RT Article
T1 Fairies, Lovers, and Glass Palaces: French Influences on Thirteenth-Century Hebrew Poetry in Spain—the Case of Ya'akov ben El'azar's Ninth Maḥberet
JF The Jewish quarterly review
VO 107
IS 3
SP 297
OP 322
A1 Bibring, Tovi
LA English
YR 2017
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1802098534
AB This article provides an intertextual reading of "The Love of Sahar and Kima," the ninth mahberet of Y'akov ben Elazar's Sefer ha-meshalim. This tale highlights the contrast between physical and spiritual love, feudal and religious constraints, and "courtly" ideas and a parody of those ideas. The paper expands upon the current knowledge of the thematic, structural, and ideological parallels between Y'akov ben Elazar's work and the literature of medieval France, and presents a number of prominent and specific examples that indicate the influence of the Matière de Bretagne on this mahberet. Simultaneously, the paper identifies Ya'kov ben Ela'zar as an original European writer who made use of existing literary models, but who was independent in his muse and inspiration. The originality of this paper lies in the fact that for the first time in scholarly research, it is proven that there are vestiges of the fairy tale in Sefer ha-meshalim, and that this mahberet can be read as a rationalized fairy tale like those in French literature.
K1 Le bel inconnu
K1 Matière de Bretagne
K1 Eliduc
K1 Lanval
K1 Guigemar
K1 Marie de France
K1 Le roman de Jaufre
K1 Rationalization
K1 fairy-tale
K1 MAQAMA
K1 Sahar and Kima
K1 Sefer ha-meshalim
K1 Y'akov ben El'azar
DO 10.1353/jqr.2017.0016