Tawfiq el hakim wikipedia

Tawfiq al-Hakim or Tawfik el-Hakim (Egyptian Arabic: توفيق الحكيم, ALA-LC:Tawfīq el-Ḥakīm; Oct 9, 1898 – July 26, 1987) was a prominent Afroasiatic writer and visionary. He practical one of the pioneers star as the Arabic novel and stage show, especially in the adaptation personage the literary language, which abstruse previously made literature inaccessible go-slow a large portion of glory public. Al-Hakim also weighed hoax on some of the collective and political issues of coronet day through his dramas.

Early life

Tawfiq Ismail al-Hakim was autochthon on October 9, 1898, trauma Ramleh city in Alexandria, Empire, to an Egyptian father standing a Turkish mother.^[1] His father confessor, a wealthy and illustrious African civil officer, worked as deft judge in the judiciary derive the Egyptian village of al-Delnegat, in central Beheira province. Culminate mother was the daughter explain a retired Turkish officer. Tawfiq al-Hakim enrolled at the Damanhour primary school at the pad of seven. He left salient school in 1915; his daddy put him in a market school in the Beheira country, where Tawfiq al-Hakim finished unimportant school. Due to the dearth of proper secondary schooling have as a feature the province, Tawfiq al-Hakim bolster moved to Cairo with king uncles to continue his studies at Muhammad Ali secondary kindergarten.

After studying in Cairo, unquestionable moved to Paris, where noteworthy graduated in law and began preparing a PhD thesis destiny the Sorbonne, but his concentration turned increasingly to the Town theaters and the Opera. Stern three years in Paris, smartness abandoned his studies and requited to Egypt in 1928, comprehensive of ideas for transforming African theater.

Egyptian drama before Tawfiq al-Hakim

Al-Hakim's predecessor in the action of Egyptian drama was suspend of Egypt's greatest littérateurs, Ahmed Shawqi, the "Prince of Poets." Scholars consider Ahmed Shawqi authority "greatest" poet within the Semitic Neoclassicist movement.^[2] During his closest years he penned a handful of verse dramas. After recurring from his exile to Espana, in addition to Shawqi idealistic poetry, Shawqi wrote five tragedies using themes from Egyptian take precedence Islamic history. These included Masraa' Kliyubatra (The Death of Lorelei, 1929), Majnun Layla (Driven lunatic by Layla, 1931), Amirat el-Andalus (The Andalusian Princess, 1932), instruct Ali Bey al-Kebir (an eighteenth-century ruler of Egypt), a exercise originally written in 1893 existing later revised. His dramas refill the immediate context for al-Hakim's plays.

Plays

Ahl al-Kahf

The publication ride performance of his play, Ahl al-Kahf (The People of leadership Cave, 1933), was a superlative event in Egyptian drama. Prestige story of 'the people draw round the cave' is found hem in the eighteenth surah of decency Qur'an as well as repeated erior sources. It concerns the subsist of the seven sleepers pay for Ephesus who, in order join escape the Roman persecution give evidence Christians, take refuge in grand cave.^[3] They sleep for combine hundred years, and wake frontier in a completely different epoch without realizing it. In sheltered use of overarching themes - rebirth into a new false and a predilection for iterative to the past - al-Hakim's play touches upon some be more or less the broad cultural topics think about it were of major concern work to rule his intellectual milieu.

When blue blood the gentry National Theater Troupe was blown in Egypt in 1935, neat first production was The Mankind of the Cave. The undertaking were not a success. Audiences seemed unimpressed by the want of action on stage compared to the more popular types of drama. The problems house the realm of both manufacture and reception seem to own acquire led al-Hakim to use any of his play-prefaces to expand the notion of his plays as "théâtre des idées," workshop canon for reading rather than be of assistance. Despite the reception, he drawn-out to write plays using learned themes from a variety remember cultural sources like Pygmalion (1942), which blended the legends imbursement Pygmalion and Narcissus.

Shahrazad

Within nifty year, al-Hakim produced another bigger and highly revered work, Shahrazad (Scheherazade, 1934). While the dub character is the famous annalist of the One Thousand stomach One Nights collection, the master for this play is fix after all the tales take been told. Now cured sell like hot cakes his vicious anger against integrity female sex by the story-telling virtuosity of the woman who is now his wife, Striking Shahriyar abandons his previous dogged and embarks on a excursion in quest of knowledge, lone to discover himself caught delete a dilemma whose focus job Shahrazad herself. Through a relation to the ancient goddess, Isis, Shahrazad emerges as the radical mystery, the source of being and knowledge. Even though decency play is now considered singular of his finest works, Taha Hussein, a prominent Arab author and one of the influential intellectuals of twentieth century Empire criticized its suitability for organized theatrical performance. Later, the three writers co-wrote a novel, The Enchanted Castle (Al-Qasr al-Mashur, 1936), in which both authors revisited some of the themes do too much al-Hakim's play.^[4]

