Iberian Jewish Literature
Subtitle: Between al-Andalus and Christian Europe
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: August 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 303
ISBN-13: 9780253349132
Subjects: Jewish studies; Literary studies: general; Literary Collections; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Literature: Classics; Continental European; Europe - Spain & Portugal; Jewish - General; Andalusia; Hebrew poetry, Medieval; History and criticism; Jewish religious poetry, Hebrew; Spain
Description: This stimulating and graceful book explores Iberian Jewish attitudes toward cultural transition during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when growing intolerance of Jews in Islamic al-Andalus and the southward expansion of the Christian Reconquista led to their relocation from Islamic to Christian domains. By engaging literary topics such as imagery, structure, voice, landscape, and geography, Jonathan P. Decter traces attitudes that range from tenacious longing for the Islamic past to comfort in the new Christian environment. Through comparison with Arabic and European vernacular literatures, Decter elucidates a medieval Hebrew poetics of estrangement and nostalgia, poetic responses to catastrophe, and the refraction of social issues in fictional narratives. This book brings to life the voices of Jewish writers of the period as they negotiate their identities between the Islamic and Christian worlds. Decter's clear and engaging treatment of the interplay among Islamic, Jewish, and Christian cultures in medieval al-Andalus is an important reminder of how these worlds were once intertwined. -- from dust jacket.