where the borderlines are
not very clear: it is evident that his sym-
pathy lies with the hidden side of our psychic
life. Hallucination and reality are intermin-
gled and normality appears only as fraught
with mystery and apprehensions of all kinds.
He is no sociologist; his domain is the sub-
conscious; involuntary reminiscences abound
in his novels, reality itself to him is fantastic
(Realties Fantastiques, 1923).

The most successful of the younger Belgian
authors who write in French is Charles
Plisnier (b. 1896), a prolific and solid author
who divides his attention equally between the
psychological study of modern marital troubles
and the atmosphere of latent revolution in
Europe between the two world wars. Little
in his work would permit him to be identified
as a Belgian author; he is truly a European
observer. His style is not exceptional, but his
novels are well built and faultless in their
logic and details. Power and intuition are
evident in Manages and Faux-Passeports. In
1938 the Goncourts for the first time aban-
doned their traditions by awarding Plisnier
their annual prize, although he was not a
Frenchman.

Among the women authors, Marguerite
van de Wiele (b. 1859) belongs to the old
school. France Adine (b. 1890), Julia Frezin
(b. 1870), Madeleine Ley (b. 1901), Made-
leine Bourdouxhe, express modern sensibility.

Dramatic art has long been a stepchild in
Belgium. Feeble echoes of foreign dramaturgy
did not brighten the stage very much, either
in Antwerp or in Brussels. The dialect plays
of Walloon playwrights were known only
locally: they had their merits, however, espe-
cially a ribald farce by A. Delchef. During
the 1 9th c. Flemish authors had produced
some naturalistic plays Lodewijk Scheltjens
(1861-1936), novelist Cyriel Buyssethat
portrayed Flemish country life in dark shades.

BELGIAN LITERATURE

The revolution provoked by Maeterlinck's
plays, the provocative lyricism of'Verhaeren
in Le Cloitre, Philippe II, and Helene de
Sparta, resulted in a flowering of the French
theatre in Belgium. Henry Kistemaeckers
(1878-1935), after his first successes, was
absorbed by the French scene, as was Francis
de Croisset (1877-1937). Paul Demasy (b.
1884) also left Belgium for France. One of
the most successful plays was due to Paul
Spaak (1870-1936): Kaatje, which had the
longest run a play ever made in the country.
Marguerite Duterme, Armand Thibaut (b.
1881), and Gustave Vanzype (b. 1869) are
excellent playwrights. Duterme is a full-
fledged Ibsenian; Thibaut is an intellectualist
of great directness; Vanzype, the most out-
standing, is an exponent of theses and
thought. He has a flawless technique and
great mastery of dialogue.

Max Deauville (b. 1881) has great versa-
tility and humor. In H. Soumagne's Dieu and
Madame Marie, metaphysical problems are
discussed in an unusual setting. Among the
younger playwrights, Fernand Crommelynck
(b. 1885) is the most arresting personality.
He is explosive and tormented. His drama
gives his audience a feeling of uneasiness, but
the power of his imagination, the force of
his conviction, are entrancing. Le Cocu Mag-
nifique (1921) made him famous. It deals
with the jealousy of a lover. The dramatic
atmosphere is of a terrible intensity. The
author nowhere appears as the equal of the
audience, or of his personages; he is definitely
their superior. Crommelynck seems gifted
with a psychological second sight that per-
mits him to step in when the situation is
tensest and to lift it to the heights of Shake-
spearean drama. His art in Le Cocu Mag-
nifique, in Une Femme Qua le Coeur trop
Petit, is grandiose baroque which was imme-
diately recognized as masterly. Herman Clos-
son (b. 1901) is a debunker of historical
figures. His Godefroid de Bouillon, his Shake-

speare, are surprisingly human. Michel de
Ghclderode (b. 1898) reverted to the style of
the medieval farces and mystery plays, with
a rich fancy and great technical ability.

Paul Demasy, although absorbed by Paris,
remained a Belgian author. His theatre, de-
voted to the portrayal of fatality, is akin to the
Elizabethan dramas.

The Van Nu en Straks generation pro-
duced one remarkable play in verse, Starkadd,
by Alfred Hegenscheidt (b. 1866), a lyrical
drama on the theme of the individual against
society. It stood alone for a long time. Raf
Verhulst (1866-1934) published many ele-
gant plays in verse and a respectful, rational-
istic drama, Jezus de Nazarener. The dramas
of Cyricl Verschaeve (1874-1929) are lyrical
declamations with occasional beauty, but de-
void of scenic qualities.

Renewal came only in 1919 when Herman
Teirlinck produced his De Vertraagde Film
and in rapid succession added a series of
other plays. He was an admirer of Capek,
Gordon Craig, and other revolutionary play-
wrights. In his plays lights, sound, text, and
all scenic devices had their importance. Above
all, the audience had to take part in the play.
The play was supposed to flow from the stage
into the theatre. A real communion with the
audience was sought, and often achieved. The
plays of Teirlinck often sound trivial when
one reads them; their effectiveness indeed de-
pends on all the theatrical factors available.
They defeated crude realism as a means of
theatrical expression, and they certainly revo-
lutionized the dormant Flemish theatre. Other
playwrights followed his example: Willem
Putman (b. 1900), Anton van de Velde (b.
1895), Paul de Mont (b. 1895).

Along traditional lines Ernest W. Schmidt
(1886-1937), Gaston Martens (b. 1884), and
Jos Janssens (b. 1888) achieved well deserved
success.

Belgian letters in French as well as in
Dutch have a decided individuality. Only

BRAZILIAN LITERATURE

those writers who conscientiously tried to lib-
crate themselves from their national charac-
teristics achieved some kind of denationaliza-
tion, to be absorbed by France or by Holland.
They are, however, very few; almost all
Belgian writers interpret with loving care the
country in which they were born and which
isas said above a spiritual microcosm of
Europe, a citadel of Western European
thought and sensibility.

G. Kalff, Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Letter-
kunde, 6 v., 1906-1910, J. Bithell, Contemporary
Belgian Lit., 1915, J. Persijn, A Glance at the Soul
of the Low Countries, 1916; J. Bithell, Contemporary

Flemish Poetry, 1917, G. L. van Roosbroeck, Guido
Gezelle, the Myrtle Poet of Flanders, 1919; P.
Hamelius, Introduction a la lit. franc,aise et flamande
de Belgique, 1921, A. de Riddcr, La Lit. flamande
contemporaine, 1923; A. Vermeylen, Van Gezelle tot
Timmernians, 1923, Franz de Backer, Contemporary
Flemish Lit., 1934; Marnix Gijsen, De Lit. in Zuid
Nederland sedert 1830, 1940; Peripatetisch Onder-
ncht, I and II, 1940 and 1944, Vlaamsche Lyriek,
1944; Frank Bauer, Geschiedenis der Vlaamsche Lit.,
1938; P. Arents, Flemish Writers Translated, 1931;
M. Wilmotte, La Culture fran^aise en Belgique,
1912, G Charlier, Les Lettres beiges, in BeMier and
Ha/ard's Hist, de la lit. fran^aise illustre, 1924; B.
M. Woodbridge, Le Roman beige contemporain,
1930, G. Doutrepont, Hist, illustree de la lit. fran-
t^aise en Belgique, 1939.

JAN-ALBERT GORIS.

BELLA COOLA-See North American BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO - See Poly-
Native, nesian.

BENGALI-See Indian.
BERBER-See Arabic.
BIGAMBUL See Australian Aborigine.
BIHARI-See Indian.

BLACKFOOT-See North American Native.
EOHEMIAN-See Czech.
BOLIVIAN-See Spanish American.
BORORO-See South American Indian.

BRAZILIAN

BRAZIL'S first literary document was the letter
written on May i, 1500, by Pero Vaz de
Caminha, clerk of the discovery fleet, telling
King Manuel of Portugal about the new land
that Cabral had taken in the name of the
king. Throughout the i6th c. other letters,
log-books, and historical narratives were writ-
ten by Europeans concerning Brazil, but the
first writer to pen literature for Brazilians
was the Jesuit teacher Jose" de Anchieta
(1534-97), who went to Brazil in 1552 and
for about fifty years dedicated himself to
writing religious playlets, hymns, poems,
grammars, and sermons for his various charges.

At the end of the century Bento Teixeira
(1545-1618?) wrote an epic poem, the
Prosopopeia, which was published in Portugal
in 1 60 1. Though this work is a far cry from
Camoens' Os Lusiadas, which it tried to imi-
tate, it is interesting for two reasons: it re-
flected the colonial attempt to follow Portu-
guese patterns in styles of writing; and, with
its stanzas about Pernambuco's recife (coral
reef), it initiated the appearance of Brazilian
nature in Portuguese poetry.
Portugal was under Spanish rule from 1 580
to 1640; hence it is not surprising that Portu-
guese poets fell under the sway of gongorismo

BRAZILIAN LITERATURE

and conceptismo, the predominant movements
in Spain during those years. One of the most
famous Gongoristic poets of Portugal, Dom
Francisco Manoel de Mclo (1611-66), was
sentenced to exile in Brazil. Moreover, in the
wealthy city of Baia, where the Governor-
General held court, cultivated society was
headed by men who prided themselves on
reading and imitating Gongora, Lope de Vega,
and Quevedo, as well as the poets of the
Italian and Portuguese renaissance. Of this
group Greg6rio de Matos Guerra (1633-92)
became the outstanding satirical poet of his
day, with his biting and caustic criticisms of
Baia society and his fearless condemnation of
Portuguese rule. Among the prose writers, the
most famous was Friar Vicente do Salvador
(1564-1636?), who in his Historia do Brasil
voiced a sympathy for Brazil and extolled the
abundance and variety of her natural products.

Thus, Brazilian literature of the i7th c.
was characterized by a growing spirit of na-
tionalism, which found new strength in the
colonists' struggle against the Dutch and
French invaders. Even in the flowery, ornate
sermons and letters of the renowned orator,
Father Ant6nio Vieira (1608-97), who was
always a loyal Portuguese though he spent
fifty years of his life in Brazil, there was an
echo of this new Brazilianism. This feeling
of pride in native things is further seen in
the descriptive poem A llha de Mare, whose
author, Botclho de Olivcira (1636-1711), be-
came the first Brazilian writer to send to
press a volume of poetry.

In the first half of the i8th c. Baia con-
tinued to be a cultural center, and in that city,
as well as in Rio de Janeiro, several academies
were established in imitation of those of Lis-
bon, Paris, and Rome. The sentiment of na-
tivism continued to seek expression in such
works as Histrfria da America Portugu&sa by
Rocha Pita (1660-1738) and the sacred epic
Eustdquidos by Manoel de Santa Maria
Itaparica (1704-68?). The dominant note of

the century, however, was sounded by a
group of Arcadian poets from Minas Gerais,
whose pastoral evocations and use of indige-
nous materials were a reaction against de-
cadent classicism, and show an effort to return
to the simplicity of nature. This so-called
Mineira school thus paved the way for the
romanticists, and the six that attained greatest
fame were Friar Jose de Santa Rita Durao,
Jos6 Basilio da Gama, Claudio Manoel da
Costa, Tomaz Antonio Gonzaga, Inacio Jose
de Alvarenga Peixoto, and Manoel Inacio da
Silva Alvarenga. The first two distinguished
themselves as writers of epics, the Uraguai
(1769) of Basilio da Gama (1740-95) being
considered the best Brazilian poem written
during the colonial period; while the Cara-
muru (1781) of Santa Rita Durao (1722-
84), with its desire to glorify events in Brazil
from the discovery to the expulsion of the
invaders, was described by a great Brazilian
critic as "the most Brazilian poem we possess."

The other poets of the Mineira group were
primarily lyrists, and in keeping with their
idealism were identified with the Inconfi-
dencia Mineira, that premature attempt at
rebellion against Portuguese oppression that
brought death, imprisonment, or exile to its
leaders. Of the lyrists, the two most famous
were Claudio Manoel de Costa (172989),
because of the technical perfection of his
poetry and his influence upon contemporaries,
and Tomaz Antonio Gonzaga (1744-1807),
because of his authorship of Manlm de
Dirceu. This "most esteemed book of love in
the Portuguese language" described the poet's
love for "Marilia" both when hope smiled
benignly upon them and later when sadness
and despair overwhelmed him, alone in a
faraway African prison. Marilia de Dirceu,
published in 1810, was the first belletristic
work to be printed in Brazil.

An occurrence of great importance to
Brazil was the arrival of the Regent Prince,
Dom Joao, and all the Portuguese royal fam-

BRAZILIAN LITERATURE

ily in Rio de Janeiro in 1808. Immediately
the ports of Brazil were opened to the trade
of friendly nations; the twelve years of Dom
Joao's sojourn witnessed the establishment of
schools and tribunals, the founding of the
Royal Press and the Academy of Science, and
the publication of the first newspapers. In
1815 Brazil was elevated to the rank of Joint
Kingdom with Portugal and Algarve, and in
1822 independence was proclaimed, with Dom
Pedro I as the first emperor. The political
growth and independence of Bra/il were
naturally reflected in the works of the chief
writers, and the i9th c. saw the emergence
of a truly national literature.

During the first quarter of the century,
however, poetry continued to feel the influ-
ence of the Arcadians. The outstanding poet
was Antonio Pereira de Sousa Caldas (1762-
1814), whose melancholic and pessimistic po-
etry seemed inspired by the subjectivity of de
Vigny and the religious sentiment of Lamar-
tinc. The first romanticist of Brazil was the
great patriot of Independence, Jose Bonifacio
dc Andrada (1765-1838), who at the age of
sixty became an exponent of the new move-
ment while in exile in France and published
in Bordeaux as early as 1825 a volume of
poetry written in the new manner. The tri-
umph of romanticism was manifested by the
popularity of Goncalves de Magalhaes (181 1-
82), who became the idol of Brazilian liter-
ary circles when his volume Suspiros Pocticos
e Saudades appeared in Paris in 1836. These
poems, as the title implies, were eloquent
with patriotic sentiment and reechoed both
the nativism and the religious feeling that
preceding writers had expressed. Nature, na-
tive country, and religion, the main themes
of Conceives de Magalhaes' poetry, became
likewise the distinguishing characteristics of
most of the literature of this period.

In the 1 9th c., then, the literary pattern
shifted from Portugal to France and England.
Chateaubriand became the inspiration for the

idealization of the Brazilian savage in the
works of both the greatest romantic novelist
of Bra/il, Jose de Alencar (1829-79), and of
one of her greatest poets, Gonc,alves Dias
(1823-64). It was the latter who, in Y-Juca-
Pirama and in the unfinished Tymbiras, in-
troduced into Brazilian literature the Indianist
motif, but his treatment of the savage was
merely another manifestation of his pantheis-
tic attitude towards nature, another way of
presenting the luxuriant tropical nature of
Brazil. In his lyrics, and especially in his
famous Cangao do Exflio, he became the
interpreter of the Brazilians' love for their
native land and exerted a powerful influence
upon succeeding poets, especially upon Casi-
miro dc Abreu (1839-60), who became the
poet par excellence of the nostalgic emotion
termed saudades. Following the example of
Alfred de Musset, Shelley, Byron, Espron-
ceda, and Leopardi, other romantic poets,
among whom were Alvares de Azevedo, Lau-
rindo Rabelo, Junqueira Freire and Fagundes
Varcla, produced works redolent of morbid-
ness, doubt, despair. Victor Hugo, however,
in Les Chdtiments, was the model for Tobias
Barreto (1839-89) and Castro Alves* (1847-
71) in their impassioned and eloquent poems.
Certain critics have considered Castro Alves
the greatest Brazilian poet because of his
strong sentiment of nationalism and his ap-
peal to the universal ideals of liberty and
justice. Certainly his works, more widely read
than those of any other poet of Brazil, sounded
a new social note and played a decisive part
in the emancipation of slaves and in the estab-
lishment of the republic. Among his most
famous poems are As Vozes da Africa, O
Navio Negreiro, Pedro Ivo, and A Cachoeira
de Paulo Afonso.

