(50) Decline of Arabic Literature

With the decline of the Arab race, however, their muse drooped also, and for many centuries maintained but a languishing existence, which in our own time has been galvanized rather than invigorated into a kind of revival by the modern litereary schools of Beyrout, Damascus, Baghdad, and the Hejaz. In Nejd, Yemen, and Oman, rough poems on the primitive Arab model, besides others modulated with alternate rhymes, and in which accent takes the place of prosody, a species commonly called "Nabtee" or Nabathean verse, are yet in vogue. The Hispani-Arab poets, mostly mere imitators, and in bad taste too, need not detain us here. Epic and dramatic poetry were never even attempted by the Arabs.





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