By contrast with earlier poetry, modern Arabic poetry is, in general, characterized by a spirit of revolt: the student of this period cannot but be struck by the variety and multiplicity of schools and styles and by the extent of restless and indeed hectic experimentation which went on and is still going on unabated. The last hundred years or so have witnessed the amazing journey which, under the cultural impact of the West, Arabic poetry has travelled from the mournful traces of encampments in the Arabian desert to the tragic Waste Land of western Europe and America, and even further still to the nightmarish and paradoxical world of the surrealists and post-surrealists and the Messianic and millenial Utopia of Marxists. En route it has passed through the tombs and ruins of Night Thoughts, known the raging seas and howling winds of the pre-Romantic Sublime, inhabited for a while the magic casements, the beautiful but forlorn fairyland, mingled with nature, landscape and seascape, meditated over Le Lac, held communion with the Muses and Les Nuits, experienced the Sorrows of Werther and the vague and almost metaphysical yearning of the Romantics in general, as well as the ritualistic, hieratic and sacred images, hints and suggestions of the Symbolists — to mention but a few of the familiar landmarks and experiences of the long, often winding and at times tortuous route.