The novel became nationalized with the
works of Manoel Macedo, Jose" de Alencar,
Manoel de Almeida, Bernardo Guimaraes,
Franklin T&vora, and Escragnolle Taunay.
Though all of these novelists made significant

BRAZILIAN LITERATURE

contributions, the figure that towers above all
others is Jos6 de Alencar, author of thirty
novels, the most famous of which, O Guarani,
became the libretto for Carlos Gomes' opera
II GuaranL Though Jos de Alencar imitated
the Indianist and regional novels of Chateau-
briand and James Fenimore Cooper, his imi-
tation was not servile. In both O Guaram and
Iracema, plot served mainly as a pretext for
the picturesque and majestic nature descrip-
tions that are still noteworthy for their power
of emotion and elegance of style. In the re-
gional novels of Jos de Alencar and Bernardo
Guimaraes (1825-84), literature for the first
time reflected the vast country reclaimed by
the "bandeirantes" of the preceding century,
an epic undertaking unsung in its day but
destined to reverberate still further in Os
Sertdes of Euclides da Cunha* C 1 866-1 909).

The germs of realism evident in TaVora's
regional novels and especially in Taunay's
Inocencia (1872) heralded the philosophic
realise that appeared in the novels of Joaquim
Maria Machado de Assis* (1839-1908). Both
as a novelist and as a poet, Machado de Assis
stood apart from any school, and through the
force of his unusual personality and original-
ity of thought gave new direction to Brazilian
literature. His subtle humor and kindly satire
found delightful and faultless expression in
his mature novels and in many of his poems.
Of the latter, A Mosca Azul, O Sonto do
Natal and Circulo Vicioso are especially fa-
mous for their psychological intensity. Among
his novels his masterpieces are Dom Gas-
murro, Quincas Borba, and Bras Cufcas.

In 1 88 1, with the publication of O Mulato
by Aluizio Azevedo (1857-1913), the natural-
istic influence of mile Zola and Eca de
Queiroz made itself felt in Brazilian fiction.
The movement was carried on by such novel-
ists as Julio Ribeiro, Raul Pompe*ia and Ingles
de Sousa; and by the end of the i9th c., real-
ism was firmly entrenched. The regional
character of Brazil's "emancipated literature"

was strengthened still more by the appearance
in 1902 of Euclides da Cunha's masterpiece,
Os Sertdes, a semi-historical description of
the northern hinterland of Brazil. This book,
together with Canaan (1902), "the epic of
Brazil's melting-pot", by Graca Aranha (1868-
1931), set the pattern for the intense nation-
alism found in the modern fiction of Brazil.

In poetry Luis Guimaraes (1847-98) and
Machado de Assis, with their exoticism, care-
ful diction, and limpid style, were the pre-
cursors of the Parnassian poets, Alberto de
Oliveira, Olavo Bilac and Raimundo Corre'a.
Of these the outstanding figure was Olavo
Bilac (1865-1918), a brilliant, sensuous poet,
who excelled in interpreting tropical moods
and voluptuous passion. The reaction against
the Parnassian school produced few followers
of Verlaine and Mallarme'. Joao da Cruz e
Sousa (1862-98) and Alphonsus de Guima-
raens (Alfonso de Guimaraes; 1873-1921)
were the most noteworthy Brazilian sym-
bolists.

"Modernism" in Brazil has a special mean-
ing, referring to the change in literary trends
after the First World War. This movement,
which had its inception in 1922 in the famous
"Semana de Arte Moderna" of Sao Paulo,
gained momentum after Graca Aranha's
speech of resignation from the Brazilian
Academy in 1924, and was further strength-
ened by the "Movimento antropofdgico" of
1928. Thus, Gra^a Aranha, Mdrio de
Andrade, and Oswald de Andrade became the
exponents of the new attitude toward art and
aesthetics. The revolutionists were especially
concerned with reality, with Brazilian social,
cultural, and racial problems; poets and novel-
ists alike sought to create an art genuinely
Brazilian, to express their ideas in a new form,
and to make the style clearer and more direct
and lucid. Grac.a Aranha likewise exerted his
influence in directing the new current into
the already existing channels of regionalism.
In the social sciences the increasing activity

BRAZILIAN LITERATURE

of anthropologists, ethnologists, and sociolo-
gists was also a powerful stimulus to writers
of fiction. Outstanding in this respect were the
works of Gilberto Freyre, Casa Grande e
Senzala (1934), and Sobrados e Mucambos
(1936). In the first of these dynamic books,
The Master's Mansion and the Slaves' Quar-
ters, Gilberto Freyre, by piecing together ac-
counts from old documents, reconstructed life
in colonial and imperial Brazil. In the second,
City Residence and Detached Servants'
Quarters, he made the same analysis of con-
ditions in the early and middle iQth century.
Such investigations of racial and economic
questions were reflected in literature, and in-
terest in the Negro was especially marked in
both prose and poetry.

In the contemporary period, the chief con-
cern of Brazilian writers is thus Brazilian
social problems. Some of the most important
novelists of this movement are Jos Lins do
Rego, Jorge Amado, Jos Am6rico de Almeida,
Jorge de Lima, Erico Verissimo, Liicio Car-
doso, Graciliano Ramos, Marques Rebelo,
Raquel de Queiroz, Dind Silveira de Queiros.
Of these, Jos6 Lins do Rego is generally con-
sidered Brazil's foremost living novelist. Pie is
best known for his 5 v. sugar-cane cycle,
Menino de Engenho (1932), Doidinho
(1933), Bangui (1934), O Moleque Ricardo
(1935), and Usina (1936). In these chroni-
cles, Lins do Rego evokes the life on the sugar
plantations of northeastern Brazil and de-
scribes customs and habits from the days of
slavery to more modern times, picturing the
contrast between the rural civilization and
the new industrialized life of the cities.

Following the examples of Machado de
Assis and Artur Azevedo (brother of Aluizio
de Azevedo), many recent writers have culti-
vated the shortstory. Chief among these are
Monteiro Lobato, Ant6nio de Alcantara
Machado, Adeline Magalhaes, Joao Alphon-
sus, Jos6 Geraldo Vieira, Marques Rebelo,
Peregrine Junior, Osvaldo Orico.

Another recent tendency has been to pro-
duce critical and biographical studies of the
principal Brazilian men of letters. Among
such critics and investigators are Velho
Sobrinho, Afranio Peixoto, Agripino Grieco,
El6i Pontes, Almir de Andrade, Manuel Ban-
deira, Ros&rio Fusco, Nelson Werneck, Vianna
Moog, Prudente de Moraes Neto, Lucia
Miguel Pereira.

In poetry the outstanding writers from the
Modernista movement to the present include
the following: Mario de Andrade, Gra^a
Aranha, Oswald de Andrade, Ronald de Car-
valho, Tasso da Silveira, Augusto Frederico
Schmidt, Andrade Muricy, Menotti del
Picchia, Oleg&rio Mariano, Guilherme de
Almeida, Ribeiro Couto, Manuel Bandeira,
Gilka Machado, Cecilia Meirclcs, Augusto
Mayer, Murilo Mendes, and Jorge de Lima.
The last named is considered by many critics
the greatest Brazilian poet of today; his most
famous poems are Bangui and Essa negra
Fulo.

Viewed as a whole, Brazilian literature of
today appears to be the product of a genera-
tion that wishes to see Brazil as it is, and
with realistic frankness and objective imparti-
ality presents the conflicts and passions of hu-
manity in scenes full of life and movement.
It is a literature strongly national, yet funda-
mentally concerned with man and his eternal
struggle to solve the problems of life.

Jose Candido de Andrade Muricy, A Nova LUera-
tura Brasileira (Porto Alegre), 1936; Ronald de Car-
valho, Pequena Historia da Literatura Brasileira (Rio
de Janeiro), 1919, 1922; J. D. M. Ford, A Tentative
Bibliography of Brazilian Belles-Lettres (In collabora-
tion with Arthur F. Whittem and Maxwell I. Ra-
phael; Cambridge, Mass.), 1931; Isaac Goldberg,
Brazilian Literature (N. Y.), 1922; Lewis Hanke
(ed.), Handbook of Latin American Studies (Cam-
bridge, Mass.), 1935 , annually: section on Brazil-
ian Literature by Samuel Putnam; Olivio Montenegro,
O Romance Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro), 1938; Afrd-
nio Peixoto, Panorama da Literatura Brasileira (Sao
Paulo), 1940; Pongetti, Anudrio Brasileiro de Litera-
tura, Irmaos Pongetti (Rio de Janeiro), 1937 , an-

BRETON LITERATURE

nually; Silvio Romero, Historia da Literatura Brasi-
leira (Rio de Janeiro), 1888, 2 vols., 1902; Compen-
dia de Historia da Literatura Brasileira (In collabora-
tion with Joao Ribeiro; Rio de Janeiro), 1909; Ar-
turo Torres-Rioseco, The Epic of Latin American

Literature (N. Y.)> 1942; Jose" Verissimo, Historia da
Literatura Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro), 1916. See
African; South American.

EUNICE JOINER GATES.

BRETON

IT is THE common notion that Breton (also
called Armoricaii Breton and Bas Breton, in
Breton, Brezcwec), the Celtic language spoken
in Brittany (in Breton, Breiz and Breiz-lzel),
is the direct survivor of the language of the
Gauls, but such is not the case. Breton be-
longs to the triad of Brythonic Celtic lan-
guages, is closely related to Welsh and Cor-
nish, and was brought to Brittany in the 5th
and 6th c. by the inhabitants of southwest
Britain fleeing before the inroads of the
Saxons. It became a distinct language about
the beginning of the yth c. and broke into
four main dialects: Leonard or Le"onais,
spoken in Finistere, the most conservative and
regarded as the literary dialect; Tre'corois or
Tre"gorrois, spoken in the north of the penin-
sula, and Cornouaillais, in the center of the
language group. While these varieties differ
only slightly from one another, the remaining
dialect, Vannetais, spoken chiefly in Morbi-
han, in the southeast, differs greatly from
them, and, as regards pronunciation, is almost
a strange language.

There are three periods in the history of
Breton, and three periods, corresponding to
the language, in the history of the literature:
Old Breton, ranging from the mid yth c. to
the i ith c.; Middle Breton, from the i ith c. to
the i yth, and Modern Breton. The honor of
having definitely reformed and fixed the
orthography belongs to J.-F. Le Gonidec, in
1807, when his Grammaire Celto-Bretonne
appeared. Many studies have been published
on various phases of Breton grammar, pro-

nunciation, syntax, and etymology but as
yet there is no complete dictionary of the lan-
guage and its dialects. Though in the course
of time, owing to political and social condi-
tions, Breton has continued to give ground
to French, it is still spoken by nearly a mil-
lion and a quarter persons, "Bretons breton-
nants," of whom perhaps half a million are
monoglots.

By Breton literature is meant, in this brief
account, literary productions in the Breton
language. But there were many famous Breton
authors who wrote in French instead: One
needs to name only Chateaubriand, Lam-
menais, Jules Simon, Renan, Le Sage,
Sebillot, and Souvestre. Again, though there
is no extant Breton literature prior to the
1 5th c., all through the Middle Ages, the
legends, traditions, and souvenirs of the Celtic
homeland were kept alive in an oral form by
Breton minstrels, who constituted a sort of
bardic school and cultivated the old themes
and meters. Their lais bretons are referred to,
among others, by Marie de France, the 1 2th c.
poetess, and by the i3th c. author of the
Chanson des Saisnes "Song of the Saxons,"
who ranks the "matiere de Bretagne" along-
side the literatures of Rome and France; and
to them we are indebted for the cycle of The
Round Table and Tristan. On these grounds
Renan says of the Celts: "This little people
... is in possession of a literature which, in
the Middle Ages, exercised an immense in-
fluence, changed the course of European
imagination, and imposed its. poetic motives

BRETON LITERATURE

102

on nearly the whole of Christendom. 1 ' Works
in the Breton tongue were not so potent.

Owing to the inferior position held by
Breton French being the prevailing language
of the upper classesliterature was much later
in starting in Breton than in Irish and Welsh
and has nothing to compare with these earlier
flourishing literatures. To the earliest period
(yth-iith c.) belong only glosses to some
Latin words and some Latin names, and, some-
what later (1464), the Catholicon, a Breton-
Latin-French vocabulary, which are of value
and interest only to the historian of the lan-
guage.

Breton literature really begins with the
appearance (ca. 1475) of a Life of Saint
Nonn, mother of Saint David, and for nearly
two hundred years the literature is almost ex-
clusively religious, of little originality and
literary value, and translated or adapted from
French or Latin originals. To the i6th and
early I7th c. belong a large number of de-
votional works, such as the Mirror of Death,
the Mirror of Confession, the Doctrine of
Christians, hymns, carols, noels, a Book of
Hours, and, above all, more than a hundred
mystery and miracle plays, chiefly on Old and
New Testament subjects and lives of saints,
of which two score or so have been published,
the most important being Le Grand Mystere
de Jdsus (1530) and Le Mystere de Sainte
Barbe (1557), besides dramas based on the
lives and deeds of such heroes as Huon de
Bordeaux, Guillaume de Poitou, Robert le
Diable, Louis Eunius, and episodes from the
Carolingian saga and romances of chivalry.
The plays commonly contain from 5,000 to
9,000 lines of twelve syllables, varied by
some of eight, and are richly garnished with
French words. Though often the work of
farmers, weavers, or shoemakers, and crude
and grotesque, they enjoyed a tremendous
popularity among the people during the latter
half of the i8th and first half of the ipth c.
They provided the best distraction and most

serious instruction, appealed to religiousness
and thirst for ideal adventure, and opened
to the imagination other worlds and strange
people.

The dramatic tradition suffered a reverse
when, because of abuses that had crept in,
the theatre was condemned by the clergy
about the middle of the i9th c.; but it was
given a fresh impetus in August of 1898,
when was founded, under the leadership of
Anatole Le Braz, Charles Le Goffic, and
Cloarek, at Ploujean, near Morlais, the Breton
theatre of the people. The Life of Saint
GuennoU was performed with great success
and Ploujean was hailed as the cradle of the
great popular theatre of the future. Four
years later came the Theatre of Sainte-Anne
d'Auray, which came to be known as the
Breton Oberammergau. It owes its creation
and success to the Abbe* Joseph Le Bayon
("Job er Glean"), vicar of Bignan, bard, poet,
and dramatic author, and to his collaborators
and his troupe, the Pautred Sant Guigner
(the lads of Saint Guigner, a commune in
Morbihan). His first play, En Eutru Keriolet
(1902,), a tragedy in three acts, was a tri-
umph: the performance was completely
Breton, author, actors, language, setting,
music, and Keriolet himself, the hero of the
drama.

