The Influence of the Sea on Bahrainis' Life. Sea-Land Relation in the Poetry of 'Ali 'Abd Allah Halifa

• Authors: Sh-hadeh Y.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Looking at lives of Bahrainis living in the first half of the 20th century we can see that it is often a continuous journey of hard work between the dangerous waves of the sea as fishermen or pearl-divers, and the toil of cultivating the soil. 'Ali 'Abd Allah Halifa, who published works of poetry about the sea, seamen, pearl divers and their hard work presents us a realistic view of Bahrain inhabitants' feelings towards the sea and the place they live in. To understand the sea and its influence on the Bahraini society, one has to understand the life of sailors and pearl divers working hard among its vast waters. Halifa wrote about this subject and even dedicated an entire collection of poems to it. Despite the fact that the poet wrote them after oil fields had been found, the situation in Bahrain improved and the job of pearl diver disappeared, the issue of working at sea was the main topic of his early works. By doing so, the poet wanted to indicate the problems seemingly not connected with the new era of oil, but the hard working conditions of poor workforce which for pearl divers remained as harsh as they had used to be. In the poems of 'Ali 'Abd Allah Halifa we can see strong and complicated bond between man and sea which - while being a terrible monster - is also an object worthy of love. The source of such contradictory feelings of Bahrainis is possibly a specific location of their country. The people willingly or not had to learn to coexist with the sea.

Keywords

EN

'ALI 'ABD ALLAH HALIFA - POETRY; BAHRAINI SOCIETY

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Rocznik Orientalistyczny
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 60
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 85-92
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Sh-hadeh Y.

• Y. Sh-hadeh, Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Instytut Filologii Orientalnej, al. Mickiewicza 9/11, 31-120 Kraków, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

08PLAAAA04057953