Instances of Cultural Exchange between Arab and Western Literature

Literary interactions, as a means of cultural exchange, were established between the Arab and Western writers and poets in two different steps; the first step was embracing of the literary works of oriental writers and poets in the West; such works as a Thousand and One Nights, Panchatantra, Maqamah, and musical structure of Arab poem were imitated in the West, thereby forming a bridge between Eastern and Western literature. And the second stage was imitation of Western literature by Arab writers, which resulted in the emergence of new literary genres in Arab literature; playwriting, epic poetry, short story, and modernist poetry, as well as modern literary schools that were unprecedented in the Arab literature so became popular among Arab literary writers. Such cultural interaction has always resulted in development and flourishing of literature of different nations in the world, so much so that the world literature can be said to be the product of a process of ongoing exchange between different nations. Artistic interactions have long been one of the means to establish cultural exchange between different nations; of arts, literature, as a branch of verbal art, has plays a significant role in such an auspicious interaction. It is obvious that flourishing of world literature and cultural richness of the nations is indebted to such beautiful human art. Therefore, this paper tries to study the cultural interactions between Western and Arab literature in two steps: effect of Arab literature on Western literature and vice versa with a view to different literary genres. Although there were many works by writers and criticisms that were relevant to this study, the focus here was on those effects in literary works that are considered as innovation in the influenced literature, but as imitation from perspective of the influencing literature. However, such influence can be a cultural exchange, which can fertilize the influenced literature. In this paper, effects of Arab literature on Western and vice versa are studied in two steps.