Iv - University of Salford Institutional Repository

that he could, with relative ease and comprehension, read this poetry
in translation. By Arabian poetry Carlyle means the poetry which had
been written and circulated in Arabia from the earliest time to the
extinction of the Caliphate, mostly pastoral poetry. A distinction
should be made between Arabian pastoral poetry and its European
counterpart. "The European writer of pastoral poetry must permit his
shepherds to express themselves in the uncouth dialect which is
familiar to them, or he must make them deliver their sentiments in a
language unsuitable to their situation; thus the reader is condemned
to be disgusted by the coarseness of Spencer or the unnatural
refinements of Pope. The Arabian poet laboured under no difficulties
of this kind; he described only the scenes before his eyes, and the
language of his herdsmen and camel-drivers was the genuine langauge
used by them, by himself, and by his readers; he was under no necessity
of polishing away any rustic inelegancies, for he knew that the critics
of Baghdad universally acknowledged the dialect of the Vallies of Yemen
to the standard of Arabian purity. It was this part of the peninsula
that the chief of the Arabic pastoral poems were produced. The ancient
Arabic poetry possessed a naivety and a richness easy to be felt in the
original language, but impossible to be transfused into any other". (J
D Carlyle, 1810, Introduct i on, ppXIV-XV)
The original Arabic poem is written on page 41 of the Arabic
section of Carlyle's Specimens of Arabian Poetry. The English
translation, naturally Carlyle's, is included in the same book on pages
88-89. Let us look, first of all, into the structure of the Arabic
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