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raise money. He is a slave catcher by profession. At

the last moment, he sees a mulatto slave woman

whose reward price is very high. However, she is

pregnant and begs him not to take her back. In the

conclusion, he is forced to make a difficult choice

in this ethical dilemma.

Machado de Assis was friendly with many great

literary figures of his day. He enjoyed meeting with

these friends and discussing intellectual issues.

From this, came the idea of founding the Brazilian

Academy of Letters. He and his circle of peers

founded the academy in 1897. At the initial meet-

ing, they elected him as the academy’s first presi-

dent, a position he held until his death. Because of

his great importance to Brazilian literature, the

Brazilian Academy of Letters is also called the

House of Machado de Assis.

Other Works by Joaquin Maria Machado

de Assis

The Devil’s Church and Other Stories. Arlington: Uni-

versity of Texas Press, 1977.

The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas. New York:

Oxford University Press, 1997.

A Work about Joaquin Maria Machado

de Assis

Schwarz, Roberto. Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian

Culture. New York: Verso, 1992.

Machado y Ruiz, Antonio (1875–1939)

poet

Born in Seville, Spain, the son of liberal intellectu-

als, Antonio Machado y Ruiz became a French

teacher and lived in the province of Castile, where

he found the somewhat stark landscape more in

keeping with his seriousness than that of Andalu-

sia, the more verdant province of his birth. His

poems portray the sober, dramatic Castilian land-

scape, and it is its nature that guides him.

Machado, like Juan Ramón

JIMÉNEZ, was a mem-

ber of the GENERATION OF

1898

, a group of writers

who sought a moral and cultural rebirth for

Spain. They analyzed the problems of the social

framework of Spain and prescribed cures. A fond-

ness for simplicity and landscape characterizes

Machado’s work. With his brother, the poet

Manuel Machado (1874–1947), he also wrote

plays.

Machado attended the Institución Libre de En-

señanza, considered the best learning institution of

its kind in Spain at that time. The education he re-

ceived there had a profound influence on his work.

There, he developed his love of nature and adopted

tolerance, respect, patriotism, and austerity as his

way of life.

In 1888, he and his brother began to attend

theater, befriending actors and even doing a little

acting. In 1893 his father died. The subsequent

death of his grandfather left the family in a pre-

carious financial situation and interrupted

Machado’s education. He then tried unsuccess-

fully to work in a bank and, in 1898, moved with

his brother to Seville, where he began to write

poetry.

The principal influences on his poetry were

Juan Ramón Jiménez, Gustavo Adolfo

BÉCQUER,

and Rosalía de CASTRO. In his first book of poems,

Soledades (1903), the poet searches for himself in

time, in love, and in death. An important theme in

all his work is time, something that he perceives as

alive and personal. He often searches for love and

lost youth.

Machado was forced to leave Spain in 1936 be-

cause of his political beliefs. He crossed the Pyre-

nees on foot and died a month later in France.

Other Works by Antonio Machado y Ruiz

Barnstone, Willis S., ed. and trans. Six Masters of the

Spanish Sonnet: Francisco de Quevedo, Sor Juana

Inés de la Cruz, Antonio Machado, Federico García

Lorca, Jorge Luis Borges, and Miguel Hernández.

Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,

1993.

The Landscape of Soria. Translated by Dennis Mal-

oney. Fredonia, N.Y.: White Pine Press, 1985.

Trueblood, Alan S., ed. Antonio Machado: Selected

Poems. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1988.

268 Machado y Ruiz, Antonio

Works about Antonio Machado y Ruiz

Cobb, Carl. Antonio Machado. Boston: Twayne,

1971.

Johnston, Philip G. The Power of Paradox in the Work

of Spanish Poet Antonio Machado. Lewiston, N.Y.:

Edwin Mellen Press, 2002.

Machado y Ruiz, Manuel (1874–1947)

poet, playwright, critic

Manuel Machado y Ruiz was born in Seville, Spain.

His family were prominent and wealthy members

of the city’s middle class. His grandfather was a

university professor and an expert in Spanish

music and folklore. The Arabic inflections of

Seville and his grandfather’s studies of folk tradi-

tions led Machado y Ruiz to emphasize Arab im-

agery in his poetry.

Though he published few poems, he was one

of the central figures of Spanish

MODERNISM.His

poetry resembles the work of Rubén

DARÍO, the

key figure of Latin American Modernism, but

with more emphasis on the cultivation of aes-

thetic pleasure and less on inner anguish.

