The thesis contains six chapters; introduction, four chapters on selected works by four poets, and conclusion. The Arabic texts discussed are added as an appendix and numbered from I to XIX. Chapter One discusses the form and function of the panegyric qasida in the early Abbasid period. The organic unity of the individual poem is postulated in a structural model which serves as a working hypothesis for subsequent analyses. Chapters Two and Three contrast panegyrics by Buhturi (d. about 284 AH/897 AD) and Mihyar al-Daylami (d. 428 AH/ 1036 AD). Three poems by Buhturi are analysed with particular attention to the structural function of the initial section. A work by Mihyar, shown to follow similar principles of construction, is explored with respect to imagery. A comparison of two selected passages highlights stylistic differences between the two poets. Chapters Four and Five are devoted to ascetic poetry, contrasting the zuhdiyyat of Abu' l-'Atahiya (d. 213 AH/828 AD) and the Luzumiyyat of Abu'l-'Ala' al-Ma'arri (d. 449 AH/1058 AD). Chapter Four begins with a study of the origins of the zuhdiyya canon in the poetic tradition and its relation to the panegyric. Chapter Five focuses on the reinterpretation of the poetic tradition in Ma'arri's work. Both chapters conclude with the analysis of a selected text. Departing from the postulated unity of the individual poem, the analyses reveal the unity of the poetic corpus. The former is substantiated by recurring techniques of construction, the latter suggested by recurring motifs in contrasting contexts. It follows that the qasida, on the basis of one structural model, provides scope for combinations of motifs drawn from the entire poetic corpus. The analyses of chapters Two to Five provide the basis for a hypothesis on the nature of mannerism and classicism which the final chapter develops in reference to the debate on mannerism in Arabic literature. The hypothesis is tested by a return to the selected texts.

This is the study of a previously neglected genre in pre-modern Arabic literature: the (poetic) epigram anthology. The epigram anthology was pioneered by a handful of poets in 14th-century Syria, but the genre was soon taken up by anthologists across the pre-modern Middle East and soon became one of the most popular types of Arabic poetry up until the modern period. This study is divided into two parts. Part One deals with critical issues in literary history and comparative literature, while Part Two is made up of three encapsulated studies on specific aspects of the social and literary (structural and textual) composition of the texts. In Part One, the epistemological background of the terms epigram and anthology is surveyed and their suitability for application to pre-modern Arabic literature is evaluated. Part One also includes a comprehensive history of the maqāṭīʿ (sing. maqṭūʿ, also maqṭūʿah) genre in Arabic as well as a detailed explication of this style of poetry, its anthological context, its generic status in the Arabic literary tradition, and its relation to the wider world-literary category of epigram. The three chapters of Part Two are devoted to the social network of anthologists and poets, the structure and composition of the anthologies themselves, and the way in which anthologists used a technique, which is called ‘variation’ in this study, to link the cited poetic material into an organic whole respectively. NB: This is a literary-historical study informed by the discipline of comparative literature; it is not primarily a philolological, biographical, or codicological investigation. The literary material presented here is what has been deemed most relevant for the purposes of the larger generic discussion at the centre of this literary-historical study. An annotated bibliography of unpublished sources is provided in an appendix in order to help the reader navigate the tricky present status of many Mamluk and Ottoman era sources.

Thesis (doctoral)--Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III, 1992. / "Lille-thèses, ISSN, 0294-1767"--Fiche header. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (doctoral)--Jāmiʻat Iskandarīyah, 1981. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 324-333).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgetown University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (mājistīr)--Jāmiʻat Baghdād. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 525-542) and index.

Thesis (doctoral)--Jāmiʻat Iskandarīyah, 1981. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 324-333).

No description available.

The subject of this thesis is Humaini Poetry in S. Arabia - a style of prosody which evolved from the pre-Islamic rudimentary tasmit, and after a long struggle reached its destined goal of symmetrically-placed rhymes running throughout the whole poem. Specifically, the term humaini is applicable to the muwashshah style, that is, to any poem structurally divided into abyat (strophes) or fusul (sections), bound together by a master-rhyme which closes every bait, or fasl. The term, however, is sometimes used in an extended sense, and came to embrace the form rhyming ab ab ab, etc. The chief attraction of humaini lies in its formal excellence; and in nothing is this more apparent than in the use of rhyme. Elaborate systems of rhyme schemes have been used, and tazfir (which is the breaking of a line into three or four, and possibly more, short rhyming verse-sections) is sometimes practised. Of all the rhyme patterns that were manipulated by the S. Arabians, only two were widely appropriated. The first rhymes aaaa bbba, etc.; and the second, abababab cdcdcdab, etc. - both of which were transposed into the regular alternation bait-tawshih-taqfil. Taken together, these three forms compose the corpus of humaini. Humaini is essentially a style of poetry designed for singing. It is distinctively lyrical in character, and delights one's aesthetic sensibility mainly by its music - by skilfully devised rhyme arrangements, by well-chosen, though contracted, selection of diction, by metrical formulas of great variety, and by the spontaneous (or intentionally reserved) use of lahn. The lahn in humaini is mainly restricted to the omission of vowel-case-signs and using a sukun instead, and/or to the savouring of the poem with colloquial words and expressions. This kind of lahn is so characteristic of humaini that it came to he known as "tariqat muwashshah ahl al-Yaman" and "tariqat al-humaini al-Yamani.".