Between Hebrew and Arabic Poetry: Studies in Spanish Medieval Hebrew Poetry

Description

The book includes sixteen studies about medieval Hebrew poetry compared with Arabic poetry. It is well known that since the tenth century medieval Hebrew poets took Arabic poetry as the ultimate paradigm in terms of prosody, language purism and rhetorical devices and even in regard to poetical genres. However, the concept unifying all studies in this book is that a comparative examination must consider not only the identical elements in which Hebrew poetry borrowed from the Arabic one, but alos what is much more significant – what Hebrew poetry stubbornly set itself at a distance from Arabic poetry. The conclusive result of this sort of examination is that Hebrew poetry combined selectively borrowed Arabic poetical values with traditional ethical Jewish values to create a distinctive poetical school. Preface PART ONE. INTRODUCTION Chapter One. Secular Hebrew Poetry in Spain as Courtly Poetry: Is It Indeed? Chapter Two. The Secular Hebrew Poet as Culture Hero in the Middle Ages PART TWO. GENRES AND THEMES Chapter Three. The Land of Israel and the National Theme in Hebrew Poetry from Sa'adia Gaon to Šemuel Ha-Nagid Chapter Four. The Religious Element in the War Poems of Šemuel Ha-Nagid and in the Arabic Panegyrics in Andalusia Chapter Five. Love in Hebrew Secular Poetry in the Setting of Medieval Arabic Poetry Chapter Six. Music and Musical Instruments in Spanish Medieval Hebrew Poetry: The Poem of Yosef Ibn Saddīq (Justo) in Praise of Yishaq Ibn Barun Chapter Seven. The Chase as an Allegory for the Wrong and Sufferings in the World as Found in Taḥkemoni by Yehuda Alḥarizi against the Background of Arabic Poetry PART THREE. POETRY AND WISDOM Chapter Eight. The Beloved Woman as a Metaphor for Divine Wisdom in the Poems of Šelomo ibn Gabirol Chapter Nine. Šelomo Ibn Gabirol: 'He That, From His Youth, Chose Wisdom' Chapter Ten. Body and Soul in Spanish Hebrew Poetry against the Background of Muslim-Arabic Culture Chapter Eleven. The Hebrew Transcription of 'Risālat al-Ḥātimī': A comparative study between sayings attributed to Aristotle and poetic verses attributed to Mutanabbī (Cambridge, T.S., Arabic, 45.2) PART FOUR. ARABIC RHETORIC AND POETRY IN MEDIEVAL HEBREW POETRY Chapter Twelve. Preliminary Study in 'Ḥilyat al-Muḥāḍara' [ḤM] by Abū 'Alī Muḥammad al-Ḥātimī: The ‘Lost’ Source of Moše Ibn Ezra for His 'Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa-al-Mudhākara' [KMM] Chapter Thirteen. Yehuda Ha-Levi's Hebrew Translations of Arabic Poems PART FIVE. CRITICISM OF VERSE Chapter Fourteen. Yehuda Ha-Levi's Attitude Toward Arabic and Hebrew Secular Poetry and Literature in the Kuzari Chapter Fifteen. Maimonides' Attitude towards Secular Poetry, Secular Arab and Hebrew Literature, Liturgical Poetry, and towards Their Cultural Environment Chapter Sixteen. Šem Ṭov Ibn Falaqera’s Critique of Poetry Bibliography Index