Abraham Shlonsky: An Introduction to His Poetry 9783110350722, 9783110350616

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
Introduction
Chapter One. The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥ̣efazi (In my Haste)
Chapter Two. Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa
Chapter Three. Loss of Belief and Madness in the Big City in the Collection Lekh Lekha (Go Forth)
Chapter Four. The Process of Secularization in the Collection Metom (Perfection)
Chapter Five. Avne’i Bohu: Karkhi’el (Stones of Void: Kharkhi’el) – the Desire for Absence and Loss of Self
Chapter Six. “Shire’i hapa˜ad haribu’a” (Songs of Fear Squared): The Desire for the Uncanny or Absence as the Uncanny
Chapter Seven. Absence as Transformational Narcissism in Avnei Gvil: Tsamrot b’sufah (Rough Stones: Treetops in the Storm)
Chapter Eight. Sefer Hasulamot – Between Ideal and Real
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index of Persons
Subject Index
Index of Poems and Collections

Citation preview

Ari Ofengenden Abraham Shlonsky

Ari Ofengenden

Abraham Shlonsky An Introduction to His Poetry

     MAGNES

ISBN 978-3-11-035061-8 e-ISBN 978-3-11-035072-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston & Hebrew University Magnes Press, Jerusalem Cover image: Joseph Zaritsky, lithograph 60x72cm/ynetart Typesetting: Michael Peschke, Berlin Printing: CPI buch bücher.de GmbH, Birkach ♾ Gedruckt auf säurefreiem Papier Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com www.magnespress.co.il

Acknowledgements This book was written in three different locations: in Tel-Aviv, in Tübingen, and in Washington. Each location “read” me and Shlonsky’s poetry differently. Tel-Aviv, Shlonsky’s city, emphasized urban modernism; Tübingen in southern Germany uncovered the theological dimension for me, the process of secularization and the complex relationships with Christianity; while Washington, D.C. colored Shlonsky’s poetry as a poetry of immigrants. However, beyond the locations, it is the communication with others that has created new meanings in the text and has lent it concreteness and existence. I wish to thank my beloved Tzofit Ofengenden, who was of assistance at each stage of writing this work, from initial conversations about the general idea, the analysis of poems, with suggestions about the internal rhetoric of each chapter to brilliant ideas which I straight away adopted as if they were my own: I could not have written this work without her. Also thanks to Professor Matthias Morgenstern of the Faculty for Protestant Theology at Tübingen University, who read the entire book and made comments. I also thank Professor Dan Laor for his great help and support. A special thanks goes to Doro Dorftei, my good friend whose personality exemplifies Shlonsky’s world. Without his friendship, I would not have understood in depth the central-European persona of this poet. Thanks also to Dr. Uri On, my father, who has encouraged an intellectual life during times when such a choice is not a popular one. Without his modernism, I would never have dealt with Shlonsky’s modernism; and to my mother, for love and financial support which allowed me to study for so many years.

Contents Acknowledgements  Introduction 

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Chapter One The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)   5 Rootlessness and authenticity as aesthetic criteria   5 The importance of pessimism – the contrast with Bialik   12 Modernist eclecticism and criticism of the “isms”   13 Mythologizing, de-mythologizing and death in “Leylot” (Nights)   17 Existential dread and the parody of dread in “Al Hasaf” (On the threshold)   23 The futurism of immigrants – the collection B’ḥefazi (In my haste)   25 Chapter Two Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa   35 Immigration to Palestine as romantic nihilism   35 Reception of the poem “Gilboa”   37 Dismantling the body and masochism in “Amal” (Toil)   40 Working the land as murder   42 Ambivalence toward agricultural work in “Me’agvani’a v’ad simfoni’a” (From a tomato to a symphony)   44 Anti-romanticism, negating the self, and heresy   45 Affinity with the New Testament   51 Summary   54 Chapter Three Loss of Belief and Madness in the Big City in the Collection Lekh Lekha (Go forth)   56 Abandonment of socialist futurism and adoption of urban symbolism  Loss of tradition and religion in the poem cycle “Lekh lekha” (Go forth)   65 Chapter Four The Process of Secularization in the Collection Metom (Perfection)  Secularization as a new form of binding   77  79 Romantic secularization, modern secularization 