Le Bayon is the author of several other
dramatic pieces, comedies as well as tragedies,
and of poetry, both in Breton (Sonnenneu
hur Bro-ni', Songs of our Land) and in French
(Le Converti de Notre-Dawe), and has no
equal in the Vannetais dialect. His language
is colloquial, rich and racy, as suits the na-
ture of his work, and his versification is
marked by elegance united to simplicity. He
was also coach and director, and all through
the winter months he taught his troupe, indi-
vidually and in groups, verse by verse, ges-
ture by gesture, pose by pose. With the
greatest care he selected his cast, and so com-
pletely incarnated were they in the r61es they

BRETON LITERATURE

played that they became known, not by their
real names, but by the names of the charac-
ters they personated.

The most famous figure in the history of
Breton literature is the Viscount Theodore
Claude-Henri Hersart de la Villemarque"
(1815-95), whose family was related to that
of the author of Atala and Rend. In 1838 ap-
peared his Barzaz-Breiz: Chants Populates de
la Bretagne originally spelled Barzas, but in
all subsequent editions Barzaz, a word un-
known to either Breton or French and prob-
ably fashioned on an obsolete barz, "a bardic
song." The work immediately attracted the
attention of the world of letters. It was
crowned by the French Academy, translated
into most languages, and its influence was
felt by poets, novelists, essayists, philologists,
dramatists, and even historians.

La Villemarqu was unquestionably a very
great poet and a man of remarkable talent,
'^before whose sublime songs," one enthusiast
declared, "we are like dwarfs before giants,"
but he was not a scholar and had not the
critical temperament. Consequently the
Barzaz-Breiz, though a work of singular grace
and perfection, is a work of art and not of
history. It was written at the time when the
French public were in the romantic mood and
when it was supposed that a simple folktale
had to be touched up to suit the taste of the
day. Furthermore, at the time of the publica
tion of his book, La Villemarque knew very
little Breton and had to call on more compe-
tent men to furnish the Breton material, es-
tablish the text, smooth out the rough
places and give the whole a flavor of antiquity.
In this work of collaboration La Villemarque*'s
principal assistants were his friends, two very
expert Bretonists, the Abbe" Henry of Quim-
perle" and the Abbe" Guguen of Nizon. They
were the real authors of the Barzaz-Breir,
without their help La Villemarque" could have
done nothing.

But one opinion is held to-day concerning

the authenticity of the Barzaz-Breiz: part of
it is pure invention; part of it consists of songs
contributed by poets, some of whom, inten-
tionally or not, passed over on La Villemarqu6
their own spurious compositions as genuine
monuments of the popular poetry, and the
whole was then worked up by the professed
author with the assistance of his editors.
Then, there is the question, How far, if at
all, was Villemarqu culpable? Admittedly he
had ascribed to the poems an antiquity and
an historical interest to which they had no
right. However, there is every reason to be-
lieve that, at the time of the preparation and
publication of the work, this was his sincere
belief and that he acted in the best of faith.
At any rate he is not to be classed with the
impostor of the pretended poems of Ossian.
La Villemarqu6's overpowering enthusiasm
was Brittany. He revealed her poetry and
legends to the world and rendered a distinct
service to the cause of Breton letters. His
great fault (or weakness) was that, during the
long-drawn out controversy that raged over
the authenticity of his work, he knew the
truth, and he remained silent.

The polemics over the genuineness of the
Barzaz-Breiz led directly to the scientific study
and publication of Breton folk-songs. In this
field Francois-Marie Luzel (1821-95) was
preeminent. While La Villemarque" purposed
the production of a literary masterpiece that
would redound to the glory of Brittany, Luzel
looked upon traditional tales and ballads as
historical documents, to be treated and pub-
lished exactly as they were handed down in
writing or by word of mouth. He was also a
poet, in French as well as in Breton, and his
collection of Breton poems, Beared Bfeizad
(Ton jours Breton), won the praise of Sainte-
Beuve. He was known as "the Wandering
Jew of Brittany." For two-score years, with
tireless perseverance, he traversed the fields
and farms and seaports, in search of the lore
of his people. The harvest yielded nearly a

BRETON LITERATURE

104

dozen volumes of Contes Bretons (1870),
Veillees Bretonnes (1879), Ltgendes Chre-
tiennes de la Basse-Bretagne (1881), and Con-
tes Populaires (1887), which he published
with all their charm and also their flaws and
imperfections.

These songs fall into two classes, gwerziou
(sing, gwerz; Latin versus') and soniou (sing.
sone; Latin sonus'),

Et les noircs gwerziou, rudes comme Thistoire,
Et les blanches soniou, douces comme I'amour.

(A. Lc Braz)

And the black gwerziou, rough as history,
And the white soniou, smooth as love.

The gwerziou are the older and more tragic.
Their subjects are taken from actual happen-
ings, village scenes, tales of violence of all
sorts, and they provide many dramatic situa-
tions. For example, the gwerz of lannik
Coquart (Luzel, Gwerziou, pp. 2,53, 259)
was used almost scene for scene by Henri
Bataille as the plot of his play, Ton Sang,
precede de La Lepreuse, (Your Blood, pre-
ceeded l>y the Leperess) which was produced
with conspicuous success at the Comedie
Parisienne in 1898. The soniou, on the other
hand, are the lyric poetry of the race, and are
more tender, less tragic and original, than the
gwerziou. It is of these songs, some of which
had already been published, though in a dif-
ferent setting, by La Villemarque", that George
Sand declared: "There are certain Breton
complaintes, made by beggars, that are worth
all Goethe and all Byron, in three couplets,
and that prove that the appreciation of the
true and the beautiful was more spontaneous
and more complete in these simple souls than
in those of the most illustrious poets."

The chief literary wealth of Brittany is her
store of tales, legends, and ballads, which far
surpasses that of the popular compositions
collected in the other provinces of France. In
a class by itself is the masterpiece of the

Vannetais dialect, the Abbe Joachim Guil-
lome's Georgic, Livr el Labourer, (The
Farmer's Book; 1849), inspired by Virgil, of
some 2,400 verses, remarkable for the beauty
of its style and the interest of its subject.

One recalls the celebrated phrase of Arthur
de la Borderie, the national historian of Brit-
tany: "La Bretagne est une Poesie, une
Poesie dans le present et dans le passe." And
George Sand says: "A single province of
France is the equal, in poetry, of what the
genius of the greatest poets and the most
poetic nations have ever produced: we ven-
ture to say that it surpasses them." The senti-
ment of the village churchyard pervades this
poetry. Its dominant notes are sincerity, ten-
derness, idealism, a strong religious feeling,
and a tone of sadness; its subjects are the hard
toil of the farmer, the dangers of the fisher-
man's life, the beauty of nature, especially
of the sea, a veritable cult of the past, and a
burning love of the native land personified
as En Him Goz (The Old Woman), just as
the Irish figured their island as An tsean-
bhean bhocht. (The Poor Old Woman).

It would be impossible in this space to men-
tion all the shining lights in the history of
Breton literature. The following, however, of
the last hundred years in chronological order
and with the titles of their representative
works, may be added to the names already
given: Auguste Brizeux (1803-), Kanaouen-
nou (Songs), Telen Arvor (Harp of Ar-
morica), Furnez Breiz (The Wisdom of
Brittany^), best known for his poem in French,
"Marie."; Prosper Proux (1812-), Bombard
Kerne (The Hautboy of Cornouaille)', Nar-
cisse Quellien (1848-), whose Annaik is
regarded as one of the most perfect models of
Breton love; Charles Gwennou (1851-), poet,
playwright, author of Nozveziou Breiz
(Breton Night Tales')-, Anatole Le Braz
(1859-), scholar, poet, novelist, indefatigable
collector of Breton legends; Yves Berthou
(1861-), author of Dihun Breiz (.The

BULGARIAN LITERATURE

Awakening of Brittany'), leader in the Breton
regionalist movement; Charles Le Goflic
(1863-), poet in French and Breton, best
known for his "Ame Bretonne"; Claude Le
Prat (1875-), poet, author of comedies, tales,
and legends; Loei'z Herrieu (1879-), poet
and playwright; Francois Jaffrennou (1879-),
author of An Delen Dir (The Harp of Steel'),
poet, playwright, composer of Bro Goz ma
Zadou (OW Land of my Fathers'), adopted
as the national hymn of Armorican Brittany.

H, Zimmer, "Die keltische Bewcgung in der Bre-
tagnc," Preus. Jahrb., 99, 454 f.; L. C. Stern, Die
Kultur der Gegenwart, I, xi, i, p. I32f.; J. Loth,
Chrestomathie Bretonne (Paris), 1890; G. Dottin,
Revue de Synthese Hhtonque, V11I, p. 93 f.; "Les
Literatures Celtiques," p. 391. (Paris), 1924; A. Le
Braz, La Plume, VI, ySf.; "Le Theatre Celtique"
(Paris), 1904; Bleuniou Breiz, Poesies anciennes et
modernes de la Basse-Bretagne (Paris and Quim-
perle), 1862 and 1904; Le Mercier d'Erm, Les Bar-
des et Poetes Nationaux de la Bretagne Armoricaine
(Paris and Rennes), 1918.

JOSEPH DUNN.

BREZONEC-See Breton.

BUDDHIST-See Indian.

BULGARIAN

THERE ARE NO literary remains of the ancient
Turko-Bulgarian language, which seems to
have been the tongue of the people when
they first entered the Balkans in the 6th c.
Before the Christianizing of the people,
Greek was apparently the only written lan-
guage, as is shown by the inscription of the
Bulgarian king at Madara and on the column
of Omortag in Tirnovo. It is poor Greek at
that.

There is still dispute as to the precise racial
origin of Saints Cyril and Methodius in the
9th c. They were undoubtedly born near
Salonika and educated at Constantinople, al-
though they did their chief missionary work
in Moravia. It was apparently for this mission
that they created a special alphabet, which is
usually supposed to be the Glagolitic, based
on the Greek minuscule of the day; and into
this Old Church Slavonic (also called Old
Bulgarian) they translated parts of The New
Testament and the service books of the Byzan-
tine rite.

When Methodius died in 885, Boris, the

first Christian ruler of Bulgaria, invited his
two most prominent disciples, Saint Clement
(d. 916) and Saint Naum (d. 910) to Bul-
garia and aided them in opening schools for
theological instruction. Saint Clement at
Ohrid in the west prepared sermons for all
the feasts of the year and Saint Naum in a
similar school at Preslav and later at the
monastery now called by his name on Lake
Ohrid also worked to make theological ma-
terial available for the Bulgarians in their own
form of Church Slavonic.

Tsar Simeon (893-927) zealously sup-
ported the movement, but by the 1 1 th c. the
Glagolitic alphabet was entirely displaced by
the Cyrillic, based on the Greek uncial let-
ters. Simeon's reign was one of marked lit-
erary activity, but almost entirely in the
theological field. Thus the Presbyter loan, the
Bulgarian Exarch, prepared a Book of Heaven
based upon the writings of St. John
Damascene and also a Shestodnev, a collec-
tion of writings based upon the Greek fathers.
Bishop Konstantin in 906 prepared a transla-

BULGARIAN LITERATURE

106

lion of four works of St. Athanasius against
the Arians, Tsar Simeon arranged for the
translation of many of the writings of St.
John Chrysostom; translations of the New
Testament and a considerable portion of the
Old were made, and of all the books needed
for the services of the church. At the same
time on the Byzantine model there was made
a translation of the Chronicle of John Malalas
and in Byzantine style the monks began to
prepare biographies of Bulgarian saints. Simi-
larly we find traces of the translation of
Byzantine hymns and sacred songs into the
Church Slavonic.

By the nth c. this active output of litera-
ture had slackened and the higher clergy,
who had been the bearers of enlightenment
and of literary productivity, tended toward
other fields or to a more rigid asceticism. Lit-
erary production dropped even lower after the
defeat and death of the Tsar Samuel at the
hands of the Byzantine Emperor Basil Bul-
garoktonos in 1018.

At the same time the country was plagued
by the growth of Bogomilism, a Manichean
religion preached by the Monk Jeremiah or
Bogomil. We are told by the opponent of this
movement, the Monk Kosma, in the nth c.,
that the Bogomils had many books; but none
have been preserved. They seem, however,
to have influenced many of the apocryphal
writings that have been preserved in Middle
Bulgarian. Among other critics of the move-
ment was Ilarion, bishop of Megla.

With the foundation of the Second Bul-
garian Empire at Tirnovo in 1 186, there came,
under the Asen rulers, a new flowering of
Bulgarian literature, which reached its height
during the reign of Ivan Aleksander (1331-
75). Of the writers of his day the Patriarch
Evtymy, who died in prison after the Turkish
conquest, was the outstanding author, with
his biographies of the saints and his work in
revising the Bulgarian Church books.
- With the collapse of the Bulgarian Empire

and its absorption into the Ottoman lands,
the cultural level of Bulgaria, as of the other
Balkan countries, fell rapidly. There was lit-
tle or no opportunity for education. The in-
fluence of Greek and of the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople increased, so that it almost seemed
in the i8th c. as if Greek would completely
displace the other Balkan languages. During
all this time the chief literary productions
were collections, largely modifications of the
writings known under the name of Damaskin
the Studite; but they included all kinds of
apocryphal legends, many of Bogomil origin,
and also the chief legends of mediaeval
Europe, stories based on Troy and Alexander
the Great, together with memories of the past
greatness of Bulgaria.

At the same time there was a striking de-
velopment of folksongs. In the western part
of the country these were largely epic, con-
nected with Marko of Prilep, the same theme
that formed one of the Serb epic cycles.
These songs did not receive as elaborate de-
velopment as among the Serbs, but they re-
tained greater connection with the historical
events that they purport to recount. They
are less poetical and in general more sober and
realistic. In the east, lyric songs predominated.

It was in such a condition, where traces
of the popular language were slowly making
their way into the written forms of Church
Slavonic, that modern literature took its rise
in the History of the Slavonic Bulgarians by
Father Paisi Hilendarski, in 1762. Father
Paisi was a Bulgarian monk who wrote to
remind his people of their great past. The
work is distinctly critical of both the Serbs
and the Greeks; Paisi contrasts with their
defects the virtues of his own people, thus in-
spiriting a national resurgence.

We know very little of the life of Father
Paisi; there is even no record of his lay
name; but he was apparently born ca. 1722,
When he was about forty he was a monk in
the monastery of Hilendar on Mount Athos.

107

BULGARIAN LITERATURE

Sent on a trip to Karlovtsi, he had the op-
portunity to see Russian translations of the
History of the Slavs by Maurus Orbini, which
served as one of his chief sources. He ap-
parently traveled around Bulgaria, reading
portions of his work and allowing it to be
copied.

Unlike the previous authors and historians,
who had also all been monks, Father Paisi
emphasized the lay character of history and
placed more weight on national and patriotic
motives than on religious miracles and motifs.
I le demanded the use of the native language;
he appealed to the national pride of his
people, to resume that place which they had
once had in history.

The History of Paisi appeared at a critical
time, when the Balkans were waking to the
influence of Western Europe and of modern
ideas. He was quickly followed by a long
series of monks who worked seriously for the
education of their fellows, as Sofrony
Vrachanski (1739-1813?), Neofit Rilski
(1793-1881), Neofit Bozveli (1780-1848).
Soon the first of the laymen appears, in the
person of Dr. Peter Bcron (1797-1871).
These men wrote for the people; they gradu-
ally shook off the Church Slavonic idiom and
replaced it with the modern Bulgarian speech.
Much that they did belongs in the field of
education or of political writing, but they set
the pace for the first half century and they
were succeeded by more literary men: Georgi
Sava Rakovski (1821-67), Lyuben Karavelov
(183779), Vasil Drumev (1841-1901). Rus-
sian thought influenced the period; almost
all had some connection with the revolu-
tionary committees in Bucharest or elsewhere
outside the Ottoman Empire.

