Impersonality, Traditional Heritage and Intertextuality: A Comparative Study between Salah Abd al-Sabur, Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab and T.S.Eliot

This comparative study aims to investigate the similarities and differences between the two Arab poets, Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab and Salah Abd al-Sabur from one hand and T. S. Eliot from the other. The study attempts to investigate the attitudes of those poets towards impersonality. It shows how impersonality from the perspective of Abd al-Sabur is not like Eliot’s, who emphasizes that impersonality is critical to poetry while Abd al-Sabur argues that personality and impersonality together form a perfect work. Unlike them, Al-Sayyab does not have critical comments on the terms of personality and impersonality. The study also aims to investigate the resemblance between those poets, regarding their attitudes towards traditional heritage. It also attempts to investigate intertextuality between their texts. The analysis is comparatively based on some selected poems composed by the three above-mentioned poets. The study concludes that Al-Sayyab, Abd al-Sabur and Eliot hold similar views on traditional heritageas they emphasize the necessity of a positive relation between modern and traditional heritage. In regards to impersonality in poetry, Eliot contradicts himself because he could not escape being impersonal in his poetry. On the other hand, Abd al-Sabur’s and Al-Sayyab’s poems bear stamps of personality and impersonality. The study also concludes that intertexulaity between Al-Sayyab and Abd al-Sabur, from one hand and T. S. Eliot from the other, is due to acculturation rather than influence and eurocentrism