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The author's dissertation on Judah Al-Harizi's translation of the Arabic poetry of Al-Hariri. Judah b. Solomon Al-Harizi (1170–1235), Hebrew poet and translator, born in Spain. Al-Harizi was a member of a wealthy family which became impoverished, and was therefore dependent on patrons. He visited Provence, returning to Spain in 1190, and afterward left to travel through the Orient. He first went to Marseilles, and from there presumably sailed to Egypt, later continuing to Erez Israel, Syria, and Mesopotamia. Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo, Mosul, and Baghdad were among the cities visited. He mentions seeing the tombs of the prophet Ezekiel and of Ezra in Susa. Al-Harizi's visits to these countries helped to acquaint the Jewish communities there with Spanish-Hebrew culture. Most of his compositions were written during his travels and contain reflections on his experiences. It is not known whether he eventually returned to Spain. Al-Harizi's most important translation of poetry is his Hebrew rendering of the maqamat of the Arabic poet Al-Hariri, which he entitled Mahbarot Iti'el ("Notebooks of Ithiel"), completed before 1218. His translation of the maqama, an Arabic literary form in rhyming prose, attains the quality of an original composition, and imparts a Hebrew flavor to Al-Hariri's typically Arabic art; it reproduces the elusive word play and ornate style of the original. Al-Harizi's translation contained 50 maqamat of which only a portion of the first and 26 of the subsequent maqamat have been preserved.
Al-Harizi himself used this form for his major work Sefer Tahkemoni ("The Wise One"?), completed after 1220; he was among the first to use this genre in Hebrew literature. Its 50 maqamat show Al-Hariri's influence. The main character in the Tahkemoni, Heman the Ezrahite, represents the narrator himself. Heber the Kenite, a secondary figure, resembles the heroes of the Arabic maqama in character, a roguish polymath and rhymester. Apart from its literary merit and brilliant, incisive style, the Tahkemoni also throws valuable light on the state of Hebrew culture of the period, and describes the scholars and leaders of the communities visited by the author. Al-Harizi gives vivid descriptions of the worthies of Toledo, the poets of Thebes, a debate between a Rabbanite and a Karaite, and conditions in Jerusalem. The Tahkemoni also contains critical evaluations of earlier and contemporary poets, although Al-Harizi's appraisal of his contemporaries is not always reliable and occasionally misses their most essential features. The book includes love ditties, fables, proverbs, riddles, and satirical sketches, such as the descriptions of a flea and a defense by a rooster about to be slaughtered.
Al-Harizi also wrote Sefer ha-Anak ("The Necklace"), a collection of 257 short poems on moral and pious themes, mainly composed in two stanzas with rhyming puns. He translated under the Hebrew title Muserei ha-Filosofim; (Adab al-Falasifa "Dicta of the Philosophers") of Hunain ibn Ishak, a collection of proverbs synthesizing Greek and Arabic wisdom literature. The most important of his prose translations is that of Maimonides' Moreh Nevukhim ("Guide of the Perplexed"). Al-Harizi, who intended to render it simply, employed biblical Hebrew, but the translation fails in accuracy. For this reason Samuel ibn Tibbon's translation is generally preferred. It was, however, through Al-Harizi's translation that Maimonides' ideas were propagated in the Christian world. An anonymous Latin translation of the Guide, published in Paris by Agostino Giustiniani in 1520, is based on Al-Harizi's translation and was used by the English schoolmen. Al-Harizi's version also served as the basis for Pedro de Toledo's Spanish translation. Al-Harizi also translated Maimonides' introduction to the Mishnah and his commentary on the first five tractates of the Mishnah order Zera'im.
Al-Harizi's prominence in medieval letters is due both to his light, entertaining, and allusive style, and to the variety of his subject matter. His descriptions of nature are more realistic than those generally found in other Spanish Hebrew poets, with a feeling for the rural life and the animal world. He described storms at sea and, with the exception of Samuel b. Joseph ha-Nagid, was the only medieval Hebrew poet to describe battle scenes. Al-Harizi wrote in Hebrew at a time when most Jewish men of letters wrote in Arabic. Several of his maqamat were translated into Latin, English, French, German, and Hungarian. A number of his poems not included in the Tahkemoni and Sefer ha-Anak are extant in manuscript. The important editions of his works are Sefer Tahkemoni, ed. by de Lagarde (1883; 1925); by A. Kaminka (1899); by Y. Toporowsky (1952); Sefer ha-Anak, ed. by H. Brody, in Festschrift Harkavy (1908); Evronim (1945); Mahbarot Iti'el, ed. by Th. Chenery (1872); by Y. Peretz (1951); Moreh Nevukhim, ed. by L. Schlossberg (1851); Muserei ha-Filosofim, ed. by A. Loewenthal (1896). |
