CRN25840-ENGL3150-04/ CRN 23880 INST4990-01 SYLLABUS
World Literature: Arabic/Modern Arabic Poetry and Culture introduces modern Arabic
poetry as a culturally privileged mode of expression. Stylistic analysis of poetic text will be used
as a window into Arab culture and thought and a platform to compare poetic currents in the Arab
world and elsewhere. English is the language of the course.
Semester:
Spring 2015
Instructor:
Schedule:
M-W-F
Office:
Time:
1:10-2:00
Office Hours: M-W-F: 11:00-11:50–RH 131
Classroom:
CR137
(and by appt.)
Email:
Prof. Ali H. Raddaoui
Ross Hall 131
araddaou@uwyo.edu
Course Introduction
Modern Arabic Poetry and Culture introduces students to the world of Arabic poetry as a
privileged medium of expression among Arab elites and the average person as well as a window
into the modern Arab Weltanschauung. Much class time will be devoted to stylistic analysis of
poetic text in order to determine the linguistic and stylistic choices poets make to achieve effect
on the reader/listener. Enhancing student understanding of the Arab cultural, political, and social
context will be attained through rigorous text analysis rather through subjecting the text to a
preconceived, external understanding. Where appropriate, comparisons will be made between
poetic currents in the Arab world and elsewhere.
Prerequisites
While there are no specific prerequisites for this course, it is important that enrollees have had
previous exposure to the language of poetry and the toolbox of stylistic analysis. Reference will
occasionally be made to the original Arabic text, but prior knowledge of Arabic is not required.
Ability to actively participate in class discussions and to write at an advanced level of English
fluency and accuracy is important. This course is cross-listed with ENGL3150, and will be
taught in English.
Course coverage
This course, Modern Arabic Poetry and Culture, focuses on major themes and styles of Arabic
poetry and introduces you for the most part to the works of major Arab poets of the past two
centuries. In contrast to the totality of Arabic poetry since before Islam, Modern Arabic poetry is
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best described as a field of on-going experimentation with a new set of topics, concerns,
inspirations and forms. Naturally, this course includes a comparative component with Western
poetic trends, since the so-called Arab literary renaissance has come about partly from greater
exposure by modern poets of the Arab East to these Western trends during the past two centuries.
Following a brief sampling of classical, pre-Islamic and early Islamic poetic traditions, we will
briefly visit the poetic production of Muslim Andalusia in present-day Spain. From then, we
focus on modern Arabic poetry proper. We will study the poetic verse or the prose poetry of the
Mahjar poets, i.e., those that migrated to the American continent from the late 19th century
mainly from the Levant area. Finally, and for the bulk of this course, we examine a wide range of
samples of Arabic poetry written since the 1940s.
How you should approach this course
As you start this course of Modern Arabic Poetry and Culture, think of it as a journey of
discovery. You are traveling to a part of the world about which you have a certain knowledge,
knowledge you have gained from different sources including school, the media, history and the
study of religion. Much of this knowledge comes from second-hand reports, i.e. what the media,
people and authorities are saying about the Arab world, its images, representations, hopes and
problems. In other words, this is a mediated image, a projection, made and written about this vast
world by Arabs and mostly non-Arabs.
What this course does is to expose you to primary materials, stuff written by highly literate Arab
poets themselves, about themselves and about the others in our universe. This will be an
opportunity for you to compare your prior knowledge with the knowledge you are gaining from
first-hand accounts. To do this, you have to treat each poem as authentic data that will help
create and paint your own image of Arab culture through its literature. Your newly painted image
is an-going project, an outline whose contours will gain in clarity, depth and resolution as you
progress in your journey.
Class focus
As this course title indicates, we will be looking at modern Arabic poetry and culture. Since the
course is cross-listed with English, there is a need for a comparative component between Arabic
poetry, its themes, currents, and inspirations and other poetries written in English or other
languages. Given the above, I suggest we look at each we piece following four analytical frames
that I call the four Cs: Choices, Content, Culture, and Comparisons. “Choices” refers to the
stylistic elements selected by the poet (rhyme, alliteration, consonance, lexical registers,
structural patterns, deviations from grammar, personification, images, metaphors, etc.). Poets
make choices to effect specific meanings, in other word the Contents, themes and ideas of the
poem. We will assume throughout that there is unity of purpose, and that the choices corroborate
the contents, and vice versa. The third frame will be Culture. Every piece of writing is the
product of a given culture, both in the broad national sense as well as in the idiosyncratic sense
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of culture as being the worldview of the poet him/herself in the particular locale he writes in or
about. Finally, any piece of writing invites Comparisons on an international scale. This
comparative effort has the merit of integrating your newly acquired knowledge of Arabic culture
with your previous acquisitions.
