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How did medieval Arabic literary critics evaluate poetry? Despite the abundance of surviving medieval Arabic works on eloquence and poetics, we know very little about the factors critics took into account when judging the beauty of a line of poetry. Much of what is known seems to focus on dry criteria of correctness, such as the accurateness of poetic meaning and language, its appropriateness, and its truthfulness. This dissertation takes a fresh look at medieval Arabic criticism by examining the question of aesthetic experience. It argues that medieval critics came to base their evaluation of poetic speech primarily on its ability to evoke wonder in the listener. Furthermore, it argues that the development of this theory, which seems to mature in the late 10th/early 11th century, represents an adaptation to the stylistics of muhdath poetry, the much debated "modern" style. This marks a shift in medieval Arabic literary theory from a school of criticism that based its evaluation of poetry on its truthfulness and naturalness (qualities associated with the classical style of the pre-Islamic poets) to one based on its ability to evoke wonder. Wonder, in turn, is linked to strangeness, farfetchedness, rarity, unexpectedness, and novelty (qualities associated with the new manneristic style of muhdath poetry). The first two chapters establish the presence of this new school of criticism in (a) the philosophical tradition starting with Avicenna's understanding of Aristotle's Poetics and (b) texts on literary theory proper, starting with `Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani's work on imagery. The third chapter establishes its relationship with the muhdath poetry and shows how it articulates the aesthetics of the new kinds of literary figures that became popular with it. Finally, the fourth chapter, looks at discussions of the inimitability (i'jaz) of the Quran and argues that--also there--the underlying aesthetic is based on a statement's ability to evoke wonder. The dissertation thus reveals the presence of a widespread stylistic outlook based on wonder, around which a sophisticated theory of aesthetic experience develops, giving us a deeper understanding of medieval Arabic aesthetic values
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