Tradition and Renewal - Taha Hussein

Parrots that "mimic, imitate, and believe themselves to be innovators and reformers"—this was the fate that the Dean of Arabic Literature did not wish for young Arab intellectuals, whom the vocabulary of modern civilization placed in a critical confrontation between looking back and moving forward into the unknown. However, having taken upon himself the active role of enlightening minds, he did not merely highlight the phenomenon and its symptoms, but moved from description to analysis and explanation, asserting and demonstrating that not every similarity to the old is considered imitation, and not every deviation from it is counted as innovation. As was his custom in following the historical method, the author traces the stages of the development of Arabic literature in its various eras, presenting the most significant innovations that characterized each stage, until he reached the modern era, to discuss the experiences of its poets—such as Shawqi, Hafez, Al-Baroudi, Al-Mazini, and Matran—in the balance of positive innovation.