Andalusi Hebrew Poetry and the Arabic Poetic Tradition

Students of Andalusi Hebrew poetry have long appreciated the connection between Andalusi Hebrew verse and the Arabic poetic tradition, especially in the latter’s neo-classical Mashriqi forms. Indeed, the poets themselves testify to the relationship through their reworking of Arabic prosody to classical Hebrew and absorption into Hebrew of the generic, thematic, and rhetorical matrices of Arabic poetry. This essay reconsiders the nexus of Andalusi Hebrew and Arabic poetry and poetics as a subcultural adaptation of Arabic into Hebrew. By delving into some of the processes and practices defining Andalusi Hebrew poetry and poetics, it also revisits the poets’ complex attitudes toward their indebtedness to Arabic.