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Secularization and binding in the poem cycle “Ḥulin” (Worldliness)   81 The human body as plant in the poems “Metom Aleph”: “B’eyn elohim” (Perfection 1: Without God)   88 Seeking God in “Metom Bet”: “Lahadom” (Perfection 2: Such things never happened)   96 The authentic consciousness of man’s marginal existence in “Metom Gimel”: “B’sha’ar ha’ashpat” (Perfection 3: At the garbage gate)   100 God’s insignificance and new redemption in “Metom Dalet”: “Metom” (Perfection 4: Perfection)   102 Editorial secularization   107 Chapter Five Avne’i Bohu: Karkhi’el (Stones of Void: Kharkhi’el) – the Desire for Absence and Loss of Self   110 Cosmopolitanism and universal rootlessness   110 Yaḥdav and Avne’i Bohu (Stones of void)   111 A national-social invitation   114 The mythic journey to the city as desire for absence   115 The city as a literary pre-conception   120 Chaos, departure and orphanhood in “Kiryat Namal” (Port city), the encounter with the city and the prostitute in “Montparnasse”   122 The city as prostitute and the negation of conscience in “Lo” (No)   126 Lost time: separating from childhood and preparing for death in “B’ḥashmalit” (By tram)   128 Dismantling the self and its negation in the Karkhi’el poems   130 Karkhi’el editorialized   133 Chapter Six “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a” (Songs of Fear Squared): The Desire for the Uncanny or Absence as the Uncanny   137 Fear and alienation from technique   138 Desire and the journey to terror   140 Mystery and gothic fear of man’s creation in “Re’aḥ kokhavim atikim” (Scent of ancient stars)   146 The golem and the chimeras: Past versus present terror in “Hayofi hamesukan” (Dangerous beauty)   149 The natural and the artificial in “Tsḥok hasharav b’Paris” (The laugh of the heat wave in Paris) and in “B’ya’ar shel krakh” (In an urban forest)   152

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Chapter Seven Absence as Transformational Narcissism in Avnei Gvil: Tsamrot b’sufah (Rough Stones: Treetops in the Storm)   156 The modernist as an old man in “ He’adir hagave” (Glorifying the dying)   156 The child looks at the old man in “Mul hare’i” (Opposite the mirror)   158 A draw in “Mareh dori” (My generation’s appearance) and “Ha’erev hamet” (The dead evening)   161 Silence and absence in “Dusi’aḥ al ovdan hamilim” (A dialogue about the loss of words) and “Tshuvato shel hashotek” (The response of the silent one)   164 Tragic emptiness and unease in “Ne’um ploni al shkhunato” (Said John Doe of his neighborhood)   170 Reconciliation and acceptance in “Kokhve’i Shabbat” (Sabbath stars)   173 Closeness and distance to the poet’s youthful narcissism   174 Chapter Eight Sefer Hasulamot – Between Ideal and Real   180 Ladders at night?   180 Sefer Hasulamot: “Me shire’i Xu-a-lu” (The book of ladders: From the Xu-a-lu poems)   200 Conclusion  Bibliography 

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Index of Persons  Subject Index 

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Index of Poems and Collections 

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Introduction Public awareness of the poet Abraham Shlonsky is connected with his pioneering and mischievous spirit, with Uts li Guts li (the Israeli Rumpelstiltsken) and with Eugene Onegin, with his rebellion against Bialik and with Tel-Aviv bohemia. Indeed, most studies dealing with his poetry have placed it almost exclusively within the constructive currents of Hebrew culture. They have emphasized the positive and pioneering aspect of his work: his translations into Hebrew, his renewal of the language, his contribution to theater, journalism, and even to the advertising industry. Other studies have analyzed his poetry by means of Russian formalism and the new criticism, and have barely referred to content-related subjects. This book seeks to fill that void by putting particular emphasis on the range of subjects at the center of Shlonsky’s poetry. The intention, first of all, is to represent and pronounce judgment upon the condition of the modern man as that of lack or absence, and second of all, to characterize Shlonsky’s poetry as yearning to express negation and absence and not experiences of building or positivist fullness. In contrast to the image of Shlonsky’s poetry as constructive and structured, an image that the poet himself reinforced in his many newspaper articles, his poetry decisively expresses what can be termed “a desire for absence” – a desire to experience negation in all its hues: urban alienation, solitude and madness, political exile, Sisyphean physical labor, a modern world embroiled in chaos, a life devoid of any general meaning, and specifically, a life devoid of religious meaning. Shlonsky’s poetry stresses the Nietzschean transvaluation of values, which affirms fleeting and tragic existence for the individual while at the same time enabling him to be the creator of values and worlds through his rhetorical force. This poetry represents the losses associated with modernity by using varied themes including the death of god and secular existence (for example in the collections Lekh Lekha – Go forth and Metom – Perfection), coping with death (in Stam – Ordinarily), madness and loss of the ideal self (in Avne’i Bohu – Stones of void), idealization and compensatory narcissism (in Avne’i Gvil – Rough stones and in Sefer Hasulamot – The Book of ladders), and others. In a poetics maintaining that absence and negation are the absolute, Shlonsky makes use of innovative images and metaphors which join distant semantic fields, and uses a renewed language which entices the reader to favor the negative instead of rejecting it. The book follows the various representations of absence and negation in Shlonsky’s poetry in a chronological manner. The first chapter, which discusses the collections Stam and B’ḥefazi (In my haste), opens with the reception of his poetry by its early critics, who related to its negative themes and characterized the poet as “rootless.” The rhetoric used by Shlonsky in order to support and