Class process
I would like that you think of this course as an experiment, a theater in which we try to develop a
style of learning where you as an individual student and class a whole develop heightened
understanding of the matter at hand though a sequence of analytical stages. Each stages serves as
necessary groundwork for and a springboard for the next. Conceive of our work as a Venn
Diagram, with smaller circles expanding into wider spheres with every activity we do.
Here is how the process works: you will come to class prepared with your own reading and
understanding of the poem. After an out loud reading and a few preliminary comments, class
divides in two/three groups. Each group will pool its resources and develop an understanding of
the text. Following this, we start a whole class discussion to which each group/student and the
teacher contribute so we develop a collective understanding. You are welcome to use this
understanding in writing your analyses of the poems, but you are naturally invited to enrich it
with your own readings and personal interpretations.
Readings
The anthology we are using for this course, and from the majority of the poems is taken is the
following:
An Anthology of Modern Arabic Poetry. 1974. Khouri, Mounah A and Algar, Hamid. Berkley
and Los Angeles University of California Press.
I have prepared a PDF document with copies of all the poems we will study this term. This
document is strictly for class use, and will be available for you to download from the UW
Canvas platform. The readings below are available online from the UW Coe Library or from the
internet.
Flood , Anne Marie, and Mawr, Bryn. (2008, Fall). Riding the She-Camel into the Desert.
Retrieved from: http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/Linguistics/Theses09/Flood.pdf
Khouri, Mounah A., 1970. Lewis 'Awad: A Forgotten Pioneer of the Free Verse Movement.
Access: UW online library: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182862
Loya, Rieh. The Detribalization of Arabic Poetry. International Journal of Middle East Studies,
Vol. 5, No. 2 (Apr., 1974), pp. 202-215. UW Library online access:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/162590
3
New York Metropolitan Museum. Powerless Before Love – Arabic and Persian Poetic
Traditions: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – A video production.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_mmLhJqLnE
Preminger, Alex; Brogan, T. V. F.; Warnke, Frank J.; Hardison Jr, O. B, Miner, Earl.
Introduction to Arabic Poetry: Allen, Roger M. A. Arabic Poetry. Editor of Volume: The New
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1993. xlvi, 1383 p. Source: Literature Online Access: UW Library:
http://lion.chadwyck.com.libproxy.uwyo.edu/searchFulltext.do?id=R00793346&divLevel=0&tra
ilId=142572F89F6&area=ref&forward=critref_ft
Simawe, Saadi A. Modernism & metaphor in contemporary Arabic poetry, World Literature
Today; Spring 2001; 75, 2; pg. 275-284. Access: UW online access.
http://search.proquest.com/docview/209391428
Course Policies
1. Language: English is the language of communication in class between students and the
instructor or among students themselves. On rare occasions, we will need to introduce
Arabic terms or concepts, or read out a poem in Arabic. In such cases a thorough
explanation in English will be provided.
2. Attendance: UW Regulation 6-713 specifies that University sponsored absences are
cleared through the Office of Student Life (OSL). Students with official authorized
absences shall be permitted to make up work without penalty in classes missed. Beyond
that, students are allowed to miss a maximum of three classes without penalty. Any
unexcused absence beyond the first three will be penalized with two points off the total
grade for the semester.
3. Communication: Announcements, assignments, and other information for the course will
be posted on the course website in a timely manner. I may need to send a message with
information about the class to your UWYO email account, so check it periodically. If you
need to email me, always use your UWYO account. If you want a timely response please
send emails Monday-Friday between 10:30 am - 5:00 pm.
4. Behavior: Creating an atmosphere conducive to learning, growth and personal as well
collective fulfillment is the combined responsibility of the course instructor and the
students. A committee of UW students and instructors met and drafted a set of guidelines
which spell out optimal conditions for communication and detail expectations for both
students and instructors. For more on this, you are strongly encouraged to read the
document titled “A&S Students and Teachers—Working Together”, which you can
access at: http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/a&s/Current/default.asp. In general, distractions,
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negative attitudes, unwillingness to participate, and disruptive behavior will negatively
affect your participation grade.
5. Academic dishonesty: Though class work can take the form of pair or group work, there
will be times when students are specifically requested to do individual work, such as
during quizzes and in the final examination. In such circumstances, seeking help from
anyone else falls under the rubric of ‘academic dishonesty’. University Regulation 802,
Revision 2, defines academic dishonesty as “an act attempted or performed which
misrepresents one’s involvement in an academic task in any way, or permits another
student to misrepresent the latter’s involvement in an academic task by assisting the
misrepresentation.” The discovery of any academic dishonesty in this course will result in
a failure (F) on the test or work concerned for anyone involved.
6. Disability support: Students who have a physical, learning or psychological disability that
requires accommodations should notify the instructor as soon as possible after the
semester begins. These students will need to register with and provide documentation of
their disability to University Disability Support Services in SEO, Room 330 Knight Hall.
7. Syllabus & Calendar: This syllabus and calendar are subject to change as the instructor
will most likely need to make adjustments to the pace and content of the course. The
instructor will update the syllabus & calendar as needed in order to keep you informed,
but you must follow it throughout the semester.
Assessment and Passing Requirements
For this class, the dividing line between assessment and learning is blurred. What the course
instructor asks you to complete by way of assessment will also constitute a product illustrating
your learning. Learning is an on-going project that culminates in a tangible product. This can be
in the form of poem analysis, an individual poem you compose in response to a poem analyzed
in class, or even a reading aloud of a selection of poems studied in class. In this sense,
assessment is not an individual activity that you undertake with and for the instructor separately
from class, but requires that you partake in the overall discussion and are aware of what is being
said, read, and written in the sphere of the class.
Please note the following:



Each of you will prepare two short oral presentations in which you share your understanding
of the work done on the poems/materials studied during the week. Finally,
You will prepare audio recordings of 10 poems of your choice which you will submit to the
instructor. Recordings submitted after the dates shown below will not win you any points.
You must complete homework assignments no later than 23:59 pm on the due date as per the
schedule below. Late submissions will not be accepted.
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
Late submissions of the end of term paper will result in losing five points on each day of
delay.
Class Assignments
Assessment Item
Final submission
date (23:59)
Grade
Poem analysis 1 (500-600 words)
Feb. 9
10%
Poem analysis 2 (500-600 words)
Feb. 25
10%
Total of 5 poems recorded in the student’s March 11
voice
5%
In-class poem analysis
March 13
10%
Poem analysis 3 (500-600 words)
April 6
10%
Poem analysis 4 (500-600 words)
April 20
10%
Total 5 poems recorded in the student’s
voice
April 29
5%
Participation
On-going
5%
Attendance
On-going
5%
Individual student presentation (2)
Date agreed with
teacher
5% X 2 =
10%
Final version of term paper of around
2.500 words (minimum of 5 refereed
articles cites) (Topic to be agreed with
instructor)
May 1
20%
Total
100%
Grading Scale
Grade
GPA Catalog
Points Definition
Percentages
A
4.00
93-100
A-
3.67
90-92
B+
3.33
88-89
Exceptional
6
B
3.00
Very Good
B-
2.67
80-82
C+
2.33
78-79
C
2.0
C-
1.67
70-72
D+
1.33
68-69
D
1.00
Poor
60-67
F
0
Failure
59 and below
Fair
83-87
73-77
Typical Weekly Class Time Distribution Template
Minutes
5
Activity
Poem/article 1 reading and introduction
15
Group Work 1
25
Class Work 1
XX
At home
10
Poem response review 1
5
Poem 2 reading and introduction
15
Group Work 2
20
Class Work 2
XX
At home
10
Poem response review 2
20
20
Student presentation
Presentation review
7
Detail
Students come prepared with notes and
questions
In class, students take notes on
collaboration page
In-class, one students takes notes on eCanvas course Font Page
Each students to prepare a poem
response, either in the form of poem of
their own writing, analysis of the poem
studied, or drawing/video response to
the poem studied
Samples of student responses
reviewed/celebrated/showcased in class
Students come prepared with notes and
questions on poem 2
In class, students take notes on
collaboration page
In-class, one students takes notes on eCanvas course Font Page
Each students to prepare a poem
response, either in the form of poem of
their own writing, analysis of the poem
studied, or drawing/video response to
the poem studied
Samples of student responses
reviewed/celebrated/showcased in class
Graded individual student presentation
Q&A session on student presentation
Course Schedule
Sessions Object of study
Introduction to Arabic Poetry: Allen, Roger M. A. Arabic Poetry. Editor(s) of Volume: Preminger, Alex
Jr, O. B.; Miner, Earl. Title of volume: The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeto
xlvi, 1383 p. Source: Literature Online
1-3
1-3
Access: UW Library:
http://lion.chadwyck.com.libproxy.uwyo.edu/searchFulltext.do?id=R00793346&divLevel=0&trailId=14
to an external site.)
