Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1981. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 202-205).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Universität Bern. / Description based on web page; title from title screen (viewed 23 October 2006). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University

From thesis: The Egyptian civilization was regarded by the ancients as the ultimate example of' a morally regulated way of life; their judicious political economy was the admiration of the Elians and both Pythagoras and Plato accepted it as ideal, the former in a small select society and the latter on a larger scale .However a society like this,which is accepted, and acted upon as a completed one, in which everything has been considered, (especially the education of and the habituation to it, to make it second nature), does not take the nature of spirit into consideration, because it is precisely that infinite impulse which acts in contemporary life, and changes its very form. This impulse expressed itself in Egypt in a peculiar way. One would expect that a society, which appears to have been so complete, so fixed in every way, could have no characteristic of its own. Religion, one would expect would have been introduced in the same calm peaceful way, in accordance with the regular order of things. Unlike the Chinese civilisation, where every change is excluded, and the fixedness of character recurs perpetually, this calm order in Egypt was threaded with a spirit full of stirring and urgent impulses. We have here the Oriental Massiveness in combination with the African element. It is a spirit which begins to emerge from the merely natural, without freeing itself from nature. It cannot reach free consciousness of being, it only produces this as a problem: the enigma of its being. One half emerges, the other half is hidden. The buildings of the Egyptians are half below the ground while half rises into the air. The whole country is divided into a Kingdom of life and a Kingdom of death. This, however, is in reality no division, but a unity. The fundamental conception of that which the Egyptians regarded as the essence of being, rested on the fixed character of the natural world - in particular the fixed physical cycle of the Nile and the Sun. These two elements, strictly connected, formed the basis of a very simple and unchanging mode of life. Unchanging, because there is a definite physical cycle which the Nile, in connection with the sun, pursued. The sun rises, reaches its culmination, and then retrogrades. So does the Nile.

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In Chapter one, I presented a comparative definition of the meaning of Sirah (PI.Siyar), Tarjamah (Pl. Tarajim), Manaqib, Tabaqat and Maghazi as they were understood in antiquity. I also showed how the meaning of Sirah in modern times has only narrowly developed. Although the method of biographical writing continuously developed in Europe, it hardly progressed in Modem Arabic Literature. The only exception was seen in the writings by the pioneers of enlightenment in Egypt at the beginning of the twentieth century. This change of direction relied on borrowing European methodology in biographical writing. In chapter two, I reviewed the early attempts at writing biographies in the nineteenth century by Abd al Rahman al- Jabarti and Ali Mubarak. Although both were the first pioneers in this respect, yet they followed the footpath of classical approach above all that of al-Maqarizi from whom -Ali Mubarak derived inspiration in his book Al-Khitat al-Tawfiqiyyah. In chapter three, I studied the twentieth century, starting with traditional biography writers who could not employ European methodologies and whose writings oscillated between biographical notes and biographical sketches; or whose texts were more of a literary study than a biography proper. In chapters four to nine, I selected the most renowned, productive writers who best represented methodologies of biography writing. Perhaps certain writers have not been mentioned in this period of study. This is not out of negligence but simply because their texts were totally out of reach, or their writings did not exhibit the required literary criteria. All methodologies representing the theory of biography writing in Egypt have been analysed in these chapters. All, in fact, form a digestion or assimilation of French,English and German schools. In Egypt, Taha Husayn is considered the chairman of the French school, al-Mazini and al-Aqqad of the English/German schools, al-Nuwaihi of the psychoanalytical/anatomical school and Sidqi who employed both. By contrast, al Iryan was the trailblazer of the distinguished biographical novel. In these chapters, I tried to lay out the general outlines these writers have produced in the production of biographical texts, and how these attempts were a successful step on the road of presenting literary biographies characterized by high world standards. Chapter ten may well seem traditional, but it is important to give a comparative outlook on the views of biography writers themselves when they study and analyse the same character. Among the characters studied ,I selected Bashsliar, Abu Nuwas, Ibn al-Run-i, al-Mutanabbi and al-Maarri. These are outstanding landmarks in the history of Arab verse and the subject of a multitude of studies as well. Modern biographers took these figures as a test field for the deployment and employment of biographical methodologies. I selected these examples to provide comparisons and explain how far these biographies were successful in producing a biography or a profile of those classical poets. The conclusion and the bibliographical list arrived at the end of research. I wish, however, to clarify one important point here. It seems that I could not fix the year 1950 as the temporal parameter of my research but took some textswhich were published shortly beyond that point. The reason for this obvious extension was either to give additional useful details or simply because chapters of such texts had already been published prior to that year and were known to the readership. At times I would satisfy myself with analysing the part rather than the whole. This again was meant to eschew repetition or was due to the fact that the book in question was not available.

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