Middle Eastern Writers

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses contemporary Middle Eastern writers and the way that they typically approach social and political themes in their writings. The paper specifically focuses on Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali, the Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai, and the Turkish poet Ozkan Mert, and how they each give voice to the suffering and protests they feel in their poetry, attempting to redeem their negative sentiments and experiences through language and art.

From the Paper:

"As I see it, the relationship art and the world's social and political scenes has always been a difficult one. The language of poetry may seem to many a force that, in a way, alienates the reader from the immediate experience of reality. The words seem to clinch the meaning behind the state or the event described and then to reveal it entirely differently to the audience. Nevertheless, good poetry is like a transparent veil, through which we can see directly into the heart of things. It is very hard to state just exactly the limit between description and creation in a work of art. Even when art talks about well known events or feelings, it always seems to have much more than a descriptive value, reaching somewhere behind what is immediately known and always disclosing a secret. In many of their works, the Middle Eastern writers are concerned with the exact same thing: when they write about war or murder, they show us the unknown sides of these events. The attempt to voice these atrocities gives birth to an aesthetics which is all the more bemusing as it tears open the inside of crime, sin, hatred and the feelings they compel us to experience. Moreover, no matter its subject art is always the creation of beauty. As Muhammad Ali put it, "art is worthless unless it plants a measure of splendor in people's hearts" (Lehrer), that is, art can awaken and teach emotion and beauty."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Ali, Taha Muhammad. Never Mind: Twenty Poems and a Story. New York: Ibis Editions, 2000.
• Mert, Ozkan. So What? New York: New Direction, 2003.
• Lehrer, Jim. "Unscripted: segments from The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.(Interview)(Broadcast transcript)." World Literature Today 81.5 (Sept-Oct 2007): 8(4). General OneFile. Gale. 2 Nov. 2007 <http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>.
• Shabtai, Aharon. J'accuse. New York: New Directions, 2001.
• -- Love and Selected Poems. Peter Cole, tr. New York: Sheep Meadow, 1997

More papers on Middle Eastern Writers:

• Analytical Essay # 108939 : "Middle Eastern Poetry"
• Comparison Essay # 96434 : "Middle Eastern Countries Curb Subversive Activities"
• Persuasive Essay # 108684 : "Religion and Middle Eastern Terrorism"

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