To this group belongs Petko Rachev Slavey-
kov (1827-95), the first outstanding poet of
Bulgaria. Considerably influenced by Russian
literature, Slaveykov worked unceasingly as a
publicist and teacher for his people. Yet he
had a real, if limited, lyric sense and he was

the first of the Bulgarian authors to achieve
a poetic individuality.

The outstanding figure before the Bul-
garian liberation was Khristo Botev* (1848-
76). Fie lived a stormy life, wandering un-
ceasingly in Bulgaria, Rumania, and Russia,
and he became intimate with many of the
Russian revolutionists before his ill-fated
death. He left only 22 poems, but many of
them rank among the Bulgarian masterpieces
in their love of country and in their limitless
passion for human and national freedom.

Botev died on the very eve of Bulgarian
liberation. Once the country was free, there
began a new period in its literature. The
authors felt themselves no longer bound to
spend most of their time in the formation of
revolutionary societies and in wandering from
one country to another to find support for
their suffering countrymen. A new wave of
hope spread over the land and a higher form
of literary culture came to prevail.

The outstanding example of this new mood
was Ivan Vazov* (1850-1921), the most
versatile of all the Bulgarian authors. During
his long and active career, he worked success-
fully in prose, poetry,- comedy, tragedy, his-
torical drama; and he trained an entire gen-
eration of younger authors. Also interested in
describing the village life and the character
of the Bulgarian people were Konstantin
Velichkov (1855-1907); Todor Genchov
Vlaykov (b. 1865); Georgi P. Stamatov
(b. 1869); Anton Strashimirov (b. 1872);
the bitter satirist Stoyan Mikhailovski (1856-
1927); Aleko Konstantinov (1863-97), w * tn
his shrewd and humorous Bay-Ganyu, a clever
and understanding picture of the Bulgarian
peasant.

The increasing optimism and cultural op-
portunities of the new state led the next gen-
eration to seek for closer literary contacts with
the literature of western Europe, and the imi-
tation of the newer poetry. The trend was
started by Pencho Slaveykov (1866-1912),

BULGARIAN LITERATURE

1 08

the son of the older author Petko Rachev
Slavcykov. He spent nearly sixteen years in
Germany, read Goethe, Heine, Nietzsche; but
at the same time he wrote his best works on
Bulgarian subjects as the Korvava Pern (The
Song of Blood, 1911-13) in which he de-
scribed the Bulgarian revolts of 1876. In the
same general school were Peyo Kracholov
Yavorov (1876-1914), an unhappy character
who constantly aimed to present the con-
flicts in the human soul, and the more literary
Petko Yu. Todorov (1879-1916), who at
times introduced foreign motifs not too con-
sonant with the Bulgarian national character.
In prose of this period, the outstanding author
was Elin-Pelin (Dimitar Ivanov, b. 1876),
whose stories of village life have won recogni-
tion abroad.

1912 marked a turning point in the modern
Bulgarian temperament. It opened with high
hopes, with the Balkan Alliance in the first
Balkan War; but the Second Balkan War in
1913 which cost Bulgaria Macedonia and the
Dobrudja, and World War I, in which Bul-
garia was allied with the Central Powers,
were followed by further disturbances, which
broke Bulgarian self-confidence and created
a mood of depression. Many turned toward
mysticism; others, to a renewed admiration of
ancient Bulgarian history. Dimcho Debelya-
nov (1887-1916) was the outstanding poet
of this period. He left only about 30 poems,
but in their deep analysis of the author's
feelings, they brought him lasting fame.
There was a literary revival of Bogomilism,
as in the Bogomilski Legendi, in 1912, of
Nikolay Raynov (b. 1888), a professor of the
history of art. Ivan Grozev (b. 1872) reflects
the same tendencies. Todor Trayanov
(b. 1882) is the recognized leader of the
Bulgarian symbolists, with his Bulgarski
Baladi (1921; Bulgarian Ballads'). Nikolay
Liliyev (b. 1885) has produced harmonious
poetry.

In prose Bulgarian literature both before

and after the liberation has in its major works
confined its attention to the village; these
writings far excel in quality and truth those
works that have to do with the cities of Sofia
and Plovdiv. First place is taken by Jordan
lovkov (1884-1938), with his stories of life
in his native Dobrudja; also his Legends of
the Staroplamna rank among the leading
works of modern Bulgarian literature. Dobri
Nemirov (b. 1882) also wrote an excellent
novel Bratya (The Brothers, 1927) on the
period just before the liberation of the coun-
try, of his Bulgarian historical novels An-
geloglasniyat (The Angel-voiced Singer,
1938) gives an excellent description, with a
strong patriotic tinge, of the Byzantine court
of the time of the Komncni, with all their
dignity and vice. The Prosti Dtishi (Simple
Souls, 1938) of Konstantin Mutafov presents
humorous and yet understanding pictures of
the Bulgarian village under changing modern
conditions.

There is also a flourishing children's lit-
erature, to which many of the better writers,
as Angel Karaliychev, have turned in recent
years.

An exception to the gencial subjects of
Bulgarian literature is seen in the Blenove kray
Akropola (Visions on the Acropolis, 1938)
of Dimitar Shishmanov (18891945), for
a while Bulgarian Minister in Athens. It is a
delightfully and irreverently reverent picture
of the Athens of the Acropolis and also of
the cafes and the alleys; but beneath glows
a keen understanding of the permanent reali-
ties of art and of civilization. It is one of
the few works to rise above a narrow nation-
alism and to comprehend in fictional form a
culture other than that of Bulgaria.

In poetry Elizavieta Bagryana, although
not a prolific writer, is undoubtedly the lead-
ing poetess of the day, but Dora Gabe and
some of the other women writers are doing
better work than most of the men. This is
an interesting phenomenon, when we realize

109

BY2ANTINE LITERATURE

that oriental customs still retain considerable
force in Bulgarian social life.

On the eve of World War II, in which
Bulgaria, thirsting for revenge, again cast her
lot with the Axis, there was an active school
of literary criticism with several new reviews,
as the hkustvo i kriiika (Art and Criticism)
edited by Georgy Tsanov, which were rival-
ling the old Zlatorog. The wisest critics, as
lordan Badcv of the newspaper "Zora, deplored
the attempt to judge literature only by its
social message and not to seek in it for other
and higher qualities.

The destruction of much of central Sofia
will undoubtedly have an important effect
upon the writers concentrated in the area.

Here were their coffee houses and their book-
shops. It undoubtedly brought home to them
the meaning of the war, in a manner that was
not learned in 1918; but there is too little in-
formation available to estimate the effect of
this war upon Bulgarian thought and litera-
ture. A curious historical chauvinism pre-
vailed among the educated class after 1918;
how this will hold, and how the attitude
toward Russia-USSR that followed the last
war will develop, no one can predict.

D. Shishmanov, A Survey of Bulgarian Literature,
1932; Boyan Penev, Istoriya na novata Bulgarska
literature (History of Modern Bulgarian Literature^),
1930-1936. See Yugoslav.

CLARENCE A. MANNING.

BULU-See African.

BYZANTINE

BYZANTINE LITERATURE has been the pre-
server of the ancient Greek masterpieces to
the modern world, mother of the Slavic, the
Coptic, the Georgian, the Armenian, the
Syriac literature, and, through the last, of
Arabic science and philosophy, making
through this again and through its own son,
John Damascene, no mean contribution to the
culture of medieval western Europe. As un-
derstood in this article, it comprises that writ-
ten in Greek from the edict of Milan (313)
to the capture of Constantinople (1453). It
begins with the acceptance of Christianity by
the Roman Empire. Thenceforward, only
Christian literature voiced the vital philoso-
phy and hopes of the Mediterranean world.
Inspired by the religion that had forced its
way from cave and catacomb to the summit
of power, Byzantine Literature opened in

glory. The first period from Athanasius (295-
373) to Photius (820-97) can challenge any;
it attained supremacy in theology, pulpit ora-
tory, and the hymn, produced a fine poet and
a distinguished succession of historians. Most
remarkable of all, it witnessed the spectacle
of a whole populace capable of interesting
itself keenly in the ultimate abstractions of
metaphysics. This intellectual development,
the heritage of antiquity, was kindled by
ardor for the faith into resplendent theology
and oratory. These two genres, together with
the hymn, expressed perfectly the intimate
heart and soul of the age; they succeeded in
harmonizing the deep-seated conflict in its
complex psychology.

The new era sprang from a curious alliance.
On the one hand, it culminated a growth be-
gun deep in paganism. To the Renaissance

BYZANTINE LITERATURE

of the ist c. it owed the elements indispensa
ble to its life, the logical astuteness of the
popular mentality, and the favor universally
enjoyed by oratory. The impulse to the
Renaissance ("Second Sophistic" is an anach-
ronistic misnomer) had stirred in men
whom the vision of the radiant beauty of the
Periclean past made poignantly sensitive to
the unworthiness of their present. They re-
solved to restore Greek letters to splendor and
to inspire all with an emulation of antiquity.
They launched a crusade of education. The
support of the government was enlisted and
schools sprang up everywhere. The method
of teaching was reformed. In the Hellenistic
period, the compositions placed as models be-
fore the pupil were administrative documents
and the letters of high officials. These the
masterpieces of the golden age superseded.
Though no original research was undertaken,
the sciences were gathered into handy com-
pendia, philosophy and history, particularly,
recast to appeal to the ordinary reader. Not
content to stay within the four walls of a
classroom, the apostles of the Renaissance car-
ried their message to the public. They gave
oratory its vogue; they, too, originated a genre
that proved immensely popular, the dramatic
display. In this, some instructive topic from
either history or philosophy was made the
subject of a debate by a single individual
representing both sides. Thus, for instance, it
was Athenian law that the panegyric over
those slain in battle should be delivered by
the father of the bravest victim. The speaker
would impersonate in succession the parents
of two heroes of Marathon pleading the cause
of their sons. The applause awarded his per-
formance depended on the skill and fidelity
to life with which he portrayed the fictitious
characters and acted out the parts, on the
merits of his arguments, and on his elocution.
By such adroit methods the whole tone of
society was in the course of centuries elevated.
The audience was receiving a liberal educa-

tion in philosophy and history while being at
the same time entertained; its wits were
sharpened to follow and appraise a close train
of reasoning; its sense of style, the classic
feeling for harmony and design and delight in
fine, musical prose were reawakened. Above
all, the image of the matchless past was
held steadily before its eyes, and became the
accepted standard for writer and reader alike.
As a necessary preliminary to the program,
the literary language, until then the Attic
Koine, was reformed. This was not, as is com-
monly imagined, the speech of the people, but
a conventional diction (as is every book
idiom) legislated by the Hellenistic mon-
archies. It had already in the 3d c. B.C. begun
to diverge notably from the vernacular. Its
syntax was now modernized and its vo-
cabulary purged of foreign words. This
whole movement, due primarily to the acci-
dent that it did not penetrate deeply until
after 100 A.D., had at first no effect whatever
on Christian literature. The New Testament,
completed too early to feel its impact, simply
developed in the stylistic tradition of the pre-
vious epoch. To this the Apostolic Fathers and
the Apologists clung tenaciously, although the
progress of the classical revival rendered it
definitely antiquated in the 2d c. Their con-
servatism appears in their preservation of the
Koine, in their preference for genres with no
inner design, and in their recourse to Philo
and Josephus for models of polemic and for
philosophy. The inspired writings represent
the natural and spontaneous evolution of the
Jewish Hellenistic age; the later works, its
reactionary prolongation.

Byzantine Literature always showed the
traces of this dual origin. It is of capital im-
portance for its entire history that it derived
from two completely independent, widely dis-
parate, and long established trends, the re-
vived classic and the Jewish Hellenistic. The
Patristic age achieved greatness precisely be-
cause it succeeded in combining adroitly the

BYZANTINE LITERATURE

best elements of both tendencies. The isola-
tionism of Christian literature was brought to a
stop by Clement of Alexandria* and Origen,*
who in the 3d c. pressed Platonism into the
service of the faith. Their work led directly to
the brilliant development of theology and ex-
egesis that inaugurated Byzantine Literature.
The theology concerned itself at first with the
fundamental mysteries of the Trinity and
Incarnation. By a happy application to the
teachings of the Gospel of the philosophical
concepts inherited from paganism, it unfolds
the dogmatic content of the primitive revela-
tion. The outstanding personalities were, in
the 4th c., Athanasius,* patriarch of Alexan-
dria, the champion of orthodoxy through fifty
years of hardship and persecution, and the
three Cappadocians, Basil of Caesarea,* his
younger brother Gregory of Nyssa,* and his
close friend Gregory Nazianzen,* the most in-
fluential in aftertime; in the 5th, Cyril,* patri-
arch of Alexandria, in the 6th, Leontius* of
Byzantium, who introduced Aristotelianism;
in the yth, Maximus,* called "Confessor"
for his sufferings in behalf of the truth; in
the 8th, John Damascene,* who summed up
the whole development in the first system-
atization of theology, Wellspring of Wisdom.
After 450, interest turned to mysticism with
two writers of note, the pseudo-Dionysius* the
Areopagite (6th c.), and Maximus Confessor,
the real founder of the science. As thinkers,
all these men subscribed to the alliance of
pagan philosophy with Christian dogma. But
as writers, the Alexandrians, Athanasius and
Cyril, adhered to the Hellenestic style of ran-
dom discourse, going whither emotion or the
association of ideas led, Cyril particularly
never saying in one word what he can say in
fifty. The Cappadocians, with their disci-
plined arrangement and classic unity, present
a striking contrast. In biblical exegesis the
school of Alexandria evinces the same con-
servatism; walking in the footsteps of the
early Church and Philo, it espoused the alle-

gorical interpretation (Cyril's bulky works
give us a specimen of the method). The
school of Antioch, however, in keeping with
the system of expounding the classical texts
then in vogue, took the scientific, the histori-
cal and lexicographical, approach. It produced
the ranking figure in exegesis, Theodoret* of
Cyrus (393-460), and had another remark-
able representative in John Chrysostom.*

These accomplishments, however, lay pri-
marily in the domain of thought rather than
of belles lettres; it was the orator and the
hymn writer that united the two basic trends
into an artistic creation. Oratory, continuing
its lofty role as educator of the public, brought
to the masses the theology and exegesis of the
masters. To follow the subtleties of these sub-
jects exacted an amazing degree of intellectual
preparation, and the keen audience was the
Renaissance's best gift to the 4th c. Amid the
host of preachers (we have a sheaf of sermons
from almost every name) Gregory Nazianzen
and John Chrysostom excelled, each in a dis-
tinctive type. Chrysostom, active first at Anti-
och and later patriarch of Constantinople,
generally accounted one of the world's great
orators, won his pre-eminence in the homily.
This was part of the exclusively Christian
heritage, a composition of the loose, impro-
vised sort with neither introduction nor con-
clusion, a running commentary on a section
of scripture accompanied by a moral exhorta-
tion. He delivered this with fiery sincerity, yet
with all the art and artifices accumulated in
the experience of pagan antiquity. Gregory,
on the other hand, took the highly organized
encomium or advocate's plea and turned it to
the panegyric of a saint or the defense of
religion. Romanus (490-560), peerless as a
composer of hymns, achieved a strikingly dif-
ferent reconciliation of the pagan and the
Christian element. From the liturgy, for
which, of course, his masterpieces were in-
tended, he received the principle of his verse,
stress and not length of syllable; his language,

BYZANTINE LITERATURE

the biblical Koine; and his subjects. But the
purity of his diction, the regularity of his
meters, his sense of structure, the perfection
of unity in his tone, atmosphere, and plot, his
skill in rhetorical figures and sound effects-
all this is unalloyed classicism. But above and
beyond any technical excellence, Romanus is
a poet. He etches the sublime scenes of Holy
Writ in vivid drama, with delicate tenderness,
with intense love and devotion, with a direct-
ness and nobility reminiscent of Homer. He,
as no other, makes one feel the God before
ages in the lowly homes of men.

