Reading Medieval Hebrew Love Poetry
In a work of moral philosophy which first appeared in the year 1168, Moses Maimonides finds that human speech, when considered from the standpoint of religion, is divisible into five categories: the prescribed; the cautioned-against or prohibited; the rejected; the desired; and the permitted. For ea...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Pennsylvania Press
1977
|
| In: |
AJS review
Year: 1977, Volume: 2, Pages: 111-129 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In a work of moral philosophy which first appeared in the year 1168, Moses Maimonides finds that human speech, when considered from the standpoint of religion, is divisible into five categories: the prescribed; the cautioned-against or prohibited; the rejected; the desired; and the permitted. For each classification he provides appropriate examples, then he stops to observe a difficulty that may seemingly be posed for this entire scheme by one highly particular form of speech, which is poetry. Maimonides begins to resolve the difficulty as follows:Know that poetical compositions, in whichever language they may be, should be examined with regard to their themes in order to determine whether they follow a manner of speech which we classified. Indeed, I explain this even though it is clear, inasmuch as I have seen elders and saintly men of our coreligionists when they are at a wine banquet, such as a wedding or some other occasion, and were a man to wish to recite an Arabic poem, even if the theme of that poem were the praise of courage or generosity, of the category of the desired, or the praises of wine, of the category of the permitted, they would protest it with every manner of protest, for in their opinion it is not permitted to listen to it. However, were the bard to recite any manner of Hebrew poem, they would not protest it, and it would not be evil in their sight despite there being in those words themes that pertain to the categories of the cautioned-against or the rejected. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1475-4541 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Association for Jewish Studies, AJS review
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0364009400000222 |