Imru?u Al-Qais: Stop, oh my friends, let us pause to weep ‫قفا نبك‬
Medieval Sourcebook: Pre-Islamic Arabia: The Hanged Poems, before 622 CE
4-6
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/640hangedpoems.asp#The%20Poem%20of%20Imru-Ul-Quais
Abu Nuwwas: Censure me not for your censure but tempts me ‫دع عنك لومي‬
Flood , Anne Marie, and Mawr, Bryn. (2008, Fall). Riding the She-Camel into the
Desert http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/Linguistics/Theses09/Flood.pdf (Links to an external site.)
4-6
Powerless Before Love – Arabic and Persian Poetic Traditions: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_mmLhJqLnE (Links to an external site.)
7-9
Al-Mutabbi: My heart burns for he whose heart grows cold ‫واحر قلباه ممن قلبه شبم‬
Flood , Anne Marie, and Mawr, Bryn. (2008, Fall). Riding the She-Camel into the Desert
7-9
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/Linguistics/Theses09/Flood.pdf (Links to an external site.)
Leigh Hunt: Abu Ben Adham
Poetry Foundation: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173698
10-12
Loya, Rieh. The Detribalization of Arabic Poetry. International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 5,
online access
8
10-12
Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi: Wonder: http://www.islamicspain.tv/For-Teachers/10_Andalusian%20Poetry.pd
13-15
*P. 23. Jibran Khalil Jibran: Two voices: ‫صوتان‬
13-15
*Pp. 27+29. Mikhail Nu’aymah: My brother ‫أخي‬
16-18
*P. 33. Mikhail Nu’aymah: Peace of mind. ‫الطمأنينة‬
6-18
*Pp. 35+37. Ilya Abu Madhi: Cryptic Charms. ‫الطالسم‬
19-21
*P. 42. Ilyas Abu Shabakah: ‫ شهوة الموت‬Lust for death
Modernism & metaphor in contemporary Arabic poetry, Simawe, Saadi A. World Literature Today; Sp
19-21
Access: UW online Library. http://search.proquest.com/docview/209391428
*Pp. 49+51. Sa’eed Aql. The palace of my beloved. ‫قصر حبيبتي‬
22
23-25
MID-SEMESTER CREATIVITY 1
*Pp. 76. ‫ بائعة الزهر‬Ahmed Safi al-Najafi. The flower seller
23-25
*Pp. 79+81. Nazik al_malaika. Who Am I? ‫أنا‬-
26-28
*Pp. 115+117. Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayyati: The Village market ‫سوق القرية‬
26-28
M. M. Badawi. The Raven
29-31
Access -UW Library: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182864 (Links to an external site.)
*Pp. 129+131. Buland AL-Haydari. Old Age ‫–شيخوخة‬
29-31
*Pp. 134. Ali Mahmoud Taha. Rustic Song. ‫أغنية ريفية‬
32-34
*P. 137. Abu Al-Qasim Al-Shabbi ‫في ظل وادي الموت‬
32-34
20. *P. 141. Lewis Awadh: ‫الحب في سان الزار‬Love at St. Lazare
Khouri, Mounah A., 1970. Lewis 'Awad: A Forgotten Pioneer of the Free Verse Movement
35-37
Access: UW online library: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182862 (Links to an external site.)
*Pp. 151+152. Ahmed Abd al-Mu’ti Hijazi. Caption to a landscape: ‫تعليق على منظر طبيعي‬
35-37
*Pp. 203+205. Fadwa Tuqan I Won’t Sell His Love. ‫لن أبيع حبه‬
9
38-40
*Pp. 161+163. Nizar Qabbani. The Whore. ‫البغي‬
38-40
P. 199. Adonis. West and East. ‫الغرب والشرق‬
41
Mahmound Darwish.Write Down, I am an Arab. ‫سجل أنا عربي‬
42
END OF SEMESTER CREATIVITY 2
*Pp / *P. are extracted from Khouri and Algar (1974).
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