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advance his poetry is presented in the rest of the chapter in his programmatic writings in which the poet presents himself as a prophet or as a pioneer of Hebrew culture, who desires to normalize and universalize that culture. In this manner, he defends himself in the face of accusations of being rootless and lack of ideological commitment. These opinions had a decisive influence upon the later acceptance of his poetry and cloaked its desire for absence. The second chapter discusses the collection Gilboa. It undermines the accepted interpretation which sees it only as a positive expression of the pioneering undertaking and does not relate to portions of the poetry and imagery which reveal the pioneering act as a masochistic one in which agricultural work is also presented as Sisyphean and punishing, both to the individual and to the environment. We will also review Shlonsky’s ambivalent attitude toward agricultural work expressed in his writings and letters. This ambivalence also explains his transition from expressionistic poetry, dedicated to the chaotic existence of modern times and liberation in Sisyphean agricultural work, to an urban, symbolist poetry. The third chapter, which discusses the collection Lekh Lekha, elucidates the passage to an urban poetry as a clear expression of desire for absence. This transition signals a distancing from the pioneer’s agricultural, positivist, moralsocialist world, and aspires to a metropolitan experience resting on artificiality, sophistication, alienation, and social injustice – in other words, resting on unambiguous negation according to the period’s ideological, socialist-agricultural assumptions. The collection Metom, which immediately follows the collection Lekh Lekha, is discussed in the fourth chapter. It expresses existence without God, secularism as a cosmic and tragic fact, which is also a complex one, with multiple, poetic meanings. This existence is even more spiritual than the traditionalist-religious existence which is depicted as materialistic. This attractive representation of secularism (represented as absence) creates a willingness or desire to experience the absence of traditional religiosity as a new spirituality. The fifth chapter discusses the collection Avne’i Bohu. This collection expands the urban theme which already appeared in Lekh Lekha. This is one of Shlonsky’s most influential collections and is almost completely devoted to the description of the modern Hebrew poet’s pilgrimage to Paris. This pilgrimage is represented as a journey to the negative, and the central experiences described in it are those of the modern individual’s spiritual confusion, the commercialism which makes all human values negotiable, solitude, alienation and ultimately, the dismantling of self and madness. However, this experience, which the poet seeks and even desires, is not represented in a realistic manner, but rather in a