Such a free transfer of style from one genre
to another went contrary to the classical rule
that the type had to be maintained true to its
origin, that, for instance, the choral ode in
an Attic drama must be in the Doric dialect.
This canon, however, had been disregarded
from the inception of the Renaissance. Never
theless, it had by no means been forgotten;
the heroic verse of the 6th c. A.D. is still in the
language and manner, if not the genius, of
Homer. It is not too surprising, then, to find
many of the traditional categories cultivated
without the slightest effort to modify them.
On the one hand, the romance and the
mythological epic, even from the pen of Chris-
tians, remained as gross and idolatrous as
ever, while secular history gave no more at-
tention to religion than Thucydides to his
gods. (Cf. Greek Literature.) On the other
hand, the chronicle, ecclesiastical history, and
hagiography persevered in the literary conven-
tions of the early Church in which they had
originated. The chronicle is the acme of struc-
tureless composition, a world history in al-
manac form, itemizing unconnected events
year by year; it may enter under the same
head a signal victory, a disastrous earthquake,
and the tour of an uncannily trained dog
around the Empire. Its language retains the
syntax of the old-fashioned Koine, and, to
emphasize the contrast with the classicist lit-
erature, its vocabulary has an unduly large

foreign element, particularly Latinisms. It
gives religious as well as secular history. The
prominent chroniclers were Eusebius; John
Malalas, most likely identical with John
Scholasticus, the patriarch of Constantinople
(d. 577); and Thcophanes Confessor, who
died in 817 a martyr in the Iconoclastic con-
troversy. These were all well-educated men,
and the style of their work is every whit as
much a convention as the most polished ora-
tion of Gregory Nazianzen.

While the chronicle resisted the classicist
tendency to the end, church history and
hagiography both succumbed to it. The Ec-
clesiastical History of Eusebius* (263-339),
"Father of Church History," bears the evident
stamp of its origin from the chronicle. An in-
valuable collection of documents, it scarcely
attempts a coherent narrative; thoroughly
Christian in spirit, it is in diction and method
a throwback to the Hellenistic age. With the
addition of material from secular history and
hagiography it was continued by Socrates
(380-439), who was rewritten by his con-
temporary Sozornen with a view to better
organization the first essay at classicizing the
genre. Taking up the story where they left
off, Evagrius Scholasticus (536-612) goes
down to 593, while he tries to keep the best
features of his predecessors, documentation,
attention to secular history, and hagiography,
he writes an orderly developed account in the
classicist fashion.

Hagiography followed a similar path. For
the medieval Byzantine, the saint was the
hero, the ideal, the celebrity, and hagiography
in its various manifestations running the
gamut from almost pure history to undis-
guised fiction was his epic, his spiritual read-
ing, his romance, his sensational novel. Val-
uable a source as it often is, particularly for
its glimpses of the social life of the time, it
could never be cold fact even in the other-
wise sober pages of a Socrates or a Sozomen;
it had to have the marvelous and astounding.

BYZANTINE LITERATURE

Successor to the early apocryphal acts of the
apostles and to the even earlier pagan Hel-
lenistic tale of the wonder-worker, its first
monument is the life of Anthony, the Egyp-
tian hermit, by Athanasius. This is substan-
tially historical but its aim is not biography
but edification; it depicts the ideal monk.
Numerous collections of saints' lives were
made, the most notable being Palladius'
Lamiac History (ca. 420) and John Moschus'
(d. 619) Meadow, a variegated and delight-
ful scries of anecdotes connected with maxims
and biographical sketches. Hagiography rose to
a new height during and after the Iconoclas-
tic persecution. These lives provide us with
excellent information about the controversy.
Their style is purely classicist.

Ultimately, too, all Byzantine poetry,
liturgical and nonliturgical, became classicist.
Only one great hymn appeared after Ro-
manus, the anonymous Acathistus (i.e., 'not
seated/ because the congregation stands dur-
ing its rendition), a sort of Te Demn in honor
of the Virgin Mother. Previous to John
Damascene liturgical poetry was based on
stress but he introduced quantity for some of
his hymns. As for secular verse, the only sort
ever cultivated by the Byzantines with any
success was the epigram, in which Theodore
Studites* (759-826), to mention one among
many, displayed high originality, genuine
sentiment, and a fine power of observation.
George* of Pisidia (fl. 610-41), acknowl-
edged the finest of medieval Greek poets, also
a clever epigrammatist, has bequeathed a
fair volume of verse, of which his didactic
Creation and his Lines on Human Life have
been most admired. The sole writer with the
courage and independence to attempt the in-
troduction of the popular stress meters into
literature was Gregory Nazianzen. From him
we have excellent versified autobiography,
supposed by some to have suggested St.
Augustine's Confessions.

Unfortunately, however, for this all-con-

quering classicism, the close sympathetic
union between author and audience, without
which the period's greatness could never have
been, broke off after the 5th c. Literature
retired to the Court and the cloister. Symp-
tomatic of the change was the shift of the-
ology from the fundamental truths, in which
all were interested, to mysticism, with which
only the monk was concerned. Likewise,
from the reign of Justinian (527-65), history
was no longer written for the general reader
but for the emperor, the grandee, and the
pedant. After Heraclius (610-41) court
patronage ceased for what reason no one
knows. For two hundred years all activity
was confined to monasteries, and the vast
productivity of the previous centuries dwin-
dled to the chronicle, the life of the saint,
the hymn, and theology. Becoming esoteric,
literature simultaneously became heavy with
learning and extremely artificial. It developed
an extraordinary flare for technique, a trait
already prominent in the Justinian epoch.
The last secular historian, Theophylactus
Simocatta (d. 632,), in his account of the
emperor Maurice (582-602) must have fig-
ures of speech everywhere. Each sentence is
practically a conundrum. Some of John
Damascene's hymns have a complicated inter-
locking of stress and quantity; the stanza
makes an acrostic neither tour de force con-
tributing to ease or intelligibility. Despite
these tortured excesses, this substitution of
ingenuity for genius, of scholarship for in-
spiration, a decay inevitably associated with
a closet literature, the old spirit of classicism
still had sufficient vitality to confer immense
benefits. Judged merely as historian, Evagrius
improves considerably on Eusebius. Theophy-
lactus' sober, coherent, reliable narrative, for
all its fantastic manner, so far excels that of
the Arab Tabari or the Armenian Sebeos or
the uncouth western chronicles as to be in a
class by itself. Byzantine literature has suf-
fered immeasurably from comparison with the

BYZANTINE LITERATURE

114

classic; but it does have the distinction of
being the only medieval literature that even
suggests the comparison.

Towards the middle of the 9th c., imperial
patronage was renewed by Caesar Bardas, the
towering figure of Photius emerged at the
propitious moment, and the later period of
Byzantine Literature began (850-1453). This
second Renaissance differed from the first in
essence, in spirit and aim. It had no interest
whatever in the public and no missionary
zeal for raising the general level of culture.
It was for prince and scholar only, predomi-
nantly the latter. This erudite character was
impressed upon it by the peculiar genius of
its inspirer, Photius* (82.0-97), eminent man
of affairs, of immense learning, whose per-
sonality and outlook forever after dominated
Byzantine Literature. He is himself the phe-
nomenon most distinctive of the later period
and unparalleled in the previous epoch, the
universalist, the master of every field of
human knowledge, essayist in theology,
exegesis, natural science, medicine, grammar,
history, law. He had several successors, some
perhaps of even more extraordinary attain-
ments, among them Michael Psellus; Eusta-
thius,* archbishop of Thessalonica (d. 1192),
famous for his commentaries on Homer and
Pindar; Maximus Planudes* (i3th c.) author
of one of the two extant anthologies of an-
cient poetry; Theodore Metochites, polyhistor
and poet, councillor to Andronicus II Palae-
ologus (1282-1328); and Nicephoras Gre-
goras* (1295-1359), pupil of Theodore and
another universal-knowledge man.

Photius thus led his contemporaries back to
antiquity in an antiquarian spirit and for an-
tiquity's sake. He began with a busy collect-
ing and copying of manuscripts to preserve
what survived. To his impulse we owe most
of what we have of the classics at the present
day. To further the same end, he initiated a
series of compendia, contributing himself a
Dictionary and the Library, a comprehensive

handbook of literature with biographies of
authors, an often acute estimate of their value,
and summaries of their works, about three
hundred chapters in all. Constantine VII
Porphyrogenitus,* Emperor (912-59), con-
tinued with an encyclopedia of history and
political science in the form of excerpts from
previous writers arranged under various head-
ings, e.g., embassies, virtues and vices, etc.;
he also completed and revised the Basilica, a
codification of law already started under his
grandfather. From the same century we have
the Palatine Anthology (cf. Greek Literature)
of Constantine Ccphalas, the encyclopedia of
hagiography of Symeon Metaphrastes, and
the Dictionary of Suidas, actually a sort of
abridged encyclopedia with brief alphabeti-
cally arranged articles on philosophy, science,
grammar, geography, etc., of inestimable
worth for its literary items.

Most of the energy of this time went into
the task of conservation, though personal com-
position, especially of history and chronicle,
was not lacking. But the huge volume of in-
dependent production that astounds us under
the Comneni and the Palaeologi began only
at the end of the i ith c. with that remarkable
personage, Michael Psellus* (1018-78), poly-
histor and prime minister, second only to
Photius in his influence on Byzantine Litera-
ture. He gave to the Empire its dying radi-
ance, its last burst of glory before sinking
beneath the horizon of history a brave pro-
test against fate, pathetic in that it achieved
only brilliance, never greatness. It could not
shake off the fetters of Photius' scholarship,
and a new factor had arisen that made such
a move imperative the spoken tongue had
changed to a form close to modern Greek,
making the written as obsolete as Chaucer's
English. But the idiom of prose was not af-
fecteda result perfectly natural in view of
the age-old convention of keeping the genre
true to type. What had motivated the lin-
guistic reforms of the First-Century Renais-

BYZANTINE LITERATURE

sance had been its ardor for popularization,
but Michael Psellus, aristocrat, courtier, and
timeserver, of consuming vanity and intense
egotism, certainly never conceived any al-
truistic interest in the multitude. Yet, he had
undeniable originality and extraordinary in-
tellectual powers; he has been compared with
Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon. He
turned toward ancient Greece not merely for
its own sake but to draw inspiration and a
fresh viewpoint. He attained entire inde-
pendence of the medieval tradition. lie for-
sook the turgid style in vogue since Justinian,
for an elegant, lucid diction. Breaking with
the Eastern Church's Aristotelianism, he re-
vived Plato and successfully defended him-
self against the charge of heresy. He brought
Byzantine Literature for the rest of its career
into closer contact with pagan antiquity than
it had ever before been. He was in a sense
the first Humanist.

The period of the Comneni and Palaeologi
thus contrasted vividly with the earlier; its
atmosphere was more classical, and conse-
quently more modern, and it lacked the domi-
nant religious accent. Theology, though not
neglected, confined itself mainly to polemic,
over universals (an interesting parallel to the
West) and Psellus' Platonism, over reunion
with Rome, and over Hesychasm, an odd sys-
tem of contemplation practiced by the monks
of Mt. Athos to catch a glimpse of the un-
created light from the Transfiguration on Mt.
Tabor. Real advance was made in mysticism,
the Life in Christ of Nicholas Kavasilas
(d. 1371) being one of the most remarkable
essays in the subject. But there was little
original pulpit oratory, exegesis, or hagiogra-
phy, and but one insignificant church history.
In the nonreligious field, on the other hand,
no genre was slighted, and numerous types
were revived that had slept for centuries, e.g.,
satire and romance. Lucian was a great
favorite. Apart from the essayists and poly-
histors previously mentioned, the most dis-

tinguished work was in history. We have an
almost continuous narrative from 813 to 1476,
paralleled and supplemented by good chroni-
cles (still, for the most part, in the biblical
Koine) that fill the slight gaps. Many of the
writers were members of the imperial family,
e.g., Princess Anna Comnena, daughter of
Alexius Comnenus, whose Alexiad recounts
her father's reign (1081-1118); her husband
Nicephoras Bryennius' family chronicle of the
rise of the Comneni; and the self-complacent
story of his own achievements by one of the
Palaeologi, John VI Cantacuzcnus (1341-
55). All the other historians were men of high
political office who took an intimate part in
the events they relate. As might be supposed,
these narratives lack the cold detachment of
the writers of the early centuries. They have,
however, the advantage of colorful, if not al-
ways attractive, personality.

It was in its intense cultivation of verse,
however, that the second period contrasted
notably with the first. This interest naturally
owed much to the example of antiquity, but
it was due also in no small measure to the
rise of a vernacular literature. Practically
everything written in the popular speech was
poetry. Its earliest monument, the folk saga
Digenis Acritas, sings of the loves and ad-
ventures of a warrior defending his faith and
his country against the infidel, a popular
crystallization of the unceasing struggles with
the Saracen. The action takes place in the
middle of the loth c. on the extreme south-
eastern boundaries of the Empire. The reader
who came to this epic in the expectation of
another Iliad would have a sore disappoint-
ment in store, but it has, for all that, some
fine qualities, an idyllic enjoyment of patriar-
chal life and sincere patriotism. In the
Rhodian Love Songs of the i4th and i5th c.
is found the finest creation of the vernacular,
an authentic lyric note and a pastoral sim-
plicity comparable to Theocritus. We have a
not inconsiderable volume, mostly from the

BYZANTINE LITERATURE

116

1 3th and later c., of didactic and historical
verse, animal stories, romance, and a fairy
tale of enchanted castle and distressed beauty
and golden magic apple and all live happily
ever after even the wicked king, who re-
pents!

Almost without exception, this vernacular
literature observes the ancient convention of
keeping the genre true to its origin. From the
nth c. onward, a lively effort was made to
promote a literature in the vulgar tongue.
Even authors of the aristocratic circles pub-
lished in it: the Spaneas (1142) of Alexius,
son of the emperor John Comnenus, a thor-
oughly Byzantine Polonius to his Laertes; the
petition (1159) of Michael Glycas to be re-
leased from prison; and Theodore Prodromus'
three begging effusions, a new and unpleasant
species, an abject appeal for succor. Such com-
positions readily lent themselves to the every-
day speech, because it was what the poor
countryman actually employed in his suit to
his lord and what everybody used in the
familiar intercourse of the home. Michael
Glycas* (who was blinded, his petition hav-
ing the unhappy effect of reminding Manuel
Comnenus of his existence) represented a
type not uncommon throughout the period,
the educated man with an interest not only in
antiquity but also in the folk and life about
him. It is to people of his stamp, well read
and schooled but not scholars, that we owe
all the vernacular literature; they made up
both its writers and its public. Their work,
however, witnesses to the difficulty inherent
in the creation of a dignified literary medium
out of the materials of ordinary conversation;
they had continually to supplement the
poverty of the current vocabulary from the
literary stock. Except in the hands of a genius,
such a curious admixture, if transferred to the
inherited classic types," would have issued
only in bathos. It was tried once. John II,
Despot of Epirus (1323-35), commissioned
an otherwise unknown Hermoniacus to do

Homer into the idiom of the day. The project
was bold and well-intentioned, evincing an
admirable interest in the spread of education,
but the result, one is forced to admit, an
atrocity. The rest realized their limitations
and kept the vulgar tongue strictly within
the limits of the age-old convention. This is
why all the vernacular poetry is so naive in
tone and unsophisticated in subject.

