The Cantor-Poets: Review Essay

Abstract

In the awareness, by the educated Jewish public, of the piyyut, i.e., Jewish hymnography, I it is especially the classic, much celebrated Golden Age of Hebrew poetry in Spain, in the 11th to 13th centuries, that catches the eye. When that Golden Age eventually started to unfold, it did so with such poets-e.g., Samuel the Nagid (Vizier), or that proud youngster resenting him, the giant Ibn Gabirol-who were endowed with a taste and aesthetic conceptions quite unsimilar to what used to be mainstream during the previous several generations of authors in Spain itself, or the traditionally related Maghreb, or everywhere else for that matter. Poetry of both the old and new traditions included secular compositions as well as hymns: poems as religious themes. Hebrew hymns are termed piyyutim, and paytanim (hymnists) is how authors ofpiyyutim are referred to. Yet, in the context of the Golden Age, by polemic against the paytanim, it is the critique of the poetry of old that is meant (unless you are dealing with a philosopher like Maimonides, who later on was to dislike the hymnists regardless of style, because of the theologically to him questionable assertions that their art inspired them to include in their verse). Anyway, the Golden Age of Hebrew poetry in Spain