Machado y Ruiz was a member of the GENERA-

TION OF

1898

and, like other members of that

movement, he was concerned with revitalizing

Spain’s national identity. He believed this would be

achieved by celebrating Spain’s inner Arab spirit,

which had been repressed by hundreds of years of

Catholic rule.

His use of symbolism shows a clear influence

of the poet VERLAINE, whose works he read when he

was a young man studying in Paris. By combining

modern trends from Europe and Spanish folk tra-

ditions, Machado y Ruiz was a forerunner to the

poet

GARCÍA LORCA.

Machado y Ruiz also modernized a number of

plays by the Spanish dramatist Lope de Vega in col-

laboration with his brother Antonio MACHADO Y

RUIZ

. Machado y Ruiz had a sophisticated literary

sensibility, and his literary style influenced

lyric poetry in Spain and the world into the 20th

century.

A Work about Manuel Machado y Ruiz

Brotherston, Gordon. Manuel Machado: A Revalua-

tion. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University

Press, 1968.

Madariaga, Salvador de (1886–1978)

historian, essayist

Born in La Coruña, Spain, to a Spanish colonel,

Madariaga held many jobs during his lifetime. He

studied engineering in Paris and returned to his

homeland to work for the Spanish railways. Then

he went to London, was an editor for the Times,

and wrote articles about World War I that were

later published as La Guerra Desde Londres (The

War from London, 1917).

In 1922, he was named head of the disarma-

ment section of the League of Nations. He taught

at Oxford (1928–31) and then was Spanish ambas-

sador to the United States and France. He resigned

in 1936 but did not participate in the Spanish civil

war (1936–39). In disagreement with the Spanish

dictator, Generalísimo Francisco Franco, he never

returned to Spain while Franco was in power. Dur-

ing World War II, he worked for the BBC, broad-

casting in Spanish, French, and German to Europe.

He visited Spain in 1976 and was received into the

Academia Española 40 years after his election into

it, the ceremony having been postponed until after

Franco’s death.

Madariaga wrote in Spanish, French, and Eng-

lish. His works include historical works (biogra-

phies of Hernán Cortés, Columbus, and Simón

Bolívar) and literary criticism (Guía del lector del

Quijote, 1926). In Englishmen, Frenchmen,

Spaniards (1928), he comments on national char-

acteristics. His book España (1930) is an important

historical interpretation of Spain and exemplifies

Madariaga’s ambition to familiarize the rest of the

world with Spain.

Other Works by Salvador de Madariaga

Anarchy or Hierarchy. New York: Macmillan, 1978.

Don Quixote: An Introductory Essay in Psychology.

Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1980.

Madariaga, Salvador de 269

Latin America between the Eagle and the Bear. West-

port, Conn.: Greenwood, 1976.

A Work about Salvador de Madariaga

Preston, Paul. Salvador de Madariaga and the Quest

for Liberty in Spain. Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1987.

Maeterlinck, Maurice (1862–1949) poet,

playwright, novelist, essayist

Count Maurice-Polydore-Marie-Bernard Maeter-

linck was born in Ghent, Belgium, to an affluent

family. Educated at a Jesuit college, he originally

studied to be a lawyer but practiced law only for a

brief time before turning his interests and talents

to writing.

During a trip to Paris, Maeterlinck came in con-

tact with several members of the literary commu-

nity, such as Villiers de l’Isle Adam, who became

one of Maeterlinck’s greatest literary influences.

Maeterlinck eventually moved to Paris to pursue

his writing career.

Although his later works were mostly dramatic

in nature, his earliest published efforts were poetic,

his first published work being the collection of

poems Ardent talons (1889). He published his first

play, La Princesse Maleine, in 1899, and it was well

received, particularly by Octave Mirbeau, the liter-

ary critic of Le Figaro, whose praise of the work

transformed Maeterlinck into an almost overnight

success.

Maeterlinck’s works are characterized by sym-

bolist (see SYMBOLISM

) themes, including a concern

with the metaphysical, mysticism, and an aware-

ness of death. This is particularly evident in The

Intruder (1890) and The Blind (1890). Even his

ostensibly love-themed works such as Pelléas et

Mélisande (1892), Alladine et Palomides (1894),

and Aglavaine et Sélysette (1896) share this same

bleak undertone, as do the works in which he de-

veloped his mystical ideas: The Treasure of the

Humble (1896), Wisdom and Destiny (1898), and

The Buried Temple (1902). Even some of Maeter-

linck’s later works, such as Joyzelle (1903) and

Marie Magdeleine (1909), focus prevalently on

death, but by World War I, he began to dwell on

an almost fantasylike optimism. This optimism

can be found in his play The Burgomaster of Stile-

monde (1918). His Oiseau bleu (The Blue Bird,

1908), intended for children, also struck a positive

note. His best-known play, however, is Monna

Vanna (1902), set in an exotic 15th-century Pisa,

which deals with a moral dilemma of a

beautiful wife.