In accordance with the same convention,
the learned verse kept to its own sphere, but
subject to large influence from the vulgar.
This appears not only in its borrowing of the
only new type, the begging poem, and in its
parallel revival of the Hellenistic romance,
but especially in its meters. It employs freely
the popular "political verse" based on stress,
not quantity. Of the vast output, the epigram
leads in quality, John the Geometrician*
(loth c.) and Christopher of Mitylene
(nth c.) being especially successful. The
reader can get a good idea of the extent and
variety of the other material from an enumera-
tion of the stuff turned out by the prolific
Theodore Prodromus (i2th c.): a romance; a
dramatic parody entitled War of the Cats and
the Mice; Friendship Banished, a dialogue
dealing with the advantages of friendship;
Lament over the Neglect of Learning (mostly
his own, by an inappreciative world); an
astrological poem; To a Picture of Life; Verses
on the Twelve Months, a sort of Shepherd's
Calendar; innumerable occasional poems,
mostly begging, on the successful military ex-
peditions or marriages or births or deaths in
the royal household; religious compositions on
the feast of the Epiphany, all the saints in the
calendar, the Fathers of the Church, Trinity,
etc.; in addition to all this, epigrams and rid-
dles. He has some witty satire, a bit
Rabelaisian: To Machaon, an old man who
married a very young woman; The Lewd Old
Woman; The Bearded Oldster.

A very characteristic manifestation of
Byzantine genius common to both the earlier

CANAANITE LITERATURE

and the later period is epistolography, always
in prose. The private correspondence of nearly
all the authors mentioned above and of hun-
dreds of others was collected and published
after their death, was, in fact, written with
just such an eventuality in view. It is of
fascinating interest not only for the person-
alities involved but for its vivid picture of
the society and manners of the day. Thus,
to choose an instance at random, we have the
missives of Nicholas, a tenth-century patriarch
of Constantinople, to the Arab Emir of
Crete, to Symeon, Prince of Bulgaria, to the
Pope, to Emperor Romanus I, to an Armenian
baron, besides, of course, those to his friends,
subordinates, etc. Again, the letter was the
normal form for the political pamphlet, the
scientific article, and for all legal enactments,
which were usually couched as communica-
tions addressed to an official. It could, more-
over, be employed for a wide variety of com-
positions, as by Athanasius, for example, for
his biography of Anthony, his History of the

Arians, and for many of his theological tracts.
Epistolography is generally regarded as having
reached its apogee in the fourth century.
However, it remained a favorite literary type
at all times and kept a high level.

Over this whole brilliant civilization the
Turkish conquest passed like the night. Its
scholars wandered aliens in western Europe,
its promising vernacular literature glowed
faintly for a brief space and died.

Otto Stahlin, Christliche Schriftsteller in Wilhelm
von Christs Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur
von Wilhelm Schmid u. Otto Stahlin, II, 2, (6cd.
Munich 1924: Handbuch der Altertums-wissenschaft,
VII); Karl Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzan-
tinischen Litteratur (2 ed. with collaboration of A.
Ehrhard and H. Gelzer, Munich, 1897: Handbuch
der klassischen Altertums-wissenschaft, IX); Berthold
Altaiier, Patrologie (Freiburg im Br., 1938); A. A.
Vasilicv, History of the Byzantine Empire (Mad-
ison), 192,9 (new and revised French ed., Paris,
1932); J. M. Campbell, The Greek fathers (New
York, 1929: Our Debt to Greece and Rome, 34).
See Arabic.

MARTIN J. HIGGINS.

CADDO See North American Native.
CADUVEO-See South American Indian.
CAINGANG-See South American Indian.
CALABAR-See African.

CALIFORNIA INDIAN-See North Ameri-
can Native.

CAMEROONS-See African.
CAMPECHE-See Mexican.

CANAANITE

IMMEDIATELY prior to a series of calamities
that overtook it between the years 1250 and
1000 B.C., the sphere of Canaanite culture
comprised, if enclaves and exclaves are dis-
regarded, the entire Syro-Palestinian coast to
an average depth of about forty miles. The
disasters of the last 250 years of the second

millennium B.C. reduced it essentially to
Phoenicia and some exclaves. During the first
millennium B.C., the Phoenicians extended it
again by founding numerous colonies over-
seas; the most famous of these is Carthage.
But the creative period of Canaanite literature
lies before 1000 B.C. This is certainly true of

CANAANITE LITERATURE

118

the Canaanite literature that has actually
been recovered, and is probable for the best
of the other Canaanite literature that there
are good reasons for believing to have existed,
some of which may yet be found.

i. Extant Canaanite Literature.

All the Canaanite belles-lettres of which a
direct knowledge is possible were brought to
light during the years 19291933 by the
excavators of Ras esh-Shamra, the site of
ancient Ugarit, on the Syrian coast opposite
the northernmost point of Cyprus. Composed
in a previously unknown dialect of Canaanite
which we call Llgaritic, they are recorded in a
previously unknown script, which we call the
Ugaritic alphabet, upon clay tablets that the
excavators found in and about the ruins of
a sort of writing school and library. Some of
these tablets are dated by colophons in the
reign of a certain King Niqmadd; a state doc-
ument proves that this Niqmadd was a
vassal of the famous Hittite monarch Sup-
piluliuma, who is known to have reigned
from ca. 1380 to ca. 1340 B.C. and to have
brought northern Syria under his sway
ca. 1360 B.C. However, the literary works
found in Niqmadd's library, or at least earlier
recensions of them, may have been composed
considerably earlier; cf. the more famous
library of the Assyrian king Asshurbanapal.
The literary treasures recovered from the
library of Niqmadd are exclusively poetic.
The three most important items are three
epics, all of them in very fragmentary condi-
tion, which are designated upon the tablets
themselves as respectively (i) Baal, (2)
Aqhat, and (3) Keret.

Baal pertains entirely to the realm of
mythology. It relates how the rain-god Baal,
who is 'lord of the earth,' rose from a rela-
tively lowly estate among the gods by succes-
sively vanquishing several formidable antag-
onists, mostly of a marine character. Such
episodes were no doubt suggested by the often

violent beating of the sea against the land in an
apparent effort to engulf it. In the course of
his adventures, Baal even loses his life where-
upon, of course, the earth is visited by drought
but by and by he revives again. This motif
is obviously suggested by the annual alter-
nation of rainy, verdant winter and rainless,
parched summer in Syria. In many a difficult
situation, Baal receives invaluable aid from
his friend, the cunning inventor-and-crafts-
man-god Kothar, and particularly from his
sister, the ferocious but potent warrior-goddess
Anath.

The Baal epic may have served liturgical
purposes in the same way as the Babylonian
epic of creation; which, because it relates how
Marduk was made king of the gods for van-
quishing the sea-dragon Tiainat and her
cohorts, served as the 'lesson' for the annual
festival of Marduk's enthronement, the
Babylonian New Year's Day. The other two
epics, on the other hand, especially Keret,
may well have been recited primarily for the
purpose of affording pleasure and instruction.

Aqhat comes under the heading of legend
rather than of myth. The titular hero, Aqhat,
is the son of Daniel, a man noted for reverent
worship of the gods and conscientious admin-
istration of justice among men, probably a
king but withal a man. In legends, however,
the relation between gods and men can be
very close. Aqhat hunts with a bow which
his father obtained for him from Kothar. Its
beauty and/or efficiency inevitably arouse the
cupidity of the martial Anath. Inasmuch as
Aqhat refuses to exchange his bow for any
gift she offers, she commissions a henchman
of hers to dispatch him. Aqhat's death, like
Baal's, results (though indirectly) in a blight
upon the fields; and, again as in the Baal
epic, it is the victim's sister in this case
Paghat who sets out to wreak vengeance
upon Anath's henchman. Unfortunately, the
continuation is missing. Perhaps Daniel's
piety induces the gods to find some means of

CAHAANIT E LITERATURE

releasing Aqhat from the netherworld. In any
case, the pieserved parts of Aqhat are quite
charming.

Keret too is legend rather than myth. The
titular hero, King Kcret, is of divine descent.
But he is the king of a human community;
and his wife, Lady Ilurriya (his courtship
of whom was rather unusual and romantic)
is doubtless a mortal, though ravishingly
beautiful, woman. It seems that not all the
children she bore him arc equally worthy.
This fact is brought out by a severe illness
of Kcret's. During the crisis, at least one son
and daughter of his behave in an exemplary
fashion; but while Keret is recuperating, his
eldest son Yassib hypocritically suggests that
his father, who has so long neglected the
king's duty of administering justice, ought
to vacate the throne for his benefit. For this
Keret roundly curses him. Unfortunately, the
conclusion is again wanting.

Canaanite poetry is of the utmost impor-
tance for the study of Hebrew poetry. The
two are closely akin not only in language but
also in technique. Both Canaanite and bibli-
cal poetry employ parallelism of clauses and
phrases with the same, sometimes monot-
onous, regularity and with the same charac-
teristic variations. Both employ stock pairs of
synonyms in parallel: to a considerable ex-
tent, the same pairs and in the same sequence.
They also share many stock similes and
metaphors. The meter is primarily accentual,
the quantities of all syllables being no more
important than in English verse and their
number rather less so. Biblical poetry even
alludes to Jehovah by an epithet, 'the Cloud-
rider/ by which Canaanite poetry designates
Baal, and to some of the exploits of Baal as
exploits of Jehovah. In fact, it sometimes
adapts whole passages of Canaanite verse. Of
course, Canaanite literature was itself, like
almost every other, indebted to foreign in-
fluences, notably Sumero-Accadian, Hurrian,
and Egyptian.

2. The Lost Canaanite Literature. (a) Cos-
mogony and History:

The genuine Phoenician mythology that
underlies the euhemeristic account presented
by Philo of Byblus (zd c. A.D.) in Greek was
unmistakably akin to that which we find in
Ugaritic literature, but at the same time di-
verged from it considerably. It was a Byblian
crystallization of the common Phoenician tra-
dition, for which Philo doubtless drew not
only upon oral sources but upon a written
Phoenician source or sources: most likely, as
he himself claims, on the work of one Sanchu-
niathon of Berytus (the Berytians being also of
Byblian 'nationality'). According to Philo,
this Sanchuniathon lived before the Trojan
War, but that date is probably too high.
Still a third, Sidonian, crystallization of the
same tradition was embodied in the Phoeni-
cian writmg(s) that served as source(s) to
Eudemus (late 4th c. B.C.) and Mochus
(probably later).

There certainly existed in Phoenician a
chronicle of Tyre, covering at least the period
from the middle of the loth c. to 532 B.C.,
which was translated into Greek by Menan-
der. The Jewish historian Josephus (ist c.
A.D.) has preserved some reliable data from
Menander's translation.

(b) Lyrical and Didactic Poetry:

That the Canaanites possessed psalms
might have been assumed on general princi-
ples. Now one Canaanite hymn and what
may be a series of 'first lines' of others have
actually been recovered at Ugarit. We can
gain some idea about still others from the
fact that Psalm 29 of the Bible is demon-
strably adapted from a Canaanite hymn.
Again, it is well known that the 104^ Psalm
is modeled ultimately upon the Hymn of
Akhenaten (1377-1360 B.C.) to the Sun;
but the direct borrowers of this hymn are far
more likely to have been Akhenaten's, or one
of his successors', Canaanite subjects than

CANADIAN LITERATURE

120

the Israelites at any period of their history.
For it is very suggestive that in the reign im-
mediately following that of Akhenaten,
Abimilki, the Tyrian vassal of Egypt, had his
letters to the Egyptian court written by an
Egyptian scribe, and that though the latter
wrote them in Accadian, which was the lan-
guage of diplomacy, he embodied in them
translations of Egyptian hymns. As a matter
of fact, the Canaanite world was under
Egyptian cultural influence from about
3000 B.C. on, and from about 2600 B.C. to
1150 B.C. it was under more or less effective
Egyptian rule most of the time. Accordingly,
the Egyptian songs of thanksgiving of around
1 200 B.C., which have such striking echoes
in the Psalter, were no doubt also mediated
to Israel by the Canaanites. (In general, this
also applies to the Sumero-Accadian factor in
Hebrew psalmody.) So, too, the framework
of the Song of Songs (Canticles) has been
shown to be borrowed from the Egyptians,
while the contents embody some Sumero-Ac-
cadian elements. (Cf. Canticles 3:7-8 with
Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and
Babylonia II, p. 239, ^[625. There can be no

question but it is the latter document
[yth c. B.C.] that preserves the more original
form of the idea; which is doubtless older
than either, and is in any case typically
Mesopotamian not least of all in the choice
of the number 60.) Here again we are his-
torically limited to an hypothesis of Canaanite
mediation, so that this genre too must have
been cultivated by the Canaanites. In the
case of the very strong Egyptian element in
Hebrew wisdom literature, the hypothesis of
Canaanite mediation derives additional sup-
port from the strong Phoenician coloring of
the language of the older Hebrew wisdom
literature, notably of the Book of Proverbs
(e.g., 'wisdom* is occasionally called hokmot,
a purely Phoenician form corresponding to
the Hebrew hokmah.^).

W. F. Albright, Studies in the History of Culture
(1942), p. 11-50; Archaeology and the Religion of
Israel (1942), p. 182 n. 35; The Catholic Biblical
Quarterly, January 1945, p. 5-31; H. L. Ginsberg,
The Biblical Archaeologist, VIII, 2 (May 1945), p.
41-58; Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume (1946); Eng-
lish Section p. i66-8[8-io]. See Egyptian; Hebrew.

H. L. GINSBERG.

CANADIAN

I. English

ENGLISH Canadian literature cannot be de-
scribed as flourishing before the federation of
the provinces in 1867. The reasons for this
slow growth are many. Canada was, and still
is, a thinly populated country. As late as
1840, in a territory larger than that of the
United States, fewer than a million people
could speak English and many of these were
illiterate. Cities did not exist. Saw mills and
grist mills, breweries and distilleries, pros-
pered, but there were few bookshops and no

publishing houses. The people were scattered
on lonely farms far from any large commu-
nity, so that the social conditions which en-
courage the writing of novels, plays, or essays
were completely lacking. Verse was written in
quantity, but when it is not so derivative as
to amount to an exercise, it is uninspired
doggerel. Moreover most of the settlers were
pioneers, almost exclusively concerned with
surviving. Literature, if it existed for them,
was the literature of England. Even today
Canada has no national library; and, in spite

CANADIAN LITERATURE

of the fact that the population is overwhelm-
ingly of non-English origin and tradition,
some of its universities, particularly those
staffed hy recent immigrants from British
universities, have no courses in either Cana-
dian or American literature.

