The Poet and the World by Joachim Yeshaya Elisabeth Hollender Naoya Katsumata

Author:Joachim Yeshaya, Elisabeth Hollender, Naoya Katsumata
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Published: 2018-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

8 The Debate Poems of Abraham Ibn Ezra: An Inquiry into the Genre

Many of the innovations produced by Abraham Ibn Ezra in his secular poetry are the result of the encounter between his distinct predisposition toward a scholarly, philosophical didacticism and the secular Spanish-Hebrew poetry with which he was so familiar, as has been discussed in previous scholarship.609 This encounter typifies quite a few of the creations in which he is considered to have pushed forward the bounds of secular Hebrew poetry610 and the genre of debate poetry.

Abraham Ibn Ezra makes good use of the poetic forms that he chooses to employ for the purposes of the genre. Three of the four poems are structured strophically, and one, ‏חדשים מעשי אל‏‎‎, is a panegyric qaṣīda. The introduction of the qaṣīda comprises a debate poem in which the tongue, the eye, and the ear approach the poet in his sleep to debate each other and compete for title to superiority. The three organs return later, in the body of the qaṣīda, with a different, complementary perspective. The entire poem (not only the introduction) is organized according to three thematic foci, each centered on one of the three organs very self-importantly claiming supremacy. The debate described in the introduction is settled in the body of the poem with the arrival of the Lauded One, whose presence brings the organs to show humility and minimize their importance, because they come to understand who truly is great.

Ibn Ezra used the ancient structure of the qaṣīda to create an innovative debate poem, and used the dual form of the qaṣīda to support the thematic development of the work. Several of the unique stylistic and artistic features of the debate are especially pronounced, perhaps due specifically to the “traditional” formal scheme of the qaṣīda, writes Levin.611 He further comments that the introduction is not of a single piece: it is separated into distinct subdivisions, each of which is a monologue given by one of the organs participating in the debate.

The strophic structure, a different variety of which is used in each of the three other poems,612 provides Ibn Ezra with the most appropriate form for a debate. The strophic structure imposes an external order on the drama that is produced by the profusion of speakers, and permits the domain of each to be clearly delimited, thus better framing the various arguments and underscoring their didactic character. Each contestant declares itself, and then systematically details its virtues as best suits it. Such a format both permits a balanced and comprehensive delineation of the desired topics and gives the poet the necessary dramatic distance from the matter described.613 Ibn Ezra thus exploits the genre to convey information with scientific, philosophical, and religious implications while rationally observing the phenomena at hand and breaching, to some degree, the classical borders that demarcated religious and secular poetry until his day.

In most cases, the debate poems follow a theoretical religious program that expresses a harmonious view of creation, whether in the functioning of the human body, the seasons, or the calendar.

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