In 1911, Maeterlinck was awarded the Nobel

Prize in literature. In his later years, he turned his

attention to writing philosophical essays and, in

1932, was awarded the title of count in Belgium.

Another Work by Maurice Maeterlinck

The Life of the Bee. Translated by Alfred Sutro. New

York: Dodd, Mead, 1970.

A Work about Maurice Maeterlinck

Knapp, Bettina. Maurice Maeterlinck. Boston:

Twayne, 1975.

magic realism

Magic realism is a style of fiction writing that com-

bines elements of fantasy and reality without any

clear delineation between the two. Though ele-

ments of fantasy in literature can be found

throughout history, it is the particular relation-

ship between the fantastic and the real that charac-

terizes magic realism’s unique flavor. Though it

had some precedent in European literature, partic-

ularly in the work of Franz

KAFKA, magic realism

was primarily developed in post–World War II

Latin America.

The Latin-American literary ancestor of magic

realism was Jorge Luis BORGES, who used fantasy in

his short stories as a means of exploring philosoph-

ical mysteries. In the 1960s, the generation after

Borges—Gabriel GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Carlos FUENTES,

Mario VARGAS LLOSA, and Alejo CARPENTIER,all im-

portant contributors to the development of the

magical-realist style—came to the world’s attention.

It was clear there was a Latin-American renaissance

270 Maeterlinck, Maurice

in progress and that magic realism would make an

important contribution to world literature.

Critical Analysis

Magic realism demonstrates the presence of a hid-

den layer of reality behind the appearance of the

natural world and human society. This effect is

achieved both by presenting the incredible in a

straightforward manner and by describing the

commonplace as mysterious. Both Gabriel García

Márquez and Alejo Carpentier have said that

magic realism is an effect that is based not in

fantasy but in Latin-American reality.

A humorous example of this can be found in

García Márquez’s novel One Hundred Years of

Solitude (1967), in which a child is born with the

tail of a pig. García Márquez chose this particular

“stigma” specifically because of its unreality. The

episode reinforces the carefully balanced themes

of what is real versus the absurd and fantastic.

After the book was published, people from all over

Latin America came forward, admitting to having

been born with a pig’s tail. Having read One Hun-

dred Years of Solitude, they realized that it was only

natural and that they were no longer embarrassed

to admit it. The outrageousness of the incident and

the readers’ reactions to it force readers to consider

the absurdity in everyday life and society.

Many of the Latin-American magic-realist writ-

ers spent time in Europe, particularly France, and

were exposed to surrealism and its use of the ab-

surd. Though the influence of surrealism on magic

realism is unquestionable, it is magic realism’s

relationship to truth that sets it apart. The surreal-

ists used fantasy and absurdity to attack conven-

tional ideas of reality; the magic realists created

substitute ideas of reality in hope of coming closer

to psychological and metaphysical truths.

In this way, the fantastic elements of magic re-

alism take on the stature of myths. Myths, al-

though not able to be proved by science or history,

have a kind of accuracy about the nature and needs

of humanity and the world. Because of their con-

nection to some inner aspect of human conscious-

ness, myths have a power beyond that of mere

fantasy. Magic realism attempts to use this mythic

force.

Another distinguishing feature of magic-realist

novels is their relationship to history. Carlos

Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, as well as García

Márquez and Carpentier, combine specific details

of Latin-American history with fantastical ele-

ments in their works.

In Terra Nostra (1975), Fuentes uses magic real-

ism as a means to recount and analyze the history

of Spain and Latin America. The book is unques-

tionably about the history of the Hispanic world,

but the use of the fantastic allows Fuentes to give

the events a sense of universality.

Vargas Llosa, however, embellishes history with

fantasy for the purpose of making an ideological

critique in a dramatic and nondidactic way. To a

lesser degree, this is also García Márquez’s strategy

in One Hundred Years of Solitude, in which he

combines the actual events of Columbian history

with a mythical story of the imaginary town

Macondo to critique Latin-American politics and

U.S. imperialism. Perhaps it is this perfect synthe-

sis of the two powers of magic realism that makes

One Hundred Years of Solitude the generally

acknowledged masterpiece of the genre.

