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Hebrew is a Northwest Semitic language native to Israel. In 2013, Modern Hebrew was spoken by over nine million people worldwide. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites, Judeans and their ancestors; however, the language was not referred to by the name "Hebrew" in the Tanakh itself. The Mishnah Megillah refers to the Hebrew language as Ashurit meaning Assyrian, which is a metonym derived from the name of the alphabet. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date to the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the Northwest Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, and is the only Canaanite language still spoken and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language, and one of only two Northwest Semitic languages still spoken, the other being Aramaic, which is spoken primarily by Christian Assyrians and Syriac-Arameans, the Gnostic Mandeans as well as some Near Eastern Jews.
Midrash is biblical exegesis by ancient Judaic authorities, using a mode of interpretation prominent in the Talmud. The word itself means "textual interpretation", "study".
A targum was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible that a professional translator would give in the common language of the listeners when that was not Hebrew. This had become necessary near the end of the first century BCE, as the common language was Aramaic and Hebrew was used for little more than schooling and worship. The translator frequently expanded his translation with paraphrases, explanations and examples so it became a kind of sermon.
The Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem written around 1200 in Middle High German. Its anonymous poet was likely from the region of Passau. The Nibelungenlied is based on an oral tradition that has some of its origin in historic events and individuals of the 5th and 6th centuries and that spread throughout almost all of Germanic-speaking Europe. Parallels to the German poem from Scandinavia are found especially in the heroic lays of the Poetic Edda and in the Völsunga saga.
Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for work with the Bible. In modern usage, biblical exegesis is used to distinguish it from other critical text explanation.
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.
Mendele Mocher Sforim, born Sholem Yankev Abramovich or S. J. Abramowitch, was a Jewish author and one of the founders of modern Yiddish and Hebrew literature.
Isaac Leib Peretz, also sometimes written Yitskhok Leybush Peretz, best known as I. L. Peretz, was a Yiddish language author and playwright from Poland. Payson R. Stevens, Charles M. Levine, and Sol Steinmetz count him with Mendele Mokher Seforim and Sholem Aleichem as one of the three great classical Yiddish writers. Sol Liptzin wrote: "Yitzkhok Leibush Peretz was the great awakener of Yiddish-speaking Jewry and Sholom Aleichem its comforter.... Peretz aroused in his readers the will for self-emancipation, the will for resistance against the many humiliations to which they were being subjected."
Elia Levita, also known as Elijah Levita, Elias Levita, Élie Lévita, Elia Levita Ashkenazi, Eliahu Levita, Eliyahu haBahur, Elye Bokher, was a Renaissance Hebrew grammarian, scholar and poet. He was the author of the Bovo-Bukh, the most popular chivalric romance written in Yiddish. Living for a decade in the house of Cardinal Egidio da Viterbo, he was also one of the foremost tutors of Christian notables in Hebrew and Jewish mysticism during the Renaissance.
The Tseno Ureno, also spelt Tsene-rene, Tz'enah Ur'enah, sometimes called the Women's Bible, is a Yiddish-language prose work of c.1590s whose structure parallels the weekly Torah portions and Haftarahs used in Jewish prayer services. The book was written by Jacob ben Isaac Ashkenazi (1550–1625) of Janów Lubelski, and mixes Biblical passages with teachings from Judaism's Oral Torah such as the Talmud's Aggadah and Midrash, which are sometimes called "parables, allegories, short stories, anecdotes, legends, and admonitions" by secular writers.
Rabbi Jacob ben Isaac Ashkenazi, of Janów, was the author of the Tseno Ureno, sometimes called the "Women's Bible", a Yiddish-language prose work written around the 1590s whose structure parallels the weekly portions of the Pentateuch and Haftorahs used in Shabbat services.
Kol Mevasser was a Yiddish language periodical that appeared from October 11, 1862 into 1872. It is considered by Sol Liptzin and others to be the most important early Yiddish-language periodical.
David Pinski was a Yiddish language writer, probably best known as a playwright. At a time when Eastern Europe was only beginning to experience the industrial revolution, Pinski was the first to introduce to its stage a drama about urban Jewish workers; a dramatist of ideas, he was notable also for writing about human sexuality with a frankness previously unknown to Yiddish literature. He was also notable among early Yiddish playwrights in having stronger connections to German language literary traditions than Russian.
YIVO, established in 1925 in Wilno in the Second Polish Republic as the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut, is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. The English name of the organization was changed to the Institute for Jewish Research after its relocation to New York City, but it is still known mainly by its Yiddish acronym. YIVO is now a partner of the Center for Jewish History and serves as the de facto recognized language regulator of the Yiddish language.
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.
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, Ladino literature, Hebrew literature, and Jewish American literature.
The Mlokhim-Bukh is a Yiddish religious verse epic by an unknown author, which recounts the monarchy of Solomon and the ancient history of the Hebrews up to the Babylonian Captivity. The oldest surviving fragment is dated to 1519–1525, though the poem is probably older. Its stanzaic form resembles that of the Nibelungenlied.
Sol Liptzin was a scholar, author, and educator in Yiddish and German literature.
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 (1170–1230). This was the period of the blossoming of MHG lyric poetry, particularly Minnesang. The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances. These are written in rhyming couplets, and again draw 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. These high medieval heroic epics are written in rhymed strophes, not the alliterative verse of Germanic prehistory.
References
- Liptzin, Sol, A History of Yiddish Literature, Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village, NY, 1972, ISBN 0-8246-0124-6.
- ↑ Introduction to Old Yiddish literature By Jean Baumgarten, Jerold C. Frakes