Origins

My group is the Arabic Literature group and I decided that it would be interesting to know some of the facts of Arabic literature and cinema.
Firstly Arabic literature originated in the medieval age of golden lyric poetry, from the 4th to 7th centuries. The poems were mainly personal odes with themes of love, fighting, courage and the chase. The most well-known of these poets are Amru al-Kais, Antara, and Zuhair. Arabic literature is mainly comprised of works by Arabic speaking Turks, Persians, Syrians, Egyptians, Indians, Jews, and other Africans and Asians, as well as the Arabs themselves. At the end of the 8th century a new group of poets emerged and created a new genre of poetry, the court poems. India and Persia were a great influence to the romantic styles of Arabic poetry. Printing began in the 19th century in earnest, centered in Cairo, Beirut, and Damascus. In this time period Arab writers tired to express themselves and their place in the modern world. One of the most notable 20th-century-early writers in Arabic is the novelists Naguib Mahfouz who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature.


Within the Arab world Egyptian cinema has always dominated the scene. By 1917 there were 80 cinemas in Egypt alone, but what historians consider the first film did not debut until 1925. With the introduction of sound in 1930 the cinema really began to take off and appeal to the masses. During the 1930s, the Misr Bank financed production by sending technicians abroad for training and setting up the Misr Studio in 1935. Arab cinema continued to expand and grow throughout the century. Cinema was a way for people to express themselves and have it appeal to the masses. More often than not a film would be played that would have some great effect of people throughout the surrounding nations and a ripple would fan out calling all attention to the times and crises. I imagine this to be the same as what happens in American cinema, though possibly more governmentally controlled.
Everything has an origin and just like American literature and cinema, Arabic literature and cinema can give us a perfect view into a world we never really knew existed.