Isabel ALLENDE, though not one of the inven-

tors of magic realism, adopted a style similar to

García Márquez’s. In her novel The House of the

Spirits (1982), Allende uses magic realism to con-

vey a feminist perspective on Latin-American his-

tory and culture. Some readers have even seen in

Allende’s novels a feminist critique of magic real-

ism itself.

American writer Toni Morrison has also been

called a magic realist. Her work, particularly her

novel Beloved (1987), employs the characteristic

use of the fantastic to reveal metaphysical truth

and confront the historical injustice of slavery.

Magic realism, when it is most successful, goes

beyond itself to penetrate into unrecognized

truths. It engages history in a way that

REALISM can-

not. Realism, our sense of what is subjective and

what is objective in reality, is, in a certain sense, de-

termined by history. The extraordinary success of

magic realism 271

magic realism demonstrated, both in Latin Amer-

ica and throughout the world, that traditional re-

alism, dominant into the 20th century, is no longer

necessarily the best mode for expressing the drama

of contemporary life.

Works about Magic Realism

Angulo, María-Elena. Magic Realism: Social Context

and Discourse. New York: Garland, 1995.

Mellen, Joan. Magic Realism. Detroit: Gale Group,

2000.

Mahfouz, Naguib (1911– ) novelist

Naguib Mahfouz was born in the al-Jamaliyyah

district of Cairo, Egypt, the youngest child of a civil

servant. When Mahfouz was six years old, his fa-

ther moved the family to a more prosperous sub-

urb. Mahfouz read extensively as a child. His

father’s wealth allowed him to acquire many trans-

lated books that were not part of his school cur-

riculum. When the 1919 revolution in Egypt took

place, Mahfouz was only eight years old. The revo-

lution had broken out because the British colonial

government prevented an Egyptian nationalist

from traveling to the Versailles Conference to de-

mand Egypt’s independence. Despite Mahfouz’s

young age, he was greatly affected by the event, and

he idolized the heroes of the revolution for their

bravery and courage.

After completing his secondary education,

Mahfouz studied philosophy at the University

of Cairo. He was invited after his graduation to

continue his studies in the master’s program. By

the 1930s, Mahfouz was writing articles about the

intellectual ideas and issues of the time, such

as the pursuit of science in conjunction with so-

cialist ideology to foster a better future for Egypt

and the replacement of the absolutist monarchic

government with a social-democratic one. He

eventually turned away from his university career

and entered the civil service, where he remained

until his retirement in 1971. His work gave him

time to pursue his writing, which was his first

love. Throughout his writing career, Mahfouz

continued to read avidly the works of many Eu-

ropean and Russian writers such as Albert CAMUS,

Feyodor DOSTOYEVSKY,Leo TOLSTOY,and Marcel

PROUST.

Mahfouz’s writings were clearly affected by the

turmoil caused by the political changes in Egypt.

A supporter of the political revolution of the

1960s, Mahfouz found many kindred spirits in rev-

olutionary movement of this time but was deeply

disturbed by the methods activists employed to

achieve their goals. He attempted to represent the

spirit of the revolution and its ideals through his

works. His stories bespeak the uncertainty of the

1960s, which peaked with the outbreak of the war

between Egypt and Israel in 1967. The war signaled

the final failure of the ideas and structures of the

Egyptian government and also prompted many

writers, including Mahfouz, to engage in more re-

flective writings.

In 1988, Mahfouz became the first Arab author

to win the Nobel Prize in literature. The award

recognized Mahfouz’s contribution to develop-

ing the novel in the Arab literary world, but it also

put Mahfouz and his family under intense

scrutiny by the news media. His worsening health

led him to seek medical care in London, and when

he returned, he narrowly escaped an attempt on

his life by a group of Islamic fundamentalists in

1994. Although he suffered a stab wound in the

attack, he remained a faithful advocate of free

expression.

Critical Analysis

The early stage of Mahfouz’s writing was marked

by his deep concern with philosophical issues such

as class struggle, identity, poverty, and colonial op-

pression. These themes are represented in his works

of the 1940s and 1950s, such as Kifah Tiba (Struggle

at Thebes, 1944), Al-Qahirah al-jadidah (Modern

Cairo, 1946), and the Cairo trilogy Al-Thulathiyya:

Bayn al-Qasrayn (Palace Walk, 1956), Qasr al-

Shawq (Palace of Desire, 1957), and Al-Sukkariyya

(Sugar Street, 1957). In Kifah Tiba, he examines the

significance of the country’s early history during

the time of its struggle for independence. By

272 Mahfouz, Naguib

reflecting on the character and rash actions of the

youthful pharaoh, Mahfouz was able to compare

his pharaoh protagonist with the young King

Farouk of Egypt. In Al-Qahirah al-jadidah, on the

other hand, Mahfouz analyzes the lives of various

characters whose continuous quest for better lives

brings them into conflict with the dominant

British colonial class. Themes such as the exploita-

tion of the lower classes by the colonial rulers are

further elaborated and portrayed in another of

Mahfouz’s novels, Zuqaq al-Midaqq (Midaq Alley,

1947).

