Five programmes in which Dr Mustapha Badawi, Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, traces the development of Arabic poetry from its finest achievements in the pre-Islamic era to the present time.

The Arab tribal poet faces the stark realities of life and death in the unfriendly desert. He extols the values of survival: courage, hospitality and physical love. His poems are odes of austere formality. His tone of voice is heroic.
Poems read in translation by Philip Sully and in the original by Ali Refaie
(R)