Rhyming Jewish: Secular Jewish poetry in nineteenth-century Italy

Abstract

Poetry has always played a fundamental role in Italian Jewish culture. From the Middle Ages on, there has been an uninterrupted production of poems. In spite of its relevance, variety, and long timespan, however, academic attention on Italian Jewish poetry has not been abundant and has mostly focused on a few characters and themes: medieval piyyut, the medieval poet Immanuel of Rome, and the Renaissance. Mirroring a general trend of Italian Jewish historiography and literary studies, which have so far mainly focused on the Renaissance and the twentieth century, nineteenth-century Italian Jewish poetry has almost been left out of the picture. This paper wishes to offer a contribution that may help fill this gap, by presenting three rather different Italian Jewish poets, spanning the long nineteenth century: Rachel Morpurgo (1790-1871), David Levi (1816-1898), and Crescenzo Del Monte (1868-1935). The purpose of this paper is to offer a portrait of nineteenth-century Italian Jewish poetry, focusing on its secular manifestations and catching the opportunity for some reflections on the definition of secular Jewish canon.