In his early work, Mahfouz masterfully portrays

the varied view of many different characters. In the

Cairo trilogy, a monumental work of 1,500 pages,

he traces the major events of Egyptian history

through his narrative about the ’Abd al-Jawwad

family. He explicates a complex web of relation-

ships set against the background of Egypt’s bitter

struggle against British colonialism. The novel ex-

amines complicated and fragile human relation-

ships against the backdrop of major political

events such as the political revolution of 1919. It

also explores important themes, such as genera-

tional differences, tradition versus modernity, and

sexual equality. Mahfouz’s protagonists continued

to find their own identities as they faced and re-

acted to the changes of the times. In a certain way,

Mahfouz’s life was a reflection of this haplessness

of humanity to change.

In the second phase of Mahfouz’s literary

career, he became more outspoken, especially

when expressing his political views. This stage

was clearly influenced by his reaction to the polit-

ical events from the 1960s to the 1980s. Between

1961 and 1967, he published six novels, in which

he began to enhance his narration to convey the

complexities and urgency of colonial oppression

and the disillusionment that accompanied this

period of chaos and disorder. He also began to

write from the point of view of the protagonists

of his stories. In tersely realistic style, he ex-

pressed his characters’ emotional estrangement

from their peers and their community. As a result,

his explicitness brought a new dimension to

Mahfouz’s stories. He was able to showcase his

talent in creating a variety of human characters

with varied and complex personalities and points

of view. In Miramar (1967), for example, Mah-

fouz conjures a setting in which characters from

different occupational backgrounds and age

groups come together. The story focuses on the

character of Zahra, a lovely peasant girl who ex-

udes innocence, simplicity, and optimism. Zahra

personifies the optimism of Egypt in the postwar

period, which is marred by the harsh reality of

corruption and vice that leads to the suicide of

one main character and the continuous impover-

ishment of the others.

Mahfouz’s works reflect his personality and his

experiences in Egypt where he spent most of his

life. His concern with the human condition and

other philosophical issues clearly influenced his

writings. The major themes in his works include

the constant human need for acceptance and sol-

ace, the vicious cycle of social oppression from

which the poor could never escape, and the irrec-

oncilable differences between the ideologies of the

upper and lower classes. Even though Mahfouz

wrote of the struggle and suffering of the poor, his

stories are mostly narratives of the urban middle

class, especially the lives and problems of intellec-

tuals. In addition, Mahfouz’s middle-class back-

ground and his long-term residence in cities gave

him the experience and knowledge with which to

create familiar settings.

Other Works by Naguib Mahfouz

Arabian Nights and Days. Translated by Denys John-

son-Davies. New York: Doubleday, 1995.

The Beggar. Translated by Kristin Walker Henry and

Nariman Khales Naili al Warrah. Cairo: American

University in Cairo Press, 1986.

Children of the Alley. Translated by Peter Theroux.

New York: Doubleday, 1996.

The Thief and the Dogs. Translated by Trevor Le

Gassick and Mustafa Badawi. Cairo: American

University in Cairo Press, 1984.

The Time and the Place. Translated by Denys John-

son-Davies. New York: Doubleday, 1991.

Mahfouz, Naguib 273

Works about Naguib Mahfouz

Gordon, Haim. Naguib Mahfouz’s Egypt: Existential

Themes in his Writings. Westport, Conn.: Green-

wood Press, 1990.

Le Gassick, Trevor, ed. Critical Perspectives on Naguib

Mahfouz. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents

Press, 1991.

Peled, Mattityahu. Religion My Own: The Literary

Works of Naguib Mahfouz. New Brunswick, N.J.:

Transaction Books, 1983.

Somekh, Sasson. The Changing Rhythm: A Study of

Naguib Mahfouz’s Novels. Leiden, The Nether-

lands: Brill, 1973.

Maillet, Antonine (1929– ) poet,

playwright, novelist

Antonine Maillet was born in the Acadian com-

munity of Bouctouche, New Brunswick. Her work

often draws on her Acadian upbringing and em-

ploys a particular Acadian dialect. In 1950, she re-

ceived a B.A. from the University of Moncton and,

nine years later, completed an M.A. She continued

her studies at Laval, earning a Ph.D. in literature

in 1970. She taught literature and folklore, first at

Laval and then at Montreal. She also worked for

Radio-Canada in Moncton as a scriptwriter and

host. She is currently the chancellor of the Univer-

sity of Moncton.

