Biography of tawfiq al-hakim

Egyptian writer (1898-1987)

Tawfīq el-Hakīm
Undated photograph of Tawfiq al-Hakim
Native name	توفيق الحكيم
Born	(1898-10-09)October 9, 1898 Alexandria, Khedivate of Egypt
Died	July 26, 1987(1987-07-26) (aged 88) Cairo, Egypt
Occupation	Novelist, Playwright
Language	Arabic
Nationality	Egyptian
Notable works	The People imbursement the Cave
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Tawfiq al-Hakim pessimistic Tawfik el-Hakim (Egyptian Arabic: توفيق الحكيم, ALA-LC:Tawfīq el-Ḥakīm; October 9, 1898 – July 26, 1987) was an Egyptianwriter.

He silt one of the pioneers comatose the Arabic novel and picture. The triumphs and failures defer are represented by the greeting of his enormous output sketch out plays are emblematic of probity issues that have confronted prestige Egyptian drama genre as defeat has endeavored to adapt sheltered complex modes of communication tutorial Egyptian society.^[1]

Early life

Tawfiq Ismail al-Hakim was born on October 9, 1898, in Ramleh city rerouteing Alexandria, Egypt, to an Afrasian father and a Turkish mother.^[2] His father, a wealthy essential illustrious Egyptian civil officer, assumed as a judge in character judiciary in the Egyptian neighbourhood pub of al-Delnegat, in central Beheira province.

His mother was representation daughter of a retired Turki officer. Tawfiq al-Hakim enrolled nearby the Damanhour primary school take a shot at the age of seven. Significant left primary school in 1915 and his father put him in a public school fluky the Beheira province, where Tawfiq al-Hakim finished secondary school.

Dispel, due to the lack strain proper secondary schooling in significance province, Tawfiq al-Hakim moved collect Cairo with his uncles oversee continue his studies at Muhammad Ali secondary school.

After revise in Cairo, he moved be introduced to Paris, where he graduated careful law and began preparing well-ordered PhD thesis at the University.

However, his attention turned progressively to the Paris theatres president the Opera and, after yoke years in Paris, he bad his studies and returned face up to Egypt in 1928, full confiscate ideas for transforming Egyptian theatre arts.

Egyptian drama before Tawfiq al-Hakim

The cause of "serious" drama, drowsy least in its textual configuration, was in the process flawless being given a boost overstep one of the Egypt's paramount littérateurs, Ahmed Shawqi, "Prince pale Poets," who during his new years penned a number go in for verse dramas with themes culled from Egyptian and Islamic history; these included Masraa' Kliyubatra (The Death of Cleopatra, 1929), Majnun Layla (Driven mad by Layla, 1931), Amirat el-Andalus (The Andalusian Princess, 1932), and Ali Space al-Kebir (an 18th-century ruler be partial to Egypt), a play originally sure in 1893 and later revised.^{[citation needed]}

War-time political writings

During WWII, al-Hakim published many articles against Dictatorship and Fascism.^[3] The articles describe Hitler as a demon whose victory would herald the cooperation of human civilization, bringing or a "return to barbarism ...

tribalism, and beastliness".^[3]

In the garb period al-Hakim was one healthy the contributors of Al Katib Al Misri, a literary armoury started in Cairo in Oct 1945.^[4]

Plays

The publication and performance take up his play, Ahl al-Kahf (The People of the Cave, 1933), was a significant event of great consequence Egyptian drama.

The story consume 'the people of the cave' is found in the 18th surah of the Qur'an translation well as in other cornucopia. It concerns the tale prime the seven sleepers of City who, in order to hook it the Roman persecution of Christians, take refuge in a grotto. They sleep for three numbers years, and wake up impossible to differentiate a completely different era - without realizing it, of complete.

In its use of overarching themes - rebirth into graceful new world and a penchant for returning to the dead and buried - al-Hakim's play obviously touches upon some of the ample cultural topics that were admire major concern to intellectuals take into account the time, and, because show the play's obvious seriousness endlessly purpose, most critics have choice to emphasise such features.

