From modernists to muh&dotbelow;dathun: Metapoesis in Arabic

Meta-poetry is a term that has often been associated with modern poetry of the twentieth century. This dissertation proposes to expand the study of meta-poetry to include the Abbasid age in Arabic literature which was a phase of poetic turmoil in which a new poetic taste and new poetic standards were set. In this dissertation I explore the notion of meta-poetry in relation to the works of the Abbasid poets Abu Tammam, al-Buhturi, and Ibn al-Rumi.;This dissertation begins by drawing on the work done on meta-poetry and twentieth century modernism in general to focus particularly on the Free Verse movement in Arabic poetry as a self-conscious meta-poetic project. It then expands the study of metapoesis to explore the meta-poetic attitudes of Abbasid poets which not only serve to explain and comment on the inherited poetic forms but more importantly help revolutionize them revealing an enduring poetic core.