Though Canadian literature cannot be said
to have flourished until after 1867, an his-
torical sketch must give some account of its
early growth. The first literary journals
in British North America were published
in Nova Scotia. Here, there also appeared,
in the early years of the ipth c., the
prose of Joseph Howe and Thomas Chand-
ler Haliburton and the poetry of Oliver
Goldsmith, grandncphew of the English au-
thor. Goldsmith, like Joseph Howe and many
others of his contemporaries, wrote with an
English accent. His Rising Village of 1825
describes the Canadian rural scene in heroic
couplets and in phrases culled from his i8th c.
masters. The settler is a "peasant" or a
"swain" who has crossed "stormy seas" to turn
the "gloomy shades" into "verdant meads"
bathed in "silvery dew" and end his days
among "the grass-clad hillocks of the sacred
dead."

In 1828 Joseph Howe bought The Novasco-
tian and made it a medium for his essays
and those of the members of a club which he
formed. Howe's best papers, reminiscent now
of Addison, now of Burke, are on the freedom
of the press, a freedom that he won for his
native province.

But the most important figure whose work
appeared in The Novascotian was Thomas
Chandler Haliburton.* Born near Windsor,
Nova Scotia, he grew up in a literary environ-
ment. After becoming a member of Howe's
club, he began to contribute satirical sketches
written in dialect and built around the char-
acter of a shrewd Yankee pedlar, Sam Slick.
Sam comments on everything from vegetar-
ianism and teetotalism (both of which he de-
plored) to the problems of slavery and repre-

sentative government. Of the logical develop-
ment of democracy he says: "I do believe,
arter all ... this universal suffrage will make
tools of us all; it ain't one man in a thousand
knows how to choose a horse, much less a
member . . ." In 1837 these sketches were
added to and published as The Clock-maker.
Containing new material and written in a
new style, this is the first specimen of prose
in Canada that can be described as native, as
distinctively North American. The Clock-
maker established Haliburton's fame as a
humorist, and his other books, like The
Attache and The Old, Judge, were widely
read on both sides of the Atlantic.

In Upper Canada (Ontario) a native liter-
ature was much slower in appearing than in
Nova Scotia. The historical novels of Major
John Richardson, Wacousta (1832) and The
Canadian Brothers (1840) have been over-
rated. They arc even cruder in plot, character-
ization, and dialogue than their model, Feni-
more Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans.
"Uttering a savage laugh, the monster spurned
her from him with his foot, when quick as
thought, a pistol was discharged within a few
inches of his face; but with a rapidity equal
to that of his assailant, he bent aside his head
and the ball passed harmlessly on." Quite as
unaccountable is the critical judgment that
has preserved the poetry of Charles Heavy-
sege. His reputation rests on the publication,
in 1857, of a tedious dramatic version, in
prosaic blank verse, of the life of Saul. Typi-
cal is the hero's speech as he sends David to
bring him a hundred foreskins of the Philis-
tines:

Sad is the fate that does compell me!
Sad, sad that he must be pushed on to

slaughter;
As sad to sacrifice my favorite daughter.

Charles Sangster (1822-93) and Charles
Mair (1838-1927) are the first Canadian

CANADIAN LITERATURE

122

poets whose work is still readable. In general
their styles are derivative: phrases, images,
and rhythms of Spenser, Keats, Pope, and
Byron keep recurring, but occasionally Can-
ada is seen and felt directly as in some of the
Spenserian stanzas that comprise Sangster's
The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay, or in
Mair's August:

When every field grows yellow, and a

plague
Of thirst dries up its herbage to the

root . . .

When every morn is fiery as the noon,
And every eve is fiery as the morn,
And every night a prison hot and dark . . .

More vigorous and direct and more highly
colored is the verse of Isabella Valiancy
Crawford (1850-87). Some of her images are
striking:

The slaughtered deer . . .

His eyes like dead stars cold and drear.

From his far wigwam sprang the strong

North Wind
That rushed with war cry down the

steep ravines
And wrestled with the giants of the

woods;
And with his ice club beat the swelling

crests
Of the deep water courses into death.

In her Malcolm's Katie (1884), a melodra-
matic love story in verse, are vivid descrip-
tions of the life of the pioneer and of the
hungry hordes that followed him:

The settler finds
His solitary footsteps beaten out
With the quick rush of panting human
waves

Upheaved by throbs of angry poverty . . .

So shanties grew

Other than his amid the blackened

stumps;
And children ran with little twigs and

leaves
And flung them, shouting, on the forest

pyres
Where burned the forest kings . . .

Coincident with the federation of the
provinces appeared for the first time a group
that were to produce an important body of
literature which was both Canadian and
North American. Between the years 1860 and
1862 were born Archibald Lampman,* Dun-
can Campbell Scott, Bliss Carman, Charles
G. D. Roberts, and William Wilfred Camp-
bell. In a sense Roberts may be regarded as
the founder of this group. Ilis Orion of 1880
was the first Canadian work to receive gen-
eral critical approval in both England and the
United States. On reading Orion, Lampman
was encouraged to continue writing his verse,
and when he began to publish, Roberts was
one of the first to appreciate his work. Finally
it was to this "dean of Canadian literature"
that Carman turned for guidance in his early
days as a poet.

Today Roberts is read more for his animal
stories than for his verse. In his finest lyrics,
he achieves coherence and clarity of expres-

When the hay lies loose on the wide bam

floor,
And a sharp smell puffs from the stable

door,
When the pitchfork handle stings in the

hand,
And the stanchioned cows for the milking

stand,

Oh, merrily shines the morning sun
In the barn yard's southerly corner.

123

CANADIAN LITERATURE

But many of his poems suffer from faulty
imitation of his English masters, from un-
happy rhymes, awkward inversions, cloudy
imagery. It was with his tales of nature that
Roberts made his great contribution. He an-
ticipated his fellow-Canadian, Ernest Thomp-
son Seton (Wild Animals 1 Have Known,
Two Little Savages, and other books on sim-
ilar themes) in his introduction of the short
story of the animal, which he saw as an indi-
vidual with lively senses and intelligence. In
books like Earth's Enigmas (1896) and The
Kindred of the Wild (1902), written with
an accurate eye and a deftness of touch, he
presents the animal not as a means of convey-
ing an obvious moral lesson as in Kipling's
Jungle Book, but as a creature in its own
right with an individuality that arouses a
sympathetic understanding and holds the
imagination of the reader.

The verse of Roberts's cousin, Bliss Car-
man, has failed the test of time. Writing with
more verve than any member of the group,
he is most original in Low Tide on Grand
Pre (1893). But even here his diffuseness,
his fondness for the cliche*, his sentimentality,
and his echoes from Tennyson and Swin-
burne are more obvious to this generation
than they were to his.

While Roberts and Carman wrote of the
Maritimes, Campbell, Scott, and Lampman
were seeing Ontario for the first time. Wil-
liam Wilfred Campbell, consistently under-
rated, has written one of the most powerful
literary ballads in Canadian Literature The
Mother (1893) and some of the finest
poems descriptive of nature Lake Lyrics
(1889). In contrast with the optimism which
colors the verse of Roberts and Carman,
Campbell's mood is sombre. He is most effec-
tive in describing lonely, desolate, wintry
scenes:

That night I felt the winter in my veins,
A joyous tremor of the icy glow;

And woke to hear the north's wild vi-
brant strains,

While far and wide, by withered woods
and plains,

Fast fell the driving snow.

Duncan Campbell Scott is the most elegiac
and the most intellectual of these poets of the
"Golden Age." "Life's failure and its bitter-
ness" are to be endured with stoic fortitude.
But beauty and consolation are to be found
in nature, in memory, and in "Gathering the
tears and terrors of this life," and "distilling
them to a medicine for the soul." Not so vivid
a painter of the Canadian scene as Campbell
or Lampman, nor as lyrical, he has seen
people more clearly and sympathetically. Be-
side the Indians of his The Forsaken and
Watkwenies, those of Cooper and Richardson
are wooden and lifeless.

The greatest of the group, Archibald
Lampman,* suffers from the same limitations
as the others. The range of his best poems
is narrow a romantic delight in the beauties
of nature so repetitious in theme and mood
and yet so skilfully expressed that they have
led to his being called the leader of the
"maple tree" school. As with Wordsworth,
nature is to Lampman a refuge. Hating the
city with its growing industrialism, he longs
for the silence, the quiet, the peace of the
countryside. Unlike Wordsworth, he is almost
exclusively a descriptive poet concerned with
sensation. His finest lyrics in Among the
Millet (1888) and Lyrics of Earth (1893)
are sensitive impressions of scenes in the
Ottawa valley at various seasons of the year.
None of his contemporaries has observed so
accurately or written with so sure a touch:

From plains that reel to southward, dim,
The road runs by me white and bare;
Up the steep hill it seems to swim
Beyond, and melt into the glare.

CANADIAN LITERATURE

1*4

Upward half-way, or it may be
Nearer the summit, slowly steals
A hay-cart, moving dustily
With idly clacking wheels.

Although the members of this group were
the first to rise above the imitative and the
mediocre, they all worked a slender romantic
vein. With the exception of Duncan Camp-
bell Scott, they were unsuccessful in the
handling of ideas. But their achievement was
brilliant in comparison with that of the nov-
elists of their time. In 1887 William Kirby
published The Golden Dog, a story of love
and adventure in Quebec just before the
conquest. Loose in construction of plot, prolix
in style, it is yet an improvement on Richard-
son's Wacousta, for Kirby carefully studied
the period and was able to create an illusion
of historical truth. A much more selective
work is Sir Gilbert Parker's Seats of the
Mighty (1896). His plot is more closely knit,
and his characters, although talking like those
in The Golden Dog with a fluency rarely
heard outside the Senate, are more human.
But stiffness, breaches of good taste in spite
of an obviously moral intention, and an
almost total lack of those little apercus which
are to be found in great novels all more
apparent today than in his own time have
weakened his reputation.

Modern Canadian prose really came of age
just before the first World War, when
Stephen Leacock* published his Literary
Lapses (1910). Here for the first time was a
style that was mature, idiomatic, and grace-
fully clear and simple, and an attitude that
was adult. Uniting traditions from both Eng-
land and the United States and adding some-
thing of his own, he published books almost
annually from 1912 to the year of his death in
1944, books of entertaining nonsense and of
lively, perceptive criticisms of life and letters
on this continent and in England. His sub-
jects range from the small Ontario barber

shop to the British House of Lords, from a
moving appreciation of O. Henry to a witty
defense of Charles II, from the absurdities of
a federal election to the antics of the schol-
arly faker. Canadians read him not from a
sense of patriotic duty but for sheer delight.
Others find a similar enjoyment.

As contemporaries of Leacock appeared
some competent essayists and short story writ-
ers. Peter McArthur with his In Pastures
Green (1915) and The Red Cow and her
Friends (1919) records with gentle humor
life on a small Ontario farm. W. H. Blake,
besides translating the greatest novel written
about Canadian life, Louis Hernon's Maria
Chapdelaine (1921), expresses his admiration
for the French Canadian and his love of
rural Canada in a series of charming essays,
Brown Waters (1915). Good short stories had
appeared as early as 1896, when Duncan
Campbell Scott published In The Village of
Viger, and Charles G. D. Roberts began to
use this form in his stories about animals. But
after World War I appeared writers like
Harvey O'Higgins, Merrill Denison, and
Morley Callaghan, whose work compares fa-
vorably with the best produced on this con-
tinent. Callaghan has not only contributed
to the development of the short story, but in
novels like They Shall Inherit the Earth
O935) has written some of the most mature
fiction to be published by a native Canadian.
Writing in a stylistic tradition that had its
beginnings with Ernest Hemingway, he is
concerned chiefly with people who are in-
volved in the age-old predicaments of human
emotions or are struggling to adapt themselves
to a chaotic social environment. He has a
sensitive ear for idiom, for common speech
rhythms, and a profound understanding of
the feelings of ordinary people. His interests
and methods show his kinship with the Amer-
ican naturalists from Stephen Crane to J. T.
Farrell. Hugh MacLennan's Two Solitudes
(1945), stylistically is not so competent as

125

CANADIAN LITERATURE

Callaghan, nor does it show so clear an un-
derstanding of human emotions; but in the
handling of his plot, in the development of
his characters, in his obiter dicta on the con-
temporary scene, and especially in the signifi-
cance of his subjectEnglish and French re-
lations in Canada MacLennan is greater than
Callaghan. Moreover, unlike the novels of
Callaghan, which are North American, Mac-
Lennan 's Two Solitudes is something rare in
full-length fiction: it is neither American nor
English but Canadian.

Canada has had its "best sellers" in the
novels of Ralph Connor, Mazo de La Roche,
and Lloyd C. Douglas. Of these three Mazo
de La Roche is the most skilful in manufac-
turing readable stories. With echoes now of
Hardy, now of Galsworthy, and now of Sheila
Kaye-Smith her works, from Jalna (1927) to
Whiteoak Heritage (1940), reveal an un-
usual ability to create character, scene, and
mood. Whether her novels are literature is
difficult to say. They are not, however, Cana-
dian in the sense that Mac Lennan's stories are
Canadian. Nor are they American. In none
of these stories does the native reader find a
recognizable setting or character. Perhaps her
books may be most accurately described as
mid-Atlantic, so that their ultimate fate will
be either the greatness of universality or the
oblivion of the void.

Although Canadian prose has developed
rapidly within recent years, it has never
formed so significant a part of the literature
as Canadian poetry. Owing to the sparsely
settled country and a people preoccupied with
earning a living, writers of essays, fiction, and
drama have no national outlet for their talents.
Only a few journals The Toronto Saturday
Night, a weekly; The Canadian Forum, a
monthly; and the quarterly reviews of the
Universities of Dalhousie, Queen's, and To-
ronto encourage fiction and the essay. No
theatrical centers exist, and except for the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a dra-

matist has no outlet for his art. The public
for verse has been even smaller than that for
other forms of literature, but because verse
does not depend so much on an urban society
as the essay and the drama, it has continued
to pour forth in a relatively large volume.
Before and during World War I, Marjorie
Pickthall maintained the romantic tradition of
her predecessors but with a difference. In
The Drift of Pinions (1913), The Lamp of
Poor Souls (1917), and The Woodcarver's
Wife (1922), she responds in delicate, dreamy
lyrics, sometimes reminiscent of the poets of
the Irish Renaissance, to the beauty of the
native scene. But she has done more. Poems
like "Resurgam" and "Quiet" are moving ex-
pressions of a mysticism faintly pre-Raphaelite,
and her "Perc Lalement" is the finest lyric on
a religious theme in the literature:

My hour of rest is done;

On the smooth ripple lifts the long canoe;

The hemlocks murmur sadly as the sun

Slants his dim arrows through.

Whither I go I know not, nor the way,

Dark with strange passions, vexed with
heathen charms,

Holding I know not what of life or death;

Only be Thou beside me day by day,

Thy rod my guide and comfort, under-
neath

Thy everlasting arms.

With the publication of E. J. Pratt's* "The
Cachalot" in The Canadian Forum in 1925
occurred a minor revolution in the nation's
verse. Breaking with a tradition that was
narrowly romantic in form and content, he
extended the pattern and scope of poetry in
theme, imagery, and diction. Whether it is a
whale or a man, he depicts his subject with a
boundless energy and on a heroic scale, and
more than that, with a realism in detail
hitherto unknown in Canadian letters. His
"Cachalot" is

CANADIAN LITERATURE

126

Unmatched on either sea or land
A sperm whale in the pitch of prime . . .
The bellows of his lungs might sail
A herring skiff such was the gale
Along the windpipe; and so large
The lymph flow of his active liver
One might believe a fair sized barge
Could navigate along the river . . .