While in school, Maillet worked on her writing,

producing her first play, Poire-acre, in 1958. That

same year, her first novel, Pointe-aux-Coques was

published. Since that time, she has published close

to 50 novels, plays, and poems and has become one

of the most important living French-Canadian

writers. Her novel The Tale of Don L’Original (1972)

won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. In

1979, Maillet became the only Canadian author to

win France’s most prestigious literary award, the

Prix Goncourt, for her novel Pélagie-la-Charette

(1979), a historical novel about the British army’s

destruction of Acadian settlements in 1755.

Another Work by Antonine Maillet

The Devil is Loose! New York: Walker & Co., 1987.

Works about Antonine Maillet

Aresu, Bernard. “Pélagie la Charrette and Antonine

Maillet’s Epic Voices.” In Makoto Ueda, ed., Explo-

rations: Essays in Comparative Literature. Lanham,

Md.: University Press of America, 1986.

Briere, Eloise A.“Antonine Maillet and the Construc-

tion of Acadian Identity.” Postcolonial Subjects:

Francophone Women Writers. Edited by Mary Jean

Green et al. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota

Press, 1996, 3–21.

Mala’ika, Nazik al- (1923– ) poet, critic

Al-Mala’ika was born in Baghdad to a literary fam-

ily; her mother was a nationalist poet in the inde-

pendence movement against British rule. She

earned a B.A. in Arabic at the Teacher’s Training

College, Baghdad (1944), and an M.A. in compar-

ative literature from the University of Wisconson

(1956). With her husband, she helped found the

University of Basra in Iraq. Al-Mala’ika taught at

the University of Kuwait from 1970 to 1982 and

thereafter lived in Iraq until living conditions, af-

fected by the Gulf War (1991), deteriorated so

much that she could not maintain her health, so

she moved to Cairo.

Al-Mala’ika’s literary criticism and poetry

helped to break the hold of traditional forms on

modern Arabic poetry. Her first collection, Ashiqat

al-lail (“Lover of night,” 1947) offered poetry of

highly sensitive emotion, idealism, despair, and

disillusion, themes typically associated with Arabic

literary romanticism of the 1930s and 1940s. In the

introduction to her second collection, Shazaya wa

ramad (“Shards and ashes,” 1949) she suggests a

break with the centuries-old rhyme patterns of

Arabic poetry and proposes that the “poetic foot”

be cut loose from the two-hemistitch verse form

that has anchored Arabic poetry since its begin-

nings. Her belief is that this form and the poetic

conventions associated with it have come to inhibit

rather than spur creativity. Shazaya wa ramad and

subsequent poetry collections depart from tradi-

tional forms. “Cholera” was her first poem to

demonstrate what is considered, in Arabic litera-

274 Maillet, Antonine

ture, to be “free verse.” Her 1962 book of literary

criticism Qadaya al-shi’r al-mu’asir, (the title

means “Issues in Contemporary Arabic Poetry”),

in which she refines and elaborates the proposal

for modern verse begun in the introduction to

Shazaya wa ramad, is a milestone text and is hotly

debated. Al-Mala’ika continued to write poetry

into the 1970s, departing from the dark, romantic

tendencies of her early work to a more philosoph-

ical stance. Religious and spiritual themes enter her

later poetry; her recent work is often marginalized,

as very few modern Arab poets and critics take re-

ligious inspiration seriously.

Only a small amount of her work is available in

English, in anthologies such as Kamal Boullata’s

Women of the Fertile Crescent (1981).

Another Work by Nazik al-Mala’ika

Jayyusi, Salma, ed. Selections in Modern Arabic Poetry.

New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.

A Work about Nazik al-Mala’ika

Jayyusi, Salma. Trends and Movements in Modern

Arabic Poetry. Boston: Brill, 1977.

Malange, Nise (1960– ) poet, screenwriter

Nise Malange was born in Cape Town, South

Africa. She went to the United States, where she

obtained a degree from the University of Iowa.

Malange specialized in scriptwriting and film and

video production while she was in Zimbabwe. She

is currently the director of the Culture and Work-

ing Life Project at the University of Natal in Dur-

ban. She is also the national vice president of the

Congress of South African Writers. In addition,

Malange works as a consultant within the labor

movement and writes to forward the cause of

women’s rights in South Africa. Malange writes

poetry and plays and has presented papers on

African arts and cultures at international confer-

ences. She won the prestigious Norwegian Award

for Poetry in 1987.

