Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2009. / English Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--University of Illinois. / "First published in 1944, reissued 1965. Bibliography: p. 214-219.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1936. / Bibliography: p. ix-xix.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of English, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2000. / Title from title page screen, viewed July 31, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Lucia C. Getsi (chair), William W. Morgan, Cynthia A. Huff. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-189) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University

No description available.

There have historically been numerous connections between the way that medieval Iberian Muslims conceptualized love, lust, and desire and the ways in which Western Europeans have expressed those same concepts, especially as potentially derived from the literary genre of the muwashshah, a particular form of (primarily) medieval Hispano-Arabic poetry. Specifically, the muwashshah and its particular expression(s) of romantic love have helped in causing a series of paradigm shifts (with a definition borrowed from Kuhn to apply to the humanities) within Western ideology. This thesis focuses on the transformative effect of such Hispano-Arabic poetry within Western culture, as well as its connections with the following: Greco-Roman concepts of poetics, earlier Arabic poetry, and post-Hispano-Arabic Arabic poetry. It explores the concept of intersectionality within Hispano-Arabic culture, demonstrating how Hispano-Arabic sources may have influenced European interpretations of romantic relationships as well as how the muwashshah survived within an Arabic context. While mostly existing as a substratum within European culture, the muwashshah has had lasting influence upon European culture. The domains of love and desire provide a particularly apt example, as they involve not simply technology (civilian or military) but demonstrate the origin of a distinct change in the expression of emotion within European culture. At a fundamental level, Western Europe has adopted some of these Hispano-Arabic (as derived from a Muslim viewpoint) values. Regardless of further conflict between Europeans and Muslim cultures, they share parts of a common heritage, expressed differently, but with partial derivations, large or small, from a single source. Such exploration demonstrates the deep interconnectedness of what has heretofore been considered a separated, solely Western (Christian) European culture and that of the Islamic world, derived from one of the original points of intersection between Muslim culture and Western Christian culture, as well as how Arabic culture addressed its outliers.

This thesis investigates how Old English poets understood the processes of signification and interpretation through analysis of depictions of poor interpreters and the use of 'sign terms' such as tacen and beacen in the longer Old English poems. The first chapter deals with the Beowulf Manuscript, the second and third chapters consider Elene and Andreas within the network of related poems found in the Vercelli Book and the begin- ning of the Exeter Book, the fourth chapter is on the Junius Manuscript, and the conclusion looks at the use of the 'bright sign' motif across all four major poetic codices. I suggest that there is a 'heroic sign-bearing interpreter' character-type which several of the poems utilize or ironically invert, and that poor interpretation is nearly always asso- ciated with hesitation, which often resembles acedia. I also argue that there is greater nuance in the poems' depictions of modes of understanding than has previously been acknowledged: Eve in Genesis B does not stand for the senses which subvert the mind, but rather models the limits of rational thought as a means of understanding God, and Elene does not depict a simple opposition of letter and spirit, but a threefold mental pro- cess of learning about the Cross with analogues in exegesis and Augustine's Trinity of the Soul. Finally, I argue that there is a 'bright sign' motif which functions within a brightness-sign-covenant concept cluster, whose evocation as a traditional poetic unit is not identical to the denotation and connotation of its constituent parts. These strands of inquiry taken together demonstrate how Old English poems invest signs with significance by tapping into a specifically poetic network of allusion.