Madkhal ila-l-'alam al-shi 'ri 'inda Khalil Hawi usluban wa madmunan:
(An Introduction to the Poetic Universe of Khalil Hawi)
This book is a study in Arabic of Khalil Hawi’s “poetic universe” with all its richness and implications. It focuses on Hawi’s poetic style and content. Khalil Hawi is the leading existential poet in the Arab world as well as one of the most important and well known avant-garde poets of modern Arabic literature who shaped the fate of contemporary Arabic poetry in the twentieth century. His poetry is deeply punctuated with symbols and metaphors and is permeated with political and social connotations. He draws heavily on figures and heroes selectively lifted from history, mythology, religion, literature, and philosophy. His life and sad death are the embodiment of the destiny of the tragic hero who offered himself as a true sacrificial lamb for his nation and its people. His life journey was an epic quest for the ultimate hero who would rise from the ashes of a defeated nation that once was the giver of civilization and culture to the world. Alone, Hawi fought the “nocturnal owl” of a tragic history of defeat and humiliation which he desperately wanted to transform into a present day of glorious victories for his nation and its young generation of “demi-gods” whom he expected to rebel and destroy the old traditions and ancient relics of a shameful catastrophic past that continued to persist over the horizon of the Arab nation, leading it from one defeat to another. When Hawi realized that his vision would not come to pass in a nation that had grown accustomed to tragedy and defeat, he offered to give his life in order to speed up the victory, and he willingly died to erase the shame and transgressions of his people and their rulers. Khalil Hawi committed suicide on the morning of June 6, 1982 on the eve of the Israeli invasion of his beloved city, Beirut.
