Some of Abu Shabaki's work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Serpents of Paradise which was regarded as obscene due to its overt sexual content.

The poet's obsession with the spiritual consequences of carnality that was manifested in his writings was attributed to the guilt brought upon by his sexual escapades with various women when he was married and until his death from leukemia in 1947.

Elias was raised as a devout Christian by his Maronite parents; he was admitted in 1911 to the Lazarist Saint Joseph College in the nearby town of Aintoura where he studied, among other courses, French and Arabic literature.

Elias resumed his studies at the College Central in Jounieh which was run then by the Marist Brothers before returning a year later to Saint Joseph's but he never graduated as a result of a quarrel he had with one of his teachers; nevertheless he continued his self-education and read religious books and French Romantic literature extensively which inspired his first literary efforts.

[3] In 1928 Elias finished al-Marid as-samit (The silent invalid), a narrative poem which is one of Abu Shabaki's best known works, springing from the center of European romantic tradition.

[15] His next book Afa'i al-Firdaws (Serpents of Paradise), published in 1938, is lauded by many as Abu Shabaki's best work and one of the best accomplishments of romantic poetry in modern Lebanese and Arabic literature.

[3] In addition to poetry, Elias published a number of studies including a study in comparative literature called Rawabith al-fikr wal-ruh bayn al-Arab wal-Franja (Intellectual and spiritual links between the Arabs and the French), in which he sought to demonstrate the weight of French influence on world literature; he also authored long essays about Lamartine, Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde.

[4] After his death, Elias' friends put together a number of verses and works that were published in periodicals in a book dubbed Min Sa'id al-Aliha (From the bosom of the Gods) in 1958.

"[nb 2] Elias epitomized beautiful lewd women as diabolical creatures, cunning temptresses causing man's downfall and "Serpents of Paradise"; this bitter and ironical antithesis is an allusion to danger and evil that is brought upon by lust and sin.

[6][7][16][17] Abu Shabaki's was a prolific writer, publishing a wide variety of works including poems, journal articles and literary studies.

Elias believed that the purest art evolves from emotion, which he thought was the source of authentic and aesthetic experience; he set a high value for inspiration and denounced rationalism and the role of conscious control in writing poetry.

[18] Elias' often pessimistic writings evoked a concern for the body and its lust, greatly affected by Romantic works he had read during his youth which commended loneliness, sorrow, passion, pain and death and denounced the materialism and lewdness of city life.

The league waged an assiduous attack on literary figures and the political establishment through articles published in the periodical al-Maarad, which was subsequently forced to close down by the government.

The generally acclaimed masterpiece owed its success to its sheer artistic merit, impressive length and the juxtaposition of extreme emotional and moral situations such as passion and sin.

The book is highly regarded as a masterpiece of Lebanese poetry; it draws inspiration from love and eroticism in a clear connection to the influences of French romantic works such as Charles Baudelaire's Les fleurs du mal.

[3] In Serpents of Paradise, Elias' candid and puritanical morality gives way to a sense of sin and spiritual deprivation as he comes to terms with the effects of the love affair that he had while he was betrothed to Olga.

Al-Alhan was published in 1941 by Dar al-Makshouf, it was described as a unique work in the history of Arabic literature; each of the poems deal with a different aspect of rustic country life, where images of Lebanese folklore and colloquialism abound.

In the book, Abu Shabaki identifies himself with the peasant, praises the simplicity of traditional ways, and furthers himself from the spurious gifts of technology and displays of false riches.

Through al-Alhan, Abu Shabaki paved the way for a new trend among his contemporary Muslim poets which manifested in a return to Islamic Sufism or to pre-Islamic natural atheism such in the case of Adunis.

In this volume, Elias placed aside his view of Woman as an evil snare and extolled chaste love, in a striking contrast with the harsh judgement and hedonistic pursuits expressed in Afai al-firdaws.

Ila al-Abad (To Eternity) was the last of Abu Shabaki's works published during his lifetime, the anthology confirmed Elias' return to peace that was evidenced in The Call of the Heart.

The crude sensuality of his earlier works are totally replaced with more refined and mystical dimensions of love that are further emphasized in this book which was also issued by Dar al-Makshouf in 1944.