Yiddish Literature - Old Yiddish Literature

Old Yiddish Literature

Yiddish literature began with translations of and commentary on religious texts. (See article on the Yiddish language for a full description of these texts). The most important writer of old Yiddish literature was Elijah Levita (known as Elye Bokher) who translated and adapted the chivalric romance of Bevis of Hampton, via its Italian version, Buovo d’Antona. Levita’s version, called Bovo d'Antona, and later known with the title Bovo-bukh, was circulated in manuscript from 1507, then published in Isny (Germany) in 1541. This work illustrates the influence of European literary forms on emerging Yiddish literature, not only in its subject but in the form of its stanzas and rhyme scheme, an adaptation of Italian ottava rima. Nonetheless, Levita altered many features of the story to reflect Judaic elements, though they rest uneasily with the essentially Christian nature of chivalry. (For a discussion of the tension between Christian and Jewish elements in the Bovo-bukh, see chapter two of Michael Wex’s Born to Kvetch.)

A number of Yiddish epic poems appeared in the 14-15th centuries. The most important works of this genres are Shmuel-Bukh and Mlokhim-Bukh - chivalric romances about king David and other Biblical heroes. The stanzaic form of these poems resembles that of the Nibelungenlied. Following the example of other European epics, was not simply recited, but sung or chanted to musical accompaniment; its melody was widely known in Jewish communities.

Far from being rhymed adaptations of the Bible, these old Yiddish epic poems fused the Biblical and Midrashic material with the European courtly poetry, thus creating an Ashkenazic national epic, comparable to the Nibelungenlied and The Song of Roland.

Another influential work of old Yiddish literature is the Mayse-bukh (“Story Book”). This work collects ethical tales based on Hebrew and rabbinic sources, as well as folk tales and legends. Based on the inclusion of a few non-Jewish stories, scholars have deduced that the compiler lived in the area that is now western Germany during the last third of the 16th century. It was first published in 1602. These instructional stories are still read in highly religious communities, especially among the Hasidim.

A commentary written for women on the weekly parashot by Rabbi Jacob ben Isaac Ashkenazi in 1616, the Tseno Ureno (צאנה וראינה), remains a ubiquitous book in Yiddish homes to this day.

Women wrote old Yiddish literature infrequently, but several collections of tkhines (personal prayers which are not part of liturgy) were written by women such as Sara Bas-Tovim and Sarah Rebekah Rachel Leah Horowitz, both in the 18th century. The most extensive text by a woman from this era is the memoir of the 17th-18th century Glikl of Hameln, a family document that was not published until 1896.