Dukus Horant is a 14th-century narrative poem in Judeo-German (Proto-Yiddish).
Dukus Horant is a 14th-century narrative poem in Judeo-German (Proto-Yiddish).
Dukus Horant is the best known of a number of works which survive in the Cambridge Codex T.-S.10.K.22. This manuscript was discovered in the Cairo Geniza in 1896, and contains a collection of narrative poems in a variant of Middle High German, written in Hebrew characters. There is some controversy over the extent to which the manuscript's language differs from the commonly spoken German of the time, but it is agreed there is a strong Jewish colouring to it. Therefore, these are the oldest known works (apart from a few short inscriptions dated to the 13th century) in the Ashkenazi Jewish vernacular which later developed into Yiddish.
Dukus Horant is a heroic epic with thematic similarities to the German poem Kudrun . It is thus a good example of the transfer of literary material between the Christian and Jewish communities in the German-speaking lands in the later Middle Ages; by contrast, the other works in the manuscript contain traditional Jewish material.
The poem tells how Duke Horant is sent by King Etene to Greece, probably to Constantinople, to win the hand of the princess Hilde. However Hilde's father, the fierce Greek king Hagen, is not willing to give his daughter to Etene until Horant has proved his prowess in a series of adventures.
Dukus Horant is composed in four-line rhymed strophes, the first and second line of each strophe being distichal. Though distichal verse forms are typical of classical Hebrew verse, these are more closely reminiscent of the distichal forms of old Germanic heroic verse. The language and form can be seen from the following transcription of the opening strophe, given first in the original (Hebrew characters and transliterated), then in a normalized Middle High German version by Dunphy.
| איין קוינק וויט ארקנט | עש ווש אין טוצן ריכן | |
| איטנא ווש ער גננט | איין דעגן אלזא קונא | |
| ער ווש מילדא און שונא | ||
| ער טרוק דער אירן קרונא |
| ‘s uus ’in tužn rikn | ’iin quniq uuit ’rqnt | |
| ’iin d‘gn ’ls’ qun’ | ’itn’ uus ‘r gnnt | |
| ‘r uus mild’ ’un šun’ | ||
| ‘r truq d‘r ’irn qrun’ |
| Ez waz in tiutschen rîchen | ein kunic wît erkant, | |
| ein degen alsô kuone | Etene waz er genant. | |
| Er waz milde unde schône, | ||
| er truog der êren krône. |
| [There was in German lands | a famous king, | |
| a most valliant hero | Etene was his name | |
| He was generous and fair | ||
| and bore the crown of honor.] [1] |
Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work Cædmon's Hymn is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. Adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English is largely inconsistent in 12th-century work, and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature.
Yiddish is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew and to some extent Aramaic. Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of Slavic languages and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance languages. Yiddish has traditionally been written using the Hebrew alphabet; however, there are variations, including the standardized YIVO orthography that employs the Latin alphabet.
Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. The term for both modern lyric poetry and modern song lyrics derives from a form of Ancient Greek literature, the Greek lyric, which was defined by its musical accompaniment, usually on a stringed instrument known as a kithara, a seven-stringed lyre . It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also not equivalent to Ancient Greek lyric poetry, which was principally limited to song lyrics, or chanted verse.
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages. The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works. Just as in modern literature, it is a complex and rich field of study, from the utterly sacred to the exuberantly profane, touching all points in between. Works of literature are often grouped by place of origin, language, and genre.
Biblical poetry such as the Song of the Sea and the Song of Deborah may be considered early examples of Jewish epic poetry, though very short by normal epic standards. Both songs are compared by scholars to Canaanite and Assyrian epic poetry.
Abraham Sutzkever was an acclaimed Yiddish poet. The New York Times wrote that Sutzkever was "the greatest poet of the Holocaust."
The Shmuel-Bukh is a midrashic verse epic written in Yiddish. Composed no later than the second half of the 15th century and widely circulated in manuscript, it was first printed in Augsburg in 1544. Its stanzaic form resembles that of the Nibelungenlied, and its hero is the biblical David. Sol Liptzin characterizes it as the greatest Old Yiddish religious epic. [Liptzin, 1972, 8–9].
Digenes Akritas is a medieval Greek romantic epic that emerged in the 12th-century Byzantine Empire. It is the lengthiest and most famous of the acritic songs; Byzantine folk poems celebrating the lives and exploits of the Akritai, the inhabitants and frontier guards of the empire's eastern Anatolian provinces. The acritic songs represented the remnants of an ancient epic cycle in Byzantium and, due to their long oral transmission throughout the empire, the identification of precise references to historical events may be only conjectural. Set during the Arab-Byzantine wars, the poem reflects the interactions, along with the military and cultural conflicts of the two polities. The epic consists of between 3,000 to 4,000 lines and it has been pieced together following the discovery of several manuscripts. An extensive narrative text, it is often thought of as the only surviving Byzantine work truly qualifying as epic poetry. Written in a form of vernacular Greek, it is regarded as one of its earliest examples, as well as the starting point of Modern Greek literature.
