Studies in Contemporary Arabic Literature

Abstract

The beginnings of the novel as a literary art in Egypt are so recent that the student of contemporary Arabic literature might well be excused for seeking to trace some genetic connection between its development and the earlier productions of the Syrian school of writers. But except for the possibility that the success of the Syrian novelists (whose works have been admirably described by Professor Kratchkowsky in the study frequently quoted in the previous articles of this series, and now available in a German translation) may have encouraged the Egyptian writers to produce a class of works which would appeal to the same public, the literary movement which forms the subject of the present article has remained in general entirely independent of the Syrian historical novel. Western influences, which are very marked in the later stages, have been exercised directly, but Egyptian recreational literature continued for a long time to lean rather on classical and conventional models. It is only very slowly and hesitatingly that it has emancipated itself, and its progress in this direction has been sporadic and individual rather than the result of a steady evolution.