The present article reviews the series of studies on the muwashshaḥāt and the kharajāt (strophic poems and their final couplets) that appeared, in conversation with each other, in La corónica during the 1980s. This series of articles was foundational in the study of these poems in the English-speaking world, representing a hashing out of the role of bi- and multilingualism in Andalusi literature. Vituperative as they were path-breaking, the articles represent an important turning point in the historiography of medieval Spain.