Introduction 

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polished and precise symbolist style, using prodigious metaphors and rich language, depicting it as paradoxically enticing. Shlonsky continues to represent the urban experience in the collection Shire’i Hamapolet v’Hapi’us (Poems of collapse and reconciliation), which also focuses on European cities and which will be discussed in the sixth chapter. This time the emphasis is on Prague. In light of the tense political atmosphere of the late 1930s, the speaker did not experience the loss of the subjective self, but rather experienced a more objective fear of the rationalization of life and the technology of destruction. These fears receive, among other things, symbolic expression in the Golem of Prague, a symbol of human creativity – technology turning against its creators. In the seventh chapter which deals with the collection Avne’i Gvil, the speaker, who presented himself as heroic, also wants to present the quotidian real self who experiences ambivalent sentiments toward aging, confusion about the aims and audience of his poetry, and boredom with his way of life. These poems, which appear in the collection along with poems which continue to present the speaker in a heroic manner, express a need to give a sometimes ironic account of this sense of the diminished self accompanying old age, although there is also a sense of reconciliation and satisfaction with how his life has developed. The last chapter, Sefer Hasulamot, also simultaneously represents the speaker as a charismatic-mystical being, merging with all creation, alongside a speaker who subverts this idealization and presents himself as someone who “was kicked” “by an indifferent foot” of time, or as someone who has experienced his own recorded voice as something hateful. This subversion of the previous persona is a further expression of the desire for negation of the self. Nevertheless, the collection expresses Shlonsky’s new love for the poet Tsila Shamir which compensates for the diminished self. Thus, I interpret Shlonsky’s poetry as yearning for negation, nothingness, and absence. The desire for absence changes its objects (universal chaos, urban alienation, secularism) but preserves a similar emotional stance. This stance requires being tested by those very extreme experiences in which the poetic self loses itself in cosmic-political chaos, difficult physical labor or urban solitude and alienation, as well as in situations where the empowered, modernist selfimage experiences negation and criticism, seeing itself as illusory and exposing the randomness of its existence. Shlonsky’s poetry reveals a basic poetic stance which undergoes development. He is referred to as a modernist prophet calling for an objective cultural revolution, as a speaker who moves from feelings of personal, mystical connectedness to the world to skeptical-materialistic considerations regarding that connectedness. In other words, the process presented in his poetry is a process of gradual withdrawal into oneself. He begins with desire

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for absence, expressing a search for situations in which the self becomes lost in “extreme” experiences, such as agricultural work or urban solitude and madness, and concludes by seeking to cope with the speaker’s realistic image which in old age has become weaker and has lost its relevance.

Chapter One The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste) Rootlessness and authenticity as aesthetic criteria The desire for absence is expressed by the active search for negation, emptiness and nothingness, driven by the negation of the world and feelings of fear and sorrow. The Reception of Shlonsky’s poetry was decisively influenced by these sentiments which the poet communicated in his poems. Relating to his poetry as expressing a world vision bound by nothingness was particularly central to readers with unequivocal political commitments. This response was primarily expressed in the criticism unleashed upon the members of the Yaḥdav group, a modernist literary group which had Shlonsky as its leader and chief poet. Yaḥdav was active from 1926−1939, and included the poets Natan Alterman, Leah Goldberg, Avraham Ḥalfi, Alexander Penn and others, who rebelled against Bialik’s poetic style. Dan Miron refers to the response of various political circles to “Yaḥdav: The Hashomer HaTsa’ir movement saw the group’s members as rootless decadents, people of chaos with no national or class allegiance, and as followers of a fashion of despair and nihilism imported from the ‘declining,’ capitalist West. The attitude of the extreme right was, of course, even more negative. Inspired by Uri Zvi Greenberg and his expressionist poetics in its Sikriki political incarnation, who voted Shlonsky’s and his followers’ works as a heap of superficial, aesthetic adornments testifying to human emptiness and national alienation, stemming from the absence of cultural bonds to Hebrew ‘racial’ sources and slavish imitation of international artistic fashions.¹

Critics and readers of Shlonsky’s poetry complained about the lack of commitment to clear, political values, such as equality and national might, and saw his poetry as detached from the experience of the Land of Israel and its achievements. Shlonsky’s father wrote to him about the responses to the poem “Honolulu,” which criticized the detachment of the poem from the activity in the Land: Getsil, Gampil Todros and Dvorah Baron among them do not understand Honolulu […] Honolulu what is that, and the Mandate? The Balfour Declaration, Weizmann’s politics, Ussishkin, etc. The rebirth of the country, the rebirth of the spirit. […] they looked in the

1 Dan Miron, Noge’ah b’Davar: Masot al sifrut, tarbut v’ḥevra [Concerning: essays on literature, culture and society] (Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1991), 74–75.

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 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

dictionary. Lookin geography, try to read between the lines and nothing will come of it. They didn’t understand the poet’s opinion, because his thoughts are not their thoughts. They have no interest in an account of the world.²

Avraham B. Yoffe summarizes the spirit of the criticism during that period in an article entitled “Almavet” (“Immortality”), which was printed in the Hebrew newspaper Davar on December 25, 1933. He maintains that the writers of the last two generations, Those who created the new literature did not move their hand from the hand of the reader. Thousands of strands have connected them. – They have bound up their lives to the lives of the people. They love the people and when you love, so then shine with the soul of Tevye the Milkman and Bontshe Shvayg forever. And these, our modern writers, ‘have left the readers.’ The divine spirit of the people no longer watches over their creations. They are ‘beautiful-souls,’ they dwell in the ‘higher canopies,’ torn from their source of nurture and they stand apart from things, above them, and for that their literature is a literature of imitation.³

