Modern Hebrew Poetry

Abstract

Modern Hebrew poetry, written in a language comprehensible only to parts of its audience, the Yiddish speaking masses, emerged at the end of the 19th century and became canonized by the time of the publication of C. N. Bialik’s second book in 1908. The Jewish generation that grew up in Eastern Europe after the 1880s aspired to create in Hebrew, a language of ancient texts and commentary, modern alternative expression that matched the pedigree of the European poetry from the Renaissance on. Some Hebrew poetry was written throughout the ages (medieval, Haskalah, Hibat Zion), but in the absence of a steady linear evolution (of models, forms, and prosody), modern Hebrew poetry was a pioneering project accumulated from the biblical narrative monologue and poetry; the commentary and the dialogical tension of the Talmud; the contribution of the Drasha (sermon) tradition; elements of history, literature, folklore, and theology extolled in Halakhic books written throughout the ages; and from threads adapted from the neighboring Russian or German cultures. Seen in retrospect, a growing chorus of Hebrew poets gave voice to the transition of Jews into general Western culture (in its unique realization in the Middle East), the human condition and landscapes, the political and social realities, and the traumas of Jewish existence and its triumph. Their renaissance at the turn of the centuries laid the foundations for the mature poetry written in the new major literary center in Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine and Israel for a new growing class of Hebrew readers.