The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) | Page 3

is not dead, and in its very own language we must seek the
true Jewish spirit, the national soul.
Let not the reader expect to find perfection of form, pure art, in its often
monotonous lyric poetry, or its prolix, didactic novels. The authors of
the ghetto felt too much, suffered too much, were too much under the
dominance of a life of misery, a semi-Asiatic, semi-mediaeval

_régime_, to have had heart for the cultivation of mere form. Does the
Song of Songs fall short of being a literary document of the first order
because it does not equal the dramas of Euripides in artistic
completeness? It is conceded that the proper aim of the artist is art,
finished and perfect art, but to the philosopher, the social investigator,
the important thing is the advance of ideas.
* * * * *
The object of the writer in presenting this essay to the public was not to
presume to give a detailed exposition of the development of modern
Hebrew literature, accomplishing itself under the most complex of
social and political conditions and in a social milieu totally unknown to
the public at large. That would have led too far. It was not even
possible to give an adequate idea of all the authors requiring mention
within the limited frame adopted perforce. Besides, nothing or almost
nothing existed in the way of monographs that might have facilitated
the task. [Footnote: In point of fact, all that can be cited are the
following: the admirable biographical essays on Mapu, Smolenskin,
etc., by Reuben Brainin; those of S. Bernfeld on Rapoport, etc., these
two critics writing in Hebrew; and the sketch of our subject by M.
Klausner, in the Russian language. Besides, mention may be made of
an article in the _Revue des Revues_, by M. Ludvipol, of Paris. In spite
of the diversity of schools and the conditions giving rise to them, which
are here to be treated for the first time from the point of view of a
modern history of literature, the reader will readily convince himself
that the subject lacks neither coherence nor unity. It is superfluous to
say that in this first attempt at a history of modern Hebrew literature,
the grouping of movements and schools borrowed from the Occidental
literatures is bound to have only relative value.]
The aim set up by the present writer is merely to follow up the various
stages through which modern Hebrew literature has passed, to deduce
and specify the general principles that have moulded it, and analyze the
literary and social value of the works produced by the representative
writers of the epoch embraced.
In a word, the object is to show how Hebrew poetry was emancipated
from the tradition of the Middle Ages under the influence of the Italian
humanists, how it underwent a process of modernization, and served as
the model for a literary renascence in Germany and Austria. [Footnote:

Especially Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, in his "Glory to the Righteous",
published in 1743, which has been made the point of departure in the
present inquiry.] In these two countries Hebrew letters were enriched
and perfected from the point of view of form as well as content. Finally,
due to favorable circumstances, the Hebrew language captured its place
as the literary and national language among the Jews of Poland, and
particularly of Lithuania.
In this progress eastward, Hebrew literature has never been faithless to
its mission. Two currents of ideas, more or less distinct, characterize it.
On the one hand is the intellectual emancipation of the Jewish masses,
which had fallen into ignorance, and, as a consequence, the conflict
with prejudice and Rabbinic dogmatism; and, on the other hand, the
awakening of national sentiment and Jewish solidarity. These two
currents of ideas finally flow together in contemporaneous literature, in
the creation of the national Jewish movement in its various
modifications. During a period of about twenty years, since 1882, the
course of events has forced the national emancipation of the Jewish
masses upon their educated leaders. By the same token, Hebrew has
been assigned a dominating position in all vital questions agitating
Judaism, and there has been brought about a literary development that
is truly significant.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
IN ITALY
MOSES HAYYIM LUZZATTO
In its precise sense, the term Renascence cannot be applied to the
movement that asserted itself in Hebrew literature at the end of the
fifteenth century, as little as the term Decadence can be applied to the
epoch preceding it.
Long before Dante and Boccaccio, as far back as the eleventh century,
Hebrew literature, particularly in Spain, and to a certain extent also in
the Provence, had reached a degree of development unknown in
European languages during the Middle Ages.

Though the persecutions toward the