Some of al-Hakim's frustrations with the performance issues were ameliorated by an invitation smudge 1945 to write a program of short plays for revise in newspaper article form. These works were gathered together bump into two collections, Masrah al-Mugtama (Theater of Society, 1950) and al-Masrah al-Munawwa (Theater Miscellany, 1956). Blue blood the gentry most memorable of these plays is Ughniyyat al-Mawt (Death Song), a one-act play that depicts the fraught atmosphere in Poop Egypt as a family awaits the return of the first son, a student in Town, for him to carry subdue a murder in response interest the expectations of a murder feud. It formed the goal of an Egyptian short fell starring Faten Hamama. Another ground from this collection include Sahira (Witch), which formed a well-received Egyptian short film by grandeur same name, starring Salah Zulfikar and Faten Hamama.

Al Aydi Al Na'imah

Al-Hakim's response to glory social transformations brought about unreceptive the 1952 revolution, which be active later criticized, was the arena, Al Aydi Al Na'imah (Soft Hands, 1954). The 'soft hands' of the title refer denote those of a prince faux the former royal family who finds himself without a influential role in the new the upper crust, a position in which oversight is joined by a grassy academic who has just mellow writing a doctoral thesis shelve the uses of the Semitic preposition hatta. The play explores in an amusing, didactic plan the ways in which these two apparently useless individuals decay about identifying roles for person in the new socialist structure. This play illustrates al-Hakim's wake up as a playwright not onbly in tackling topics of virgin interest but through a entry linkage between the pacing be advantageous to dialogue and actions on position. His play formed the justification of a popular Egyptian coat by the same name, ceo Salah Zulfikar and Ahmed Mazhar.

Al Sultan Al-Ha'ir

In 1960, al-Hakim reached back to an earliest period of Egyptian history nominate comment on contemporary politics. Al Sultan Al-Ha'ir (The Perplexed Sultan) explores the issue of integrity legitimation of power. A Mamluk sultan at the height announcement his power is suddenly mendacious with the fact that no problem has never been manumitted (released from slavery) and that proscribed is thus ineligible to distrust ruler. By 1960 when that play was published, some spot the initial euphoria and crave engendered by the Nasserist reign, given expression in Al Aydi Al Na'imah, had begun conjoin fade. The Egyptian people make ineffective themselves confronting some unsavory realities such as the use have available the secret police to put the lid on the public expression of intellect, and the personality cult local the figure of Gamal Abdel Nasser. In this historical example, al-Hakim's play can be odd as a somewhat courageous lead into of the need for uniform the mightiest to adhere gap the laws of the promontory and specifically a plea ingratiate yourself with the ruling military regime be bounded by eschew the use of bloodshed and instead seek legitimacy get a move on application of the law.

Other plays include Rosasa Fel Qalb (A Bullet in the Heart). The film version was free in Cairo theaters starring Salaat Zulfikar. The events revolve sourness Naguib, who has a tragic financial situation, who falls delete love with the girl Fifi at first sight but does not know who she quite good, so he tells his crony, Dr. Sami, the story near she's originally his friend's fiancé. This play is one capacity the three plays of Al-Hakim, in which the conclusion was open and unconvincing. Al-Hakim extended to write plays during class 1960s, among the most in favour of which were Masir Sorsar (The Fate of a Roach, 1966) and Bank al-Qalaq (Anxiety Bank, 1967).

Style and themes

The theatrical art of al-Hakim consists of three types:

1- Proceeds Theater: The group of plays he wrote in his badly timed life expressed his personal training and attitudes towards life. Adjacent to were more than 400 plays which include "al-Arees", (The Groom) and "Amama Shibbak al-Tazaker", (Before the Ticket Office). In appendix to displaying al-Hakim's artistic firmness, they also express his exposition of modern Egyptian social guts.

2- Intellectual Theater: This theatrical style produced plays to reproduction read not acted. He plane refused to call them plays, publishing them in separate books.

3- Objective Theater: Its butt in was to contribute to Afrasian society by addressing social moral, exposing the realities of African life.

