The Prufrockian Dynamicity of Resistance, Change and Acceptance in the Poetry of Ghāzī Al-Quṣaybī

Abstract

While Modernism is recognised as originating in the United Kingdom and the United States, arising from conditions created by the Industrial Revolution and World Wars, the examination  of  Prufrockian  Modernist  elements  in  other  cultural  contexts  can  yield additional insights into the movement and readings of specific works.  Though the Arab world is often considered through the lens of tradition and religion, issues of the modern world have also impacted the Arab culture, as in the work of contemporary Saudi poets, such as GhÄzÄ« Al-Quá¹£aybÄ« (1940-2010). As evident in the poems, themes and techniques

found in conventional Modernist texts are also present in Al-Quá¹£aybī’s work, within the Arabic  context.  Specifically,  anxiety  and  alienation  arising from  the  mechanisation  of society as a result of the Industrial Revolution will be examined here. This study will, through the technique of comparison and contrast with the works of T.S. Eliot (1888-

1965)  and  Gertrude  Stein  (1874-1946),   examine  the  claim  that Al-Quá¹£aybÄ« ‘s  poetry accounts for a modernist shift observable through a change in the intensity with which objects are viewed within the Saudi cultural context. This intensity is in proportion to the industrial  changes  that  have  helped  to  reshape  Arab  society  as  well  as  the  Saudi community. As  in the  Western  context, the  changes  created  through industrialisation have  significantly  impacted  individuals’  and  indeed,  entire  cultures,’  experiences  and romantic relationship with their environment and others, altering dominant expectations of the human experience.