Yiddish literature encompasses all those belles-lettres written in Yiddish, the language of Ashkenazic Jewry which is related to Middle High German. The history of Yiddish, with its roots in central Europe and locus for centuries in Eastern Europe, is evident in its literature.
Hjaðningavíg, the legend of Heðinn and Hǫgni or the Saga of Hild is a Germanic heroic legend about a never-ending battle which is documented in Sörla þáttr, Ragnarsdrápa, Gesta Danorum, Skíðaríma and in Skáldskaparmál. It is also held to appear on the image stone at Stora Hammar on Gotland. Moreover, it is alluded to in the Old English poems Deor and Widsið, and in the Old Norse Háttalykill inn forni, and a version of it survived down to the 18th century in the traditional Norn language ballad "Hildina". An altered version of the saga is found in the Middle High German poem Kudrun, as a prologue to the story of Kudrun herself. Yet another version is found in the Old Yiddish Dukus Horant.
Kudrun, is an anonymous Middle High German heroic epic. The poem was likely composed in either Austria or Bavaria around 1250. It tells the story of three generations of the ruling house of Hetelings on the North Sea, but is primarily the story of Kudrun, who is abducted by the Norman prince Hartmut who desires to marry her. Kudrun remains true to her fiancé Herwig and eventually is rescued. After the defeat of the Normans, however, Kudrun ensures that peace will be kept between the two peoples by arranging for marriages and alliances.
Jewish literature includes works written by Jews on Jewish themes, literary works written in Jewish languages on various themes, and literary works in any language written by Jewish writers. Ancient Jewish literature includes Biblical literature and rabbinic literature. Medieval Jewish literature includes not only rabbinic literature but also ethical literature, philosophical literature, mystical literature, various other forms of prose including history and fiction, and various forms of poetry of both religious and secular varieties. The production of Jewish literature has flowered with the modern emergence of secular Jewish culture. Modern Jewish literature has included Yiddish literature, Judeo-Tat literature, Ladino literature, Hebrew literature, and Jewish American literature.
The Annolied is an Early Middle High German poem in praise of Archbishop Anno II of Cologne. Anno died in 1075 and the poem, probably written in the years immediately after his death, can be seen as part of a campaign for his canonisation, which was finally achieved in 1183. The modern title is taken from the heading given to it by Martin Opitz in his edition of the text: RHYTHMVS DE S. ANNONE COLONIENSI ARCHIEPISCOPO.
Yiddish orthography is the writing system used for the Yiddish language. It includes Yiddish spelling rules and the Hebrew script, which is used as the basis of a full vocalic alphabet. Letters that are silent or represent glottal stops in the Hebrew language are used as vowels in Yiddish. Other letters that can serve as both vowels and consonants are either read as appropriate to the context in which they appear, or are differentiated by diacritical marks derived from Hebrew nikkud, commonly referred to as "nekudot" or "pintalach". Additional phonetic distinctions between letters that share the same base character are also indicated by either pointing or adjacent placement of otherwise silent base characters. Several Yiddish points are not commonly used in any latter-day Hebrew context; others are used in a manner that is specific to Yiddish orthography. There is significant variation in the way this is applied in literary practice. There are also several differing approaches to the disambiguation of characters that can be used as either vowels or consonants.
Utend̠i wa Tambuka, also known as Utenzi wa Tambuka, Utenzi wa Hirqal or Kyuo kya Hereḳali, is an epic poem in the Swahili language by Bwana Mwengo wa Athman, dated 1728. It is one of the earliest known documents in Swahili.
David Vogel was a Ukrainian-born Jewish poet, novelist, and diarist.
Middle High German literature refers to literature written in German between the middle of the 11th century and the middle of the 14th. In the second half of the 12th century, there was a sudden intensification of activity, leading to a 60-year "golden age" of medieval German literature referred to as the mittelhochdeutsche Blütezeit. This was the period of the blossoming of Minnesang, MHG lyric poetry, initially influenced by the French and Provençal tradition of courtly love song. The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances. again drawing on French models such as Chrétien de Troyes, many of them relating Arthurian material. The third literary movement of these years was a new revamping of the heroic tradition, in which the ancient Germanic oral tradition can still be discerned, but tamed and Christianized and adapted for the court.
Old High German literature refers to literature written in Old High German, from the earliest texts in the 8th century to the middle of the 11th century.
Germanic heroic legend is the heroic literary tradition of the Germanic-speaking peoples, most of which originates or is set in the Migration Period. Stories from this time period, to which others were added later, were transmitted orally, traveled widely among the Germanic speaking peoples, and were known in many variants. These legends typically reworked historical events or personages in the manner of oral poetry, forming a heroic age. Heroes in these legends often display a heroic ethos emphasizing honor, glory, and loyalty above other concerns. Like Germanic mythology, heroic legend is a genre of Germanic folklore.
2 Samuel 21 is the twenty-first chapter of the Second Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the second part of Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan, but modern scholars view it as a composition of a number of independent texts of various ages from c. 630–540 BCE. This chapter contains the account of David's reign in Jerusalem. This is within a section comprising 2 Samuel 21–24 containing the appendices to the Books of Samuel.