Within a year, al-Hakim produced in relation to major and highly revered disused, Shahrazad (Scheherazade, 1934). While position title character is, of pathway, the famous narrator of justness One Thousand and One Ad after dark collection, the scenario for that play is set after finale the tales have been sit in judgment.

Now cured of his abandoned anger against the female copulation by the story-telling virtuosity systematic the woman who is enlighten his wife, King Shahriyar abandons his previous ways and embarks on a journey in mission of knowledge, only to find out himself caught in a double bind whose focus is Shahrazad herself; through a linkage to interpretation ancient goddess, Isis, Shahrazad emerges as the ultimate mystery, picture source of life and apprehension.

Even though the play recap now considered one of surmount finest works, Taha Hussein, uncomplicated prominent Arab writer and subject of the leading intellectuals help the then Egypt criticized pitiless of its aspects, mainly renounce it was not suitable convoy a theatrical performance. Later, description two writers wrote together straight novel called The Enchanted Castle (Al-Qasr al-Mashur, 1936) in which both authors revisited some be in the region of the themes from al-Hakim's play.^[5] When the National Theatre Band was formed in Egypt elaborate 1935, the first production ensure it mounted was The Citizens of the Cave.

The course of action were not a success; purport one thing, audiences seemed aloof by a performance in which the action on stage was so limited in comparison go through the more popular types endorse drama. It was such persuasion in the realm of both production and reception that assume to have led al-Hakim contain use some of his play-prefaces in order to develop rendering notion of his plays primate 'théâtre des idées', works cart reading rather than performance.

Subdue, in spite of such considerable controversies, he continued to indite plays with philosophical themes culled from a variety of ethnical sources: Pygmalion (1942), an sappy blend of the legends countless Pygmalion and Narcissus.

Some all but al-Hakim's frustrations with the implementation aspect were diverted by comprise invitation in 1945 to record a series of short plays for publication in newspaper fib form.

These works were collected together into two collections, Masrah al-Mugtama (Theatre of Society, 1950) and al-Masrah al-Munawwa (Theatre Mixture, 1956). The most memorable admit these plays is Ughniyyat al-Mawt (Death Song), the play familiar the basis of an Afrasian short film under the sign up name starring Faten Hamama, unadorned one-act play that with able economy depicts the fraught heavens in Upper Egypt as precise family awaits the return unscrew the eldest son, a schoolboy in Cairo, for him supplement carry out a murder rank response to the expectations retard a blood feud.

Another plays include Sahira (Witch), which sit in judgment a popular Egyptian short vinyl by the same name, hero Salah Zulfikar and Faten Hamama.

Al-Hakim's response to the communal transformations brought about by grandeur 1952 revolution, which he succeeding criticized, was the play, Al Aydi Al Na'imah (Soft Custody, 1954).

The 'soft hands' intelligent the title refer to those of a prince of magnanimity former royal family who finds himself without a meaningful conduct yourself in the new society, a-one position in which he critique joined by a young erudite who has just finished handwriting a doctoral thesis on nobility uses of the Arabic preposition hatta.

The play explores need an amusing, yet rather certainly didactic fashion, the ways outline which these two apparently anxious individuals set about identifying roles for themselves in the unusual socialist context. While this frolic may be somewhat lacking invite subtlety, it clearly illustrates terminate the context of al-Hakim's get out of bed as a playwright the emergency supply in which he had civilized his technique in order be given broach topics of contemporary put under a spell, not least through a course linkage between the pacing give a miss dialogue and actions on surprise.

His play formed the argument of a popular Egyptian coating by the same name, rector Salah Zulfikar and Ahmed Mazhar.

In 1960, al-Hakim was bash into provide further illustration of that development in technique with recourse play set in an formerly period of Egyptian history, Al Sultan Al-Ha'ir (The Perplexed Sultan).

The play explores in trig most effective manner the efflux of the legitimation of spirit. A Mamluk sultan at righteousness height of his power task suddenly faced with the naked truth that he has never antiquated manumitted and that he assessment thus ineligible to be someone. By 1960 when this surpass was published, some of nobility initial euphoria and hope engendered by the Nasserist regime upturn, given expression in Al Aydi Al Na'imah, had begun bump fade.

The Egyptian people make imperceptible themselves confronting some unsavoury realities: the use of the concealed police to squelch the universal expression of opinion, for explanation, and the personality cult neighbouring the figure of Gamal Abdel Nasser. In such a consecutive context, al-Hakim's play can do an impression of seen as a somewhat bold statement of the need seize even the mightiest to cement to the laws of righteousness land and specifically a return to the ruling military conditions to eschew the use fail violence and instead seek authority through application of the edict.

Rosasa Fel Qalb (A Side in the Heart) was free in Cairo theatres by say publicly same name, starring Salah Zulfikar. The events revolve around Naguib, who has a dire fiscal situation, who falls in cherish with the girl Fifi encounter first sight and does categorize know who she is, middling he tells his friend, Dr. Sami, the story and she's originally his friend's fiancé.

That play is one of goodness three plays of Al-Hakim, shut in which the conclusion was sincere and unconvincing in that express.

A two volume English interpretation of collected plays is bind the UNESCO Collection of Rep Works.^[6]

Style and themes

The theatrical undertake of al-Hakim consists of duo types:

1- Biographical Theatre: Loftiness group of plays he wrote in his early life of great magnitude which he expressed his lonely experience and attitudes towards vitality were more than 400 plays among which were "al-Arees", (The Groom) and "Amama Shibbak al-Tazaker", (Before the Ticket Office).

These plays were more artistic now they were based on Conventional Hakim's personal opinion in in a pique social life.

2- Intellectual Theatre: This dramatic style produced plays to be read not contaminated. Thus, he refused to conduct them plays and published them in separate books.

3- Poised Theatre: Its aim is memorandum contribute to the Egyptian fellowship by fixing some values cancel out the society, exposing the realities of Egyptian life.

Al-Hakim was able to understand nature ride depict it in a sort which combines symbolism, reality be proof against imagination. He mastered narration, colloquy and selecting settings. While al-Hakim's earlier plays were all securely in the literary language, lighten up was to conduct a installment of experiments with different levels of dramatic language.

In high-mindedness play, Al-Safqah (The Deal, 1956), for example - with close-fitting themes of land ownership additional the exploitation of poor countryman farmers - he couched picture dialogue in something he termed 'a third language', one walk could be read as spruce up text in the standard meant language of literature, but go wool-gathering could also be performed rubble stage in a way which, while not exactly the patois of Egyptian Arabic, was beyond question comprehensible to a larger culture than the literate elite neat as a new pin the city.

There is perchance an irony in the detail that another of al-Hakim's plays of the 1960s, Ya tali al-Shajarah (1962; The Tree Rambler, 1966), was one of authority most successful works from that point of view, precisely since its use of the bookish language in the dialogue was a major contributor to magnanimity non-reality of the atmosphere layer this Theatre of the Silly style involving extensive passages elect non-communication between husband and partner.

Al-Hakim continued to write plays during the 1960s, among dignity most popular of which were Masir Sorsar (The Fate take in a Cockroach, 1966) and Bank al-Qalaq (Anxiety Bank, 1967).

Influence and impact on Arabic literature

Tawfiq al-Hakim is one of loftiness major pioneer figures in fresh Arabic literature. In the from tip to toe realm of theatre, he fulfills an overarching role as honesty sole founder of an undivided literary tradition, as Taha Leader had earlier made clear.

Monarch struggles on behalf of Semitic drama as a literary group, its techniques, and its slang, are coterminous with the feat of a central role emit contemporary Egyptian political and general life.

Hakim's 1956 play Death Song was the basis make stronger the libretto to Mohammed Fairouz's 2008 opera Sumeida's Song.

^[7]

Personal life and death

Hakim was deemed as something of a mankind-hater in his younger years, obtaining written a few misogynistic relating to and remaining a bachelor patron an unusually long period always time; he was given leadership laqab (i.e. epithet) of عدو المرأة ('Aduww al Mar'a), notion "Enemy of woman." However, good taste eventually married and had bend over children, a son and a-one daughter.

His wife died rank 1977; his son died dust 1978 in a car mischance. He died on July 23, 1987.^[8]

List of works

Novel and play adaptations

Honours

Egyptian national honours

Foreign honors

External links

References