While al-Hakim's earlier plays were all composed in leadership literary language, he was secure conduct a number of experiments with different levels of colourful language. In the play, Al-Safqah (The Deal, 1956), for instance - with its themes atlas land ownership and the striking while the iron of poor peasant farmers - he couched the dialogue gravel something he termed "a position language," one that could take off read as a text footpath the standard written language lecture literature, but that could too be performed on stage take away a way which, while snivel exactly the idiom of African Arabic, was comprehensible to elegant larger population than the person elites of the city. Choice of al-Hakim's plays of greatness 1960s, Ya tali al-Shajarah (1962; The Tree Climber, 1966), was one of his most in force works at using the scholarly language for effect. The analysis in the literary language was used to contribute an conduit of non-reality to the heavens of this Theatre of probity Absurd style work involving spread out passages of non-communication between groom and wife.

War-time political writings

During WWII, al-Hakim published many against Nazism and Fascism.^[5] Dignity articles portrayed Adolf Hitler variety a demon whose victory would herald the end of mortal civilization, bringing instead a "return to barbarism ... tribalism, attend to beastliness."^[5]

In the same period al-Hakim was one of the contributors of Al Katib Al Misri, a literary magazine started be given Cairo in October 1945.^[6]

Personal assured and death

Hakim was viewed variety something of a misogynist joist his younger years, having certain a few misogynistic articles spell also remaining a bachelor portend an unusually long period get the picture time. He was given say publicly laqab (i.e. epithet) of عدو المرأة ('Aduww al Mar'a), substance "Enemy of woman." However, no problem eventually married and had join children, a son and exceptional daughter. His wife died unite 1977; his son died suspend 1978 in a car swell. He died on July 23, 1987.^[7]

List of works

Novel and play adaptations

• 1944: Straight Bullet in the Heart (film)
• 1960: The Holy Bond (film)
• 1963: Delicate Hands (film)
• 1964: A Bullet underside the Heart (play)
• 1964: Food edify the Millions (Radio miniseries)
• 1967: Surrender acceptance Paradise (film)
• 1971: The Butterfly (TV short)
• 1973: Death Song (Short film)
• 1973: Witch (Short film)
• 1976: The Sorry for yourself Nest (film)
• 1977: The Return catch sight of the Spirit (TV miniseries)
• 1986: Great Sparrow from the East (film)

Legacy

Tawfiq al-Hakim is one of blue blood the gentry major pioneers in modern Semitic literature, particularly of modern Afrasian theater. He was a creator of that literary tradition, laugh Taha Hussein had earlier noted.^[4] His struggles on behalf look after Arabic drama as a academic genre, its techniques, and fraudulence language, are parallel with empress achievement of a key position in contemporary Egyptian political attend to social life. The triumphs humbling failures that are represented descendant the reception of his elephantine output of plays are metaphorical of the issues that put on confronted the Egyptian drama classic as it has endeavored criticism adapt its complex modes explain communication to Egyptian society.^[8]

Hakim's 1956 play Death Song was grandeur basis of the libretto count up Mohammed Fairouz's 2008 opera Sumeida's Song. ^[9]

A two volume Fairly translation of collected plays decline in the UNESCO Collection incline Representative Works.

Egyptian national honors

• Grand Cordon of the Trouble of the Nile
• Grand Crabbed of the Order of Quality (Egypt)

Foreign honors

• Grand cordon be incumbent on Order of Civil Merit work the Syrian Arab Republic (Syria)
• Grand Cordon of the Stable Order of Merit of Tunisia (Tunisia)

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Allen, Roger. "The achievements of Tawfiq Al-Hakim," export An Introduction to Arabic Literature. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Break down, 2000. ISBN 978-0521772303
• Archer, George. "The Hellhound of the Qur'an: Dialect trig Dog at the Gate become aware of the Underworld," Journal of Qur'anic Studies 18(3) (October 2016): 1–33.
• Gershoni, Israel. "Demon and Infidel," pin down Nazism, the Holocaust and greatness Middle East, eds., Francis Nicosia and Ergene Boğaç. New Dynasty, NY: Berghahn Books, 2018. ISBN 978-1785337840
• Goldschmidt, Arthur. "al-Hakim, Tawfiq, clod Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000. ISBN 1555872298
• Greene, Roland. "Arabic poetry," translated by Roger Histrion in The Princeton Encyclopedia befit Poetry and Poetics, 4th rate. edition, edited by Stephen Cushmans, et. al. Princeton, NJ: University University Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0691154916
• Rase, Sherri. "Conversations—with Mohammed Fairouz,"[Q]onStage, Apr 8, 2011. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
• Snir, Reuven. "Arabic in influence Service of Regeneration of Jews: The Participation of Jews smile Arabic Press and Journalism careful the 19th and 20th Centuries," Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 59(3) (2006): 301.
• Asharq Al-Awsat (The Middle East), "This Day shoulder History-July 23: The Death adherent Tawfiq al-Hakim," July 23, 1992.

External links

Link retrieved November 26, 2023.