An Investigation of the Three Features of Surrealism in the Poetry of Mohammad Ali Shams al-Din

Mohammad Ali Shams al-Din is one of the contemporary modernist poets of Lebanon. Due to his familiarity with Western literature and literary schools and his interest in Eastern mysticism, his poetry is of a unique style. His contemporaneity with the emergence of the school of surrealism, along with his mystical tendencies, has greatly influenced the poet so that his poems seem to be written unconsciously. Considering that he turned to surrealism, his poetry is written unconsciously as surrealism is based on the unconscious. He considers himself to be a poet of the supernatural whose roots lie in the universe of the unseen. One of the most prominent manifestations of surrealism in his poetry is the domination of dream over all of his poems. Revealing different aspects of the three features of surrealism, which are insanity, dream and automatic writing, in the poems of Shams al-Din, in addition to introducing the poet’s ideas and attitudes, helps identify his poetic style. The necessity of this study is underlined by the fact that, so far, no comprehensive research has been done investigating the way surrealism, as a literary school which originated in the West, and an Eastern thought, that is Iranian-Islamic mysticism, influenced Shams al-Din’s poetry. So, this article endeavors to demonstrate that Shams al-Din has been under the influence of Iranian, Islamic, and Arab culture and civilization in his surrealistic tendencies and style. It is also noteworthy that autobiography is one of the methods that Shams al-Din uses to express his inner experiences and mindset, especially in his mystical poems as this type of writing, i.e. autobiography, is based on the unconscious and is one of the main mediums employed in the school of surrealism. The present study, by scrutinizing the surrealistic factors in Shams al-Din’s poetry, contends that the three features of surrealism have crucial roles in his poetry.