Malange’s poems are inspired by her personal

experiences as a disenfranchised black woman in

South Africa. Her turbulent youth, spent during the

years of apartheid, has had a distinct impact on her

writing. Issues such as domestic violence, disen-

franchisement, and education for girls are common

themes in her works. Her play Pondo Women Clean-

ers (1987) addresses the pain and suffering of a

marginal group of disenfranchised women.

Malange believes that literature can be used for the

mobilization of the masses, and her poetry exam-

ines the oppression and struggle of women in a

male-dominated society. Through her poetry,

Malange also reaches out to her readers, imploring

them to derive strength from their common expe-

riences. She believes that literature has the power to

influence and help them to improve their lives.

Malange represents one of the prominent

members of a new generation of African poets

known as the “oral poets.” Her desire to inspire or-

dinary people to voice their opinions against social

evils such as oppression and class differences is

most effectively carried out in her active partici-

pation in community work and workshops that

she helps organize.

Other Works by Nise Malange

“Ditsela! Ditsela,” Pathways 1 (May 1997).

“Nightshift Cleaner, Nightshift Mother,” Illumina-

tions: An International Magazine of Contemporary

Writing 8 (Summer 1989).

Mallarmé, Stéphane (1842–1898) poet

A Symbolist (see SYMBOLISM) poet whose works are

often considered by critics to be the best example

of “pure poetry,” Stéphane Mallarmé was born in

Paris into a family of French civil servants. As a

student, he distinguished himself in the study of

languages. After graduation, he visited England,

was married in London, and then returned to

France, where he accepted the first in a series of

teaching posts. He taught English in several

provincial schools in Tournon, Besançon, Avignon,

and Paris until his retirement in 1893.

Mallarmé made many close contacts within the

artistic community. Chief among these was his

Mallarmé, Stéphane 275

sustained friendship with Manet, which began in

1873 and continued until the artist’s death in 1883.

He wrote two articles on Manet, which are consid-

ered to be incisive symbolist analyses of impres-

sionism.

In the 1880s, Mallarmé became the center of a

group of French writers who lived and worked in

Paris. This group, which included André GIDE and

Paul VALÉRY, met to share ideas on poetry and art.

Mallarmé’s ideas often contradicted each other.

According to Mallarmé, nothing lies beyond real-

ity; however, within this state of nothingness, there

exists that which is the essence of perfection. This

takes the shape of what he refers to as the “perfect

form.” He believed it was the poet’s task to find

these essences within the void of nothingness and

to clarify them with the language of poetry.

Mallarmé’s ideas were not always well received.

Readers and critics alike found him to be unneces-

sarily complicated and often obtuse. He would

challenge his readers to use their minds when they

read his works by, among other things, looking up

common words in the dictionary to find archaic

meanings for them. He would then employ these

words in their long-lost form within his poems.

Critical Analysis

Mallarmé began to write poetry in his early teens.

His first poems were published in magazines in the

1860s, and his first important poem, “L’Azur,” was

published when he was only 24. He was pro-

foundly influenced by the works of Charles

BAUDE-

LAIRE, particularly by Baudelaire’s advocacy of the

obscure and his emphasis on the element of mys-

tery within a poetic work. Mallarmé, however,

went beyond this concept, stressing the inherent

magical quality and the sacredness of poetry. He

spent long periods of time obsessing over the

minute details of each of his poems, reveling in

the importance of even the smallest and seemingly

most insignificant details of language and imagery.

His poetry was allusive and often hard for readers

to grasp. His language was compressed in such a

way that a finished poem often seemed more an

interpretation than a poem that could be easily de-

fined, which demanded an awareness of the

process of poetic creation.

Language and art held a close association in

many of Mallarmé’s works. His association with

the visual arts is readily evident in his poetry col-

lection, The Afternoon of a Faun (1876), his best-

known work. It was illustrated by Manet and

inspired both Dubussy’s 1894 musical composi-

tion of the same name and the subsequent ballet

by Nijinsky. The poems in the collection were writ-

ten while Mallarmé was working at Tournon, a

town he found both ugly and unpleasant. In con-

trast to the author’s own surroundings, the poem

presents the rambling erotic thoughts of a faun as

it whiles away the hours of a drowsy summer af-

ternoon in a place of great beauty.

Perhaps Mallarmé’s greatest achievement came

in his contribution to those writers who came after

him. This influence was not restricted to French

poetry but spread internationally among a diverse

group of writers. Wallace Stevens credits Mallarmé

as a source of great inspiration, as does T. S. Eliot.

