The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain.

• Author: Scheindlin, Raymond P.

The appearance of secular Hebrew poetry in tenth-century al-Andalus began a tradition that lasted five centuries on the Iberian peninsula. Nor did this tradition end with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, for already in the twelfth century Andalusian Hebrew poetry put out a branch in Italy that would flourish into an Italian school of Hebrew poets. The stimulation of contact with Arabic culture produced not only the original burst of Hebrew literary creativity, generally known as the Hebrew Golden Age (tenth to twelfth centuries), but also a poetic tradition in Iberia that endured until 1492 and a line of secular Hebrew poetry that survived in Italy until the threshold of modern times. Its effect on Hebrew religious poetry was profound and even longer lasting, eventually affecting Hebrew poetry throughout the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East until quite recently.

But the introduction of Arabic rhythms, themes, and poetic taste into Hebrew did not occur without misgivings within the Jewish community. The propriety of the use of Hebrew for secular love poetry, and the propriety of love poetry in general were challenged in various quarters. The participation of Jews in secular entertainments and the celebration of such entertainments in Hebrew verse were also felt to be religiously problematic from the very beginning of the Golden Age, as evidenced by the often quoted poem of Dunash Ibn Labrat. The use of Hebrew as the language of secular madih and hija troubled even such a master poet as Moses Ibn Ezra, whose Arabic treatise on Hebrew poetry reflects a certain unease with Arabizing Hebrew poetry of the type that he himself cultivated with such success. And Maimonides' objections to secular poetry are well known.

Besides having their own specifically Jewish reasons for doubting the propriety of secular Hebrew poetry, the Hebrew poets inherited some doubts from Islam, for even the host culture from which they had learned about secular poetry harbored misgivings about its religious legitimacy.

The purpose of the present volume is to explore the ambivalent attitudes of Andalusian Hebrew poets of the Golden Age toward their poetry. The problem is defined as being to uncover "how the typology of the 'compunctious poet' functions in different literary cultures," i.e., within Islam and Judaism. There is an introduction sketching the historical and literary background and character of the Hebrew Golden Age and a chapter explaining the issues...