But both the old and the new are to be found
in his verse. His rhythms are, for the most
part, conventional, and his ultimate intentions
are liberal and humanitarian. When he is at
his best, he uses material that is contemporary
and human to write sweeping narratives of
sustained energy. As narrative poems his
Roosevelt and the Antinoe (1930) and The
Titanic (1935) have not been equalled in
contemporary literature. Not so good as his
stories in verse but still competent are his
satires "The Great Feud" and "The Fable of
the Goats." Never obscure or difficult, always
rich and varied, he has achieved a greater
popularity than any other Canadian poet.

Contemporary verse has developed along
two main lines. There is the verse of social
consciousness in which the poet is trying to
make some adjustment to difficult political
and economic conditions. To this group be-
long Dorothy Livcsay, A. M. Kline, and
Anne Marriott. The latter in The Wind. Our
Enemy (1939) gave to a disaster in the life
of the American West the drought the most
moving expression to appear in print:

Wind

piling the dry mouth with hitter dust

whipping the shoulders worry-bowed too

soon,
soiling the water pail f and in grim

prophecy
greying the hair.

Then there is the verse that seems to derive
its inspiration partly from the ryth c. meta-
physicals and partly from Pound, Eliot, and

the later Yeats. Generally speaking, this verse
is cryptic and difficult in its rebellion against
the subject matter and form of the immediate
past. But it has variety, with its subjects
drawn not only from the contemporary social
world but also from the mental and emotional
life of the individual. One of the most intelli-
gent and competent writers of this verse is
A. J. M. Smith, whose News of the Phoenix
(1943) is an epitome of the highly conscious,
highly concentrated art that characterizes the
group.

From this brief survey many authors whose
names fill the pages of histories of Canadian
literature have been omitted because their
work does not meet standards that transcend
the community or because their work, while
brilliant, has been slim and unsustained. For
the latter reason, poets like John MacRae
with his elegiac variation of the rondeau In
Flanders Fields and Tom Maclnnes with his
quaintly noisy lyric, Zalinha can be only
noticed in passing. On the whole the litera-
ture of Canada, conforming to alien conven-
tions, is imitative of the literature of England,
or of the United States, or of both. Much of
the material used is new, but it is communi-
cated in patterns that are not native, so that
the result occasionally seems artificial. Per-
haps this development is inevitable; perhaps
it is further evidence of the gradual amalgama-
tion that seems to be taking place in the
language and literature of English speaking
peoples. Regional literatures have appeared
and they may lead to the distinctly Canadian
expression that some have hoped for. But
anything like the creation of a national litera-
ture for Canada seems, at present, extremely
unlikely.

Archibald MacMechen, Headwaters of Canadian
Literature (1924); W. E. Collin, The White Savan-
nahs (1936); E. K. Brown, On Canadian Poetry
Ci943); A. J. M. Smith, ed. The Book of Canadian
Poetry (1943)-

C. J. VINCENT.

127

CANADIAN LITERATURE

II. French

THE historian Garneau (1809-66) is the real
founder of French-Canadian literature, since
it was by his labor and his artistic skill
(Histcnre du Canada, 1845-48) that his com-
patriots knew the complete story of their
heroic past, the daring enterprise that had
opened up the hinterland of the continent,
and had at the same time spread the seed of
the faith watered by martyrs' blood. It is a
remarkable fact that Garneau was a self-
educated layman, independent in his views,
when what culture existed in French-Canada
was almost exclusively in the hands of the
church, the one directive force and center
that had survived the ancien regime. L'Abbe"
Ferland, in fact, in his Cours d'histoire du
Canada (1861-65) sought to emphasize more
clearly the debt which le Canadien owed to
the Church, but L'Abbe* Casgrain, continuing
the work of Garneau, launched a vigorous
appeal for the creation of a French-Canadian
literature.

All these pioneers of the Canadian mind
used to meet in the bookstore of the brothers
Cre'mazie in Quebec, and one of these
brothers, Octavie (182779), with his access
to the rich harvest of French romanticism,
was the first poet of the French-Canadian
renaissance. His "Drapeau De Carillon" sings
of

Tout ce monde de gloire ou vivaient nos

ai'eux,
Leurs grands jours de combats, leurs im-

mortels faits-d'armes,
Leurs efforts surhumains, leurs malheurs

et leurs larmes . . .

That glorious age when our sires were

alive,
Their great days of battle, their immortal

exploits,
Their superhuman toil, their sorrows,

their tears . . .

Here the poet strikes the eternal note of
French-Canadian literature. Here is the un-
sung "Works and Days," left to his followers
to tell.

The first novel, the first 'tales of a grand-
father' of Canadian stock, came from the pen
of an old seigneur, Philippe de Gaspe* (1786-
1871), whose Les Anciens Canadiens (1863)
may be called the Waverley of Canadian
literature. A young highlander, Arche*, and
a young Canadien, Jules, are school friends
at a Jesuit college at Quebec. Later they fight
on opposite sides in the campaigns of Wolfe
and Montcalm. The Scot is assigned the task
of burning the home of his friend but, the
war ended, they become reconciled. Arche*
loves Blanche, the sister of Jules, who refuses
him. "There is," she says, "a stream of blood
between us." They live side by side in an
ever closer friendship under the healing touch
of time. The story, rich in historical incidents
and typical descriptions of the period, sets the
pattern of an oft-told tale. Marmette (1844-
95) tells stories of typical figures of the
ancien regime. Laure Conant (1844-1924)
writes idylls of old colonial days. Napol&m
Bourassa in Jacques et Marie tells the sad
story of Evangeline's land, Acadie. He and
De Gasp soften down the racial bitterness
to a mutual respect. French-Canadian novel-
ists since Confederation have been less gen-
erous.

A younger member of the Cre'mazie cenacle
was Louis Frechette (1839-1908), lawyer,
journalist, legislator, and the first Canadian
poet to win laurels in France. A romantic, he
is strongly influenced by Hugo. Les Flews
Boreales (Northern Flowers) and Les Oiseaux
de Neige (Snow Birds') are his Feuilles
d'Automne (Autumn Leaves). He too seeks
to bend the epic bow in his Legende d'un
Peuple, but does not rise above the level of a
chaplet of episodes. La Salle's heroic journey-
ing, the great exploits of D'Iberville and Dol-
lard, are ample themes, and Garneau has left

CANADIAN LITERATURE

128

their record; but Frechette's talent is rather
lyric. It is fair to judge Frechette by his line,
by his imagery. America is the land of great
rivers: its highways, its manifest and chief est
source of beauty, and its pride. Hence his
image of the Mississippi

Comme un reptile immense au soleil en-

gourdi . . .

ficharpe de Titan sur le globe enroule"e,
Le grand fleuve epanchait sa nappe im-

Des regions de 1'Ourse aux plages d'Orion,
Baignant le steppe aride et les bosquets

d'orange,

Et mariant ainsi dans un hymen etrange
L'equateur au septentrion.

Like some huge reptile dozing in the sunlight
Or Titan's scarf wrapped round a continent,
Sprawl the calm reaches of the mighty stream
From where the Great Bear dips to where

Orion rises
Tempering the snow-clad plain, cooling the

orange groves,
Joining together in mysterious union

The Northland and the South.

Americans are well aware that they are part
of the spectacle de I'univers, and the idea here
is universal astronomical even. But the de-
velopment of the theme is sketchy. Through
his glass the poet sees only a silhouetted vision
of La Salle, Marquette, Joliet, followed by

Doux f&ntomes flottant dans le vague des
nuits

Sweet phantoms drifting in the deep of night

who are Atala, Chactas, and then Evangeline!
Mark Twain close up has seen the real epic of
the Mississippi, and that closer vision we find
occasionally even in a minor poet like Benja-
min Suite:

La hache au dos, causant, marchant,
La fatigue amene le chant.
Frappez d'estoc! Frappez de taille!
Les troncs aux flancs retentissants!
("Les Bucherons").

Walking, Talking, Axe on Shoulder!
When weary we begin to sing,

"Strike with the axe, with biting blade,
Until the trunks resound again."

This more intimate, this closer approach, is
found in poets such as Suite and Beauchemin,
whose best medium is not the alexandrine,
but the older measures of B6ranger, even of
LaFontaine. ("La Cloche de Louisbourg":
Beauchemin; "Les Canadiens des vieux pays":
R. Tremblay; "La Fille des bois": Desaulniers;
all in Fournier: Anthologie des poetes Ca-
nadiens). Of the poets of this era we may
say that they rose up at the call of Garneau
and Casgrain, pointing a clear way to the
recent growth.

The turning point from ancient to modern
is found perhaps in Charles Gill (1871-
1918). Eastern Canada is a land of such
striking splendor that rarely can the poet
escape its thrall, and this Canada is the land
of the great river, which ends in a mysterious
rift, a canyon full to the brim, making a
broad highway to the sea. The sailing ships
that first tacked the length of the great
reaches of this channel, the small craft that
slipped from port to- port, knew these shores
as the modern liners do not, and the new-
comer following the northern shore when
he reached the Saguenay saw a mysterious
stream girt in by two great buttresses rivaling
the pillars of Hercules. To these were given
the names of Cap Trinite* and Cap Eternite".
The sublimity of this prospect and situation,
which can be but lamely told in prose, is set
forth in Cap Trinite by Charles Gill, whose
artistic vision sees all its significance. He was
both painter and poet. A product of the vir-

I2 9

CANADIAN LITERATURE

ginal Canadian soil, he was trained in the
ateliers of Paris, where he learnt the discipline
that the art of the painter requires, and which
he applies also to the composing of his poetry.
The poem Cap Trinite must be savoured
slowly and knowingly. No quotation can do
justice to these verses which reveal the mes-
sage-

Quand le roi des rochers et le roi des e*toiles
Nous parlent a midi dans le style de Dieu.

When the Lord of the Rocks and the Lord of

the Stars
Speaks at noontide with the voice of God.

The study of the poem reveals a noble form,
an aesthetic which for a poet-painter is nat-
ural and sincere, since for him language is
only the symbol of what he feels and ex-
presses in the more plastic genre.

As we approach the end of the century the
poets become more numerous, their art and
execution, richer. The names that stand out
are Lozeau, Nelligan, Morin, Chopin,
Blanche Lamontagne; but more throng close
on their heels. There is a suggestion of I' art
pour I'art', the product often seems an exer-
cise in virtuosity rather than the more naive
talent of the past.

Nelligan (1882-1900) "he is lost at the
ford, the beautiful youth," is the most haunt-
ing memory.

Je sens voler en moi les oiseaux du ge*nie,
Mais j'ai tendu si mal mon piege qu'ils ont

pris
Dans 1'azur crbral leurs vols blancs, bruns

et gris,
Et que mon coeur brise* rale son agonie.

I feel the birds of genius that hover over me,
But I've set my snare so ill that they've taken

flight to the blue,
White wings or brown or grey,
And left my broken heart to wail its agony.

A few petals from his blooms-
Ma mere! que je 1'aime en ce portrait ancien,
Peint aux jours glorieux qu'elle e*tait jeune

fille. . . .

Ma mere que voici n'est plus du tout la mmc;
Les rides ont creuse le beau marbre frontal . . .

My mother! How I love her in this old-world

portrait
Painted in the glorious days when she was a

maid;

My mother that's here is no longer the same,
For wrinkles have furrowed her marble brow.

Ah! comme la neige a neige'!
Ma vitre est un jardin de givre.
Ah! comme la neige a neige"!
Qu'est-ce que le spasme de vivre
A la douleur que j'ai, que j'ai!

Ah how the snow has fallen!
See its flowers on my window pane!
Ah how the snow has fallen!
What is this brief throb of life
To the pain that weighs me down!

at once make clear that here is poetry, the
magic note, music, yet natural too.

Lozeau, paralytic for life, looked out on that
life with a serenity that drove $lark care away:
"A man, who from his sick bed, gazed through
the window at the sky, the trees, the falling
rain, and swirling snow; and gave to each a
voice and a song." Here is a resignation which
arouses all our sympathy:

O Je"sus prends mon coeur entre tes mains

divines.
Vois! il est tout mon or, ma myrrhe et mon

encens.

Je te 1'ofFre charge* de chagrins fre*missants,
Car dans sa chair les jours ont plant leurs

Opines.

CANADIAN LITERATURE

130

Dear Jesus take my heart within thy holy
hands,

Lo! it is all my gold, my myrrh, my frankin-
cense.

My offering! the load of all my racking pain,

For in my flesh life too has thrust its thorns.

His "Intimite*" is our most delicate expression
of a love real and intense, but essentially
spiritual.

Contemporary with Lozeau are Tremblay
(b. 1878; Les Canayens y zont ca d'hon)
and Beauregard (b. 1881) whose Les Vieux
Canons recalls Les Forts of Hugo and whose
Patinage is an admirable tour de force. Ren6
Chopin (b. 1885) has poetic vision and fan-
tasy in his Feu Printanier, the picture of a
fire of twigs and dead branches burning on
the hearth; and in his Paysages Polaires he
envisages the grim Far North which, as the
stars and the night sky and la bise (north
wind) remind us, is our everlasting back-
ground. Les Grenouilks and Venue du
Printemps are two brilliant sonatas on The
Frogs and The Coming of Spring. Paul Morin
(b. 1889) is French in matter and manner
alike. His Mississippi seems to echo a song of
Frechette: if academic work does not inter-
fere, one should hear much more from this
author of The Enamel Peacock (1911) and
Poems of Ashes and Gold (1922). Blanche
Lamontagne (bl 1889) is the poet of the
regional idyll, whether in verse or prose:
When the Lamps Are Lit, The Spinner at the
Window, Ancestors' Laughter, all echo her
feeling for her beloved Gaspe'sie. A wish for
her might be that

Et maintenant assise en la clarte* du ciel
Dans les rayonnements du matin e*ternel,
Elle file le lin d'une divine toile
Sur un rouet que Dieu fit avec une e*toile.

And now seated in the brightness of heaven
In radiance of the eternal day

She spins divine a fabric
On a wheel that God has fashioned from a
star.

Of more recent date are the finely gifted
artists, Paul Gouin and W. Choquette. Critics
accuse the latter of still profusely sowing
wild oats in which the blooms are lost, but
Gouin has perhaps marked his high water
level in his Medailles Anciennes (Old
Medals), the title of which indicates both
the style and the theme. A. Desrochers dis-
plays the power and the insouciance of the
2oth c. poet that ranges near and far, who
has sung even of the slaughter of the pig
pourquoi past (The poor animal is introduced
as 1'Yorkshire!) and his sufferings and squeals
are not spared us. In a sequence of sonnets
(La Naissance de La Chanson; The Birth of
Song') Desrochers describes from first-hand
knowledge the heroic task of the lumberman
in the Quebec forests. It is as if in these
bucolics he wished to give permanent poetic
form to a national task, treated more often
with sentiment or melodrama than with
artistic truth. The sacred groves of Canada
in their season are alive with song. In their
good time the nightingales will come.

Prose fiction made a tardy arrival in French
Canada, apart from the popular romantic
stories, already mentioned, of Gerin Lajoie,
Napoleon Bourassa, Laure Conant, and Mar-
mette. The appearance of He'mon's Maria-
Chapdelaine (1916) worked a revolution, for
publishers that had not considered Adjutor
Rivard's Chez Nous (1919) as in any way an
event, after the Paris