His influence is readily apparent in James Joyce’s

Finnegans Wake.

The condensed figures and unorthodox syntax

of Mallarmé’s poetry set it apart from much of the

rest of the works of his time. He framed each of his

poems around one central symbol, idea, or

metaphor. All of the additional imagery simply

served to help illustrate and develop the main idea.

His use of free verse was influential on the FIN DE

SIÈCLE movement in France, the 1890s Decadent

movement (see decadence), and 20th-century

MODERNIST poetry.

Mallarmé’s other works include Hérodiade

(1896) and A Funeral Toast, the latter of which

was written as a memoriam to the French author

Théophile GAUTIER, whose works Mallarmé greatly

admired. He also wrote an experimental poem Un

Coup de dés Jamais n’abolira le hasard (1897),

which was published posthumously. In his

later years, he became close friends with Whistler

and devoted himself to creating what he referred

to as his “grand oeuvre” or “great work.” Unfor-

tunately, Mallarmé died in Paris on September 9

276 Mallarmé, Stéphane

before he could complete this impossible master-

piece.

Other Works by Stéphane Mallarmé

Collected Poems. Translated by Henry Weinfield.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Mallarmé in Prose. Translated by Jill Anderson. New

York: New Directions, 2001.

Works about Stéphane Mallarmé

Lloyd, Rosemary. Mallarmé: The Poet and His Circle.

Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999.

Stafford, Hélène. Mallarmé and the Poetics of Everyday

Life: A Study of the Concept of the Ordinary in His

Verse and Prose. Atlanta, Ga.: Rodopi, 2000.

Malouf, David (1934– ) poet, novelist,

playwright

David Malouf was born in Brisbane, Australia, to

a Lebanese father and an English mother. He at-

tended the Brisbane Grammar school and later re-

ceived an honors degree in language and literature

at the University of Queensland, where he taught

English until 1962. His expertise and skill in the

use of the English language inspired him to write

poems. He published his first poem, “Interiors,” in

Four Poets in 1962.

Malouf is considered both a primitive and a ro-

mantic for his uses of nature. His themes include

nature, the use of language as a transforming de-

vice across cultures, identity, isolation, unity, and

belonging. He uses imagery, metaphor, symbolism,

and analogy to express these themes.

In “Twelve Night Pieces” from Poems 1975–76

(1976), he writes, “From wetness of earth and

earth rot morning / Glory climbs to the sun . . .”

to reveal the morning glory as a symbol of

human connection with nature. In “The Bicycle”

from The Bicycle and Other Poems (1970), he uses

the analogy of the mechanical bicycle and the

natural human experience of traveling through

life: “Now time yawns and its messengers appear/

like huge stick insects, wingless, spoked with

stars....”

Malouf’s novels carry the theme of identity

for which the hero longs through union with

another. In Malouf’s first novel, Johnno (1975),

Johnno and Dante long for their fathers’ love. In

Conversations at Curlow Creek (1996), Michael

Adair wants to be united with his brother and

his love, Virgilia. An Imaginary Life (1978),

Remembering Babylon (1993), Child’s Play

(1982), and Flyaway Peter (1982), the novels for

which Malouf won the Australian Literature So-

ciety’s Gold medal, all talk about the predica-

ment of isolation.

Malouf is celebrated as a poet, essayist, novel-

ist, and playwright. He won the Australian Litera-

ture Society gold medal for the verse collection

Neighbours in a Thicket (1974). He also won the

Townsville Foundation for Australian Literary

Studies Award and the Grace Leven Poetry Prize.

The novel Remembering Babylon was nominated

for the 1993 Booker Prize. Malouf speaks about his

passion for writing in his autobiography, 12, Ed-

monstone Street (1985).

Other Works by David Malouf

Dream Stuff: Stories. New York: Pantheon, 2000.

Selected Poems, 1959–1989. London: Chatto and Win-

dus, 1994.

A Work about David Malouf

Indyk, Ivor. David Malouf. New York: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 1993.

Malraux, André (1901–1976) novelist,

nonfiction writer

André Georges Malraux was born in Paris, France,

on November 3, into a wealthy family. His parents

separated when he was a child and he was brought

up by his mother. His father was a stockbroker who

committed suicide in 1930. As a youth, Malraux

studied a wide variety of subjects, such as archae-

ology, art history, and anthropology. However,

what interested him the most was oriental lan-

guages, histories, and cultures, which he studied at

the École des Langues Orientales.

Malraux, André 277