Abstract

The reference to the philosophical and aesthetic concept of origin is linked in the twentieth century to a reappraisal of the Ancient. In particular, the reading of the Presocratics and especially of Heraclitus plays a key role in Surrealism. This paper tries to reconstruct the modern reading of Heraclitus' oeuvre in the Arab world. After a brief mention of the Tammuzi movement, which innovated the Arabic aesthetics in the twentieth century, the text proposes some fragments from Adonis' works. 'Alı¯ Ah.mad Sa'ı¯d Isbir alias Adonis is probably the most outstanding exponent of the Tammuzi movement. The purpose of my paper is to question the commonplace that claims any active cultural exchange between Arabic and European cosmos strictly in the ancient time. Through the rewriting of the Greek antiquity made by the Tammuzi movement, the concept of tradition is not played in the genealogical sense of continuity but as ever-living and refreshing source.