Abstract
tory of modern Hebrew/contemporary Israeli took place more than four decades ago, in the early fifties. Indeed, the formal, stormy commencement of that revolution had been suspended until 1959, when Nathan Zach (b. 1930) published his famous manifesto Reflections Upon Nathan Alterman's Poetry.2 Nathan Alterman (1910-70), next to Avraham Shlonsky (1900-73), was considered the unchallenged dean of modern Hebrew poetry, the august master of spectacularly colorful writing, which consists of complex and equally ramiform metaphors, picturesque, complicated, and cryptic symbolism, sweeping and fastidiously measured metrical patterns, and meticulously beaded rhymes. Nathan Zach, the pious disciple of Anglo-American Imagism, who obediently admired the Imagists' esthetics of simplicity, their of poverty, the carefully curbed and restrained sounds of their understated ars poetica, ardently resented Alterman's fervent flow of flowery poetry and desired to banish it altogether from the domain of modern Hebrew verse. When the sentiment extinguishes, fades away, the real poem is speaking out (Kesheharegesh doe'ch, hashir hanachon medaber), Zach wrote at the very beginning of one of his well-known poems,3 in which he aimed not only to create verse but also to advocate, preach, and promote what he considered the only correct, worthy poetry. Indeed, Zach was neither alone nor lonely in his overtly bitter rebellion against the esthetic school of Alterman and Shlonsky. Accordingly, he was the uncrowned leader of the Likerat (Toward) group of young poets and literary critics (among them Yehuda Amichai, Moshe Dor, and Ariel Sivan) who placed on the highest esthetic pedestal the artistic principles and practices of such poets as the early Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, William Carlos Williams, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Marianne Moore, Amy Lowell, Wallace Stevens, and E. E. Cummings. Zach, however, operated in the capacity of leading herald of that group of young poets, its demanding spokesman, who desired to blaze a new, understated path in modern Hebrew poetry, a new poetic trail that favored the hesitant sound of a whisper and modest simplicity over the stormy symphony of sensual symbolism that celebrates cryptic complexity accompanied by the boisterous sounds of trumpets and drums. Indeed, such a poetic trail had already been introduced in modern Hebrew prior to Zach and the Likerat group by David Fogel (1891-1943), who composed of considerable simplicity that neither surrendered nor divorced itself from desirable esthetic intricacy. Accordingly, Fogel's has plausibly proven that esthetic simplicity is not necessarily a synonym for simplified esthetics. Fogel's persuasively displays a wintery tender touch of imploring melancholy, an undertone of gloom, a sense of somber serenity while enlisting subdued rhetoric and fluid syntactic structures. Nevertheless, both Shlonsky and Alterman, who vigorously dominated the mainstream of modern Hebrew/Israeli during the thirties and the forties of the current century while pursuing their own symbolistically vociferous style, did their very best (which was regrettably quite effective) to evict Fogel and his muted, tender poetic tone, with its esthetic message of silent modesty, submissive sadness, and soft simplicity, from the realm of modern Hebrew poetry. Indeed, Fogel was not the only modern Hebrew poet who deviated from Alterman and Shlonsky's poetics of fervently delivered fireworks. Other poets who shared Fogel's poetic credo were Avraham Ben-Itzhak (1883-1950) who Yair Mazor is Professor of Classics and Hebrew Studies at the
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call