HEBREW POETRY

Petra Hadžidaova
Jul 20
2 min read

(1)

INTRODUCTION

Hiding inside a cave, David tried to blend in with the background. Saul was persecuting him again. He just might be the end of him. 'How come God permitted all of this?', David wondered.

Instead of keeping it all in, David turned to God in a lament. He expressed his grievances through poetry.

WHAT IS HEBREW POETRY?

Hebrew poetry is all poetry written in the Hebrew language. It combines:

Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Pyyut
Medieval Hebrew Poetry
Modern Hebrew Poetry (2)

BIBLICAL HEBREW POETRY

Biblical Hebrew Poetry refers to all poetry in the Holy texts, whether in the form of psalms or chants. It commonly includes the following features, or rather characteristics:

unusual forms
parallelism
accentual rhythm
dirges
anadiplosis
acrostics (3)

Biblical Hebrew Poem can be divided into 4 major groups:

Poems that deal with events
Didactic poems
Lyrics
Poems that urge action (3)

PYYUT

A pyyut is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated for singing, chanting, or recitation during religious services. Most are either in Mishnahic Hebrew or Palestinian Aramaic. The majority follow some form of a poetic scheme. The earliest dates back to classical antiquity, and while the word piyyuṭ initially designated every type of sacred poetry, the term eventually came to designate only poems of hymn character. (4)

MEDIEVAL HEBREW POETRY

Besides the pyyut, which absolutely flourished in Byzantine Palestine, Spanish, Provençal, and Italian poets also wrote other religious and secular poems. Most medieval Hebrew poetry was mono-rhymed with quantitative metre influenced by the style of Jewish poets from fallen Al-Andalus. (5)

MODERN HEBREW POETRY

Modern Hebrew Poetry is poetry written in the Hebrew language in modern times. It was promoted by the Haskalah movement with the first Haskalah poet, Naphtali Hirz Wessely. Later poets were involved with other movements such as Hovevei Zion, expressionism, and neo-symbolism. (6)

CONCLUSION

The Hebrew language dates back to antiquity, perhaps even the very beginnings of humankind and the world. Likewise, Hebrew poetry has been here for a very long time. It is divided into four major groups: