The People of the Song Biblical Poetry, Translation, and the Reception of Moses Mendelssohn in the Berlin Haskalah Yael Sela

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sela, Yael, author.

Series:

Studies in Jewish history and culture ; 80

Studies in Jewish History and Culture 80

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reformation texts with translation (1350-1650). Biblical studies.

Reformation texts with translation (1350-1650).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (195 pages) illustrations

Other Title:

Biblical Poetry, Translation, and the Reception of Moses Mendelssohn in the Berlin Haskalah

Place of Publication:

Leiden Boston Brill 2025

Language Note:

English

Summary:

When, in 1783, Moses Mendelssohn's German Psalms translation was published in Berlin, forward-thinking ideologues of Jewish cultural revival rendered its translator a redeemer of the songs of King David from exilic desolation. The People of the Song is the first study to examine Mendelssohn's conception of biblical Hebrew poetry as a particular manifestation of Judaism's universalism. The author traces how it helped forge a new foundational narrative that imagined Israel's covenant with God in sacred song, not in revealed law, portrayed King David as a bard, not a military leader, and envisioned national redemption of modern Jews as an aesthetic, not a political, revival

Contents:

Preface

Acknowledgments

A Note on Translation and Editorial Policy

Abbreviations

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Found in Translation

1 Joel Bril (Löwe): an Inadvertent Innovator of Hebrew Literary Theory

2 Chapter Outline

1 Moses Mendelssohn's Psalms Translation and the Aesthetics of Salvation

1 Mendelssohn's Aesthetics of Translation

2 From Moses to David

3 Hearing Psalms in Jerusalem

4 The Sacred and the Lyrical

5 "A More Noble Excellence"

6 Exilic Loss and the Emancipatory Power of Story

2 Disseminating Redemption in Book Form: Sefer Zemirot Yisra'el

1 Mendelssohn's Translation Elucidated

2 Redemption in Book Form

3 The Design of the Book

4 The Songs of Israel among Other Nations

5 From a Mythology of Exile to an Ethos of Redemption: the Hebrew Commentaries

6 Hearing the Song of Zion in Jewish Imagination: the Title Page of Sefer Zemirot Yisra'el

7 Redemption through Translation

3 "For the Weal of Our Nation": the Aesthetic Revival of the Berlin Haskalah

1 National Revival in Arts and Letters: the Society for the Promotion of the Good and the Beneficent

2 Printed Books, Translations, and the Poetry of Hebrew Scripture

3 Introductions to Maskilim's Bible Translations: Melitsah and the Aesthetics of Hebrew Scripture

4 From Introduction to Book

5 1791

4 Toward a Mythology of the People of the Song

1 Bril's Textual Models

2 On Hebrew Melitsah and the Correct Translation

3 The Poiesis of a Nation

4 Re-sounding the Lost Art of Music

5 The Aesthetic Mediation of Natural Knowledge: the Prophet and Prophecy

6 King David and the Lyric Code of the Temple State

7 From a Mythology of Exile to an Ethos of Revival: on the Practice of Singing Psalms

Epilogue: from David to Moses

Bibliography

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description based on print version record

Other Format:

Print version The People of the Song : Biblical Poetry, Translation, and the Reception of Moses Mendelssohn in the Berlin Haskalah

ISBN:

9789004536500

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004536500 DOI

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license