Arts of Folk Literature
by Ahmed Roshdy Saleh

To study Literature and life
A man of letters who does not draw his material and spirit from the life of people is deemed no man of letters, nor is he an author of literature. He has to know what people talk about and how they live and relate their stories. Creators of literature have to study literature and life of the various milieus of people.

Dr. Taha Hussein
The Doyen of Arabic Literature Dr. Taha Hussein wrote the previous foreword to introduce this interesting book by Ahmed Roshdy Saleh, himself a prominent man of letters with writings in many fields. Following are exerpts from Roshdy's "Art of Folk Literature":

In the books on literature and criticism released during the past years, we read about literature being related to or separated from life. The controversy still stands among the schools of literature in Egypt about this crucial subject. The quest for reality and the means to articulate it occupies the minds of the scholars of Egyptian literature. So, it manifests itself in the viewpoints of their elder and young critics alternately.

Here Dr. Taha Hussein refutes the motto that literature is made to serve life on the grounds that any type of literature is described as such. He then addresses authors saying, "study the surroundings, draw your subjects from them and derive them from the lives and spirit of the people."

Dr. Ahmed Amin says that the great author is the one who leads us to the oneness of national literature with independent entity and ceaseless special existence. Such existence, however, evolves and alternates in various phrases and conditions.

It seems obvious that Amin's book "The Literary Critique" has paid attention to such literature which articulates one nationalism. He, further, elaborated on this type of literature in a redundant and overrated way as he considered the great poets, the old and the young, as people articulating nationalism. He noticed the change taking place at the life standards, hence, the standards of arts.

Amin says that the author is not a solitary independent isolated fact, on the contrary, he has his ties with the past and present and the thoughts of an author or a poet emanate to a great extent from the milieu. So, the best definition of literature is "the articulation of the whole or part of life through a beautiful phrase."

Dr. Mohamed Hussein Heikel defines literature as "The beautiful art with the aim of communicating a certain message of truth and beauty to people through words." Taha Hussein, Ahmed Amin and Mohamed Hussein Heikel ascertain the intimate relation between literature and life. Their words have a bearing over their works of Egyptian literature, as well as their contribution to critique during the last decade of our history.

But here we ask what kind of relation that correlates literature with life and what this life is as expressed by literature.

Controversy
Here we have the major controversy which takes the form of a conflict about the concept of realism in literature. This controversy expands to encompass many various matters i.e. whether literature has a social function. If so, what is the author's responsibility and to what extent he abides by it before history? How the connection between form and content should be? Which subjects the author should write or not write about? Who are the people to express more than others the authors' personal experiences?

Actually, the writings of young critics and authors on this subject were handled in a way completely different from what the professors of literature and the elders say. Moreover, there is a dissent within the same group. Dr. Taha Hussein and Dr. Ahmed Amin presented to literature and critique some works coherent with their viewpoints and not one scholar may overlook such works when discussing the relation between literature and life, whereas other contemporary poets were in discrepancy about their works and opinions on literature and its theories. There are areas of disagreements between the young critics and authors themselves. In many cases such areas are very vast.

I believe it would suffice to put across to readers the following opinion of the great American author Howard Fast which I think may serve as a starting point for the determinants that should follow. Fast says that there is a difference between our clear understanding of the nature of reality and the application of premature measures revolving like a machine squeezing life out of art and most particularly its matter under the cover of false realism.

Realism is not the justification for the lack of talent or the technical structure, nor is it putting foolishness and nonsense in the place of rhetoric of people and its beauty. We do not mean here to restrict art within rigid molds, or place the delicate sense with stiff doctrines, or let the rules of rhythm restrict the freedom of creativity.

Realism is not an enemy of love, nor is it a foe of the heartfelt sentiment and tender feelings. On the contrary, it is the combination of all this. The rationale of such opinion in our research is to value the role of author and the standard of his art, the aspects from which he draws his material from and the type of readership he is addressing.

Literature of people
Undoubtedly, justifying literature is done by the author's input and his selection of the topics he writes about. In a research about folklore i.e. the vast and authentic literature of people in the city and village, relative standards are applicable. Some of these standards are related to what we call the historical necessity and others to the technicality of such necessity.

We can not accept this kind of work with the main aim of picturing life through a camera lens giving detailed true image of what is happening. Such work is not deemed to be literature at all simply because its author has not justified his existence by interfering in the course of events nor has he chosen the events or articulations most significant to his experience and most influential, truthful and emphatic in manifesting this fact. In other words, how can we give such notion i.e. the relation between life and literature its context in studying folk literature.

Can we suppose that the main rule is that literature is intimately related to life and all kinds of literature are being looked at as such? Can we suppose that the conditions of public life give way to the intellectual & cultural superstructure the same way the stomach or the bladder secretes its squeeze or liquid? Our sentiments are kindled by the type of food we eat or the cloth we wear and the house we live in.

For instance, since life conditions of peasants and craftsmen who account for the majority of the folk people are under the dominion of the social authority, then it must be the case that their literature is full of dominion surrender or may be quite the opposite. It all includes a clear thought regarding the future and destiny.

Is it allowed for us to debate cases in mind or with the theoretical rigid molds which we have primarily created before going into the literary material and accept what fits in and rejects what does not? Do we draw our judgment from the books and inspire them from theories based on the Egyptian heritage? I do not think that any if what I previously mentioned can give us true and accurate results.