Poetry
כנור נעים
Not translated into English
Samuel David Luzzatto · 1825
Synopsis
The Hebrew poems that an adolescent from Trieste wrote from the age of fourteen: a few dozen pieces, mostly moral reproaches addressed to his contemporaries, to which are added poems for the festivals, personal pieces and verses of friendship. Among them is a Seder Avoda for Yom Kippur, the long recitation that retraces in prayer the service of the high priest in the Temple. The young poet wanted a simple, clear language, drawn from the Bible, that could be translated into almost every language.
Context
He was fourteen when his cousin Rachel Morpurgo had him read Elleh benei ha-neourim, the poems of his great-uncle, the physician Ephraim Luzzatto: he judged them Italian in Hebrew dress and, out of jealousy for the language, wrote in about a year the pieces that would make up this book; thirty-seven were ready at the end of 1815. The first volume appeared in Vienna in 1825; a second was published in Padua in 1879, fourteen years after his death, and a complete edition in Warsaw in 1913. Luzzatto himself told of his cousin's role, whose verses he later made known.
Who it is for
A collection of poems in biblical Hebrew, not translated into French. It helps to know what the Seder Avoda, recited on Yom Kippur, is.
Prizes and reception
The collection made its author, at twenty-five, recognised among the most esteemed Hebrew poets of his generation.
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