Avraham Hagorni-Green, who wrote about the acceptance of Shlonsky’s poetry, maintains that this disconnection is perceived as a regrettable fact and as a poetic phase which the poet eventually will overcome. “He will repent” and will write poems that reflect the sentiments of the pioneers and their experiences, and will infuse those who build the Land with strength.⁴ Hagorni-Green summarizes the early criticism in the following: The expectation for the new and the fresh, from a desire to accept it, to forgive its ‘strangeness’ and ‘illusions,’ on the basis of understanding the reasons for their creation (following the World War and the Revolution, the experience of the Third Aliyah, his young age), although with the hope that this eruption will quickly be reined in and that his progressive development will be in the spirit of the tradition of Hebrew poetry’s past and will express, in a direct manner, the actual life in the Land.⁵

However, Shlonsky did not “repent.” He distanced himself from a simplistic, positive description of the pioneering experience in the Land of Israel. He fully 2 Avraham Hagorni-Green, Shlonsky b’avutot Bialik [Shlonsky in the bonds of Bialik] (Tel Aviv: Or-Am, 1986), 58. 3 A. B. Yoffe, Shlonsky: hameshorer u’zmano [Shlonsky: the poet and his time] (Merḥavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1966), 96–97. 4 Avraham Hagorni-Green, “Milḥamto shel Avraham Shlonsky l’ma’an heḥadash ben shte’i milḥamot olam” [Avraham Shlonsky’s war for the new between two world wars] (doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University, 1976), 36. 5 Ibid., 36

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adapted himself to the fundamental principles of international modernism of the 1920s, which, despite its multiple factions was against realism and demanded direct expression of the artist’s soul and world. This commitment to modernism in poetry distanced Shlonsky’s poetry from poetry reflecting the experience of the simple pioneer, and made it difficult and incomprehensible to most readers. This distance from a positive, realistic description of the experience together with the sense of the fin-de-siècle apocalyptic world, gave birth to a poetry which desired to express transcendental feelings of terror, solitude and absence. The expression of solitude and terror is designed for poetic situations in which the speaker stands isolated from society and therefore is freed from its pressures, such as the situation of a stranger in a city and an exile on a boat. These situations are characterized by an absence of relations toward things which affix identity by means of social institutions such as relationships, family, work, community, and nation. Conditions such as these, contrary to ordinary, habitual life, permit ambivalent contact with things such as terror, solitude, etc., situations which are unclear and negative by nature, and which can barely be controlled ‒ death, for example, which forces an arbitrary end to life, and general world history, which necessitates exile and emigration. The feared absence, forced upon the poet from the outside and beyond his control, is also an internal motivator of his poetry and therefore, he equally desires and fears it. A source of emotional ambivalence, this attraction-repulsion to and from nothingness and absence does not stem from Shlonsky’s life in an obvious manner. These sentiments of anxiety about and attraction to absence, which in the poetry of others such as Uri Zvi Greenberg and David Vogel⁶ stemmed “naturally” from their personal life styles and solitary tendencies, appeared in Shlonsky’s poetry alongside a way of life seemingly contradictory to a preoccupation with emptiness and meaninglessness; indeed, Shlonsky’s life was productive and connected to society in an exceptional manner, as well as being full of determination for strenuous labor.⁷ His tremendous spiritual energy was saved for his poetry, in which he saw himself as first in the group leading the avant-garde, 6 Uri Zvi Greenberg chose silence and solitude in many periods of his life. See: Dan Miron, Ḥadashot me’eyzor hakotev: iyunim b’shira ha’ivrit haḥadasha [News from the pole: studies in new Hebrew poetry] (Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1993) 165‒327. Reference to Uri Zvi Greenberg’s silence can be found on page 201 and Vogel testifies to his desire for solitude in his diary in K’tsot hayamim, in phrases such as “Indeed I desire complete solitude. Indeed, I want to savor the torments until the end,” from his book Taḥanot Kabot [Extinguished stations] (Tel Aviv: HaSifri’a Hahadasha, 1990), 319. 7 Shlonsky indicates in his diary his commitment to hard work. This commitment to work was intended to prevent feelings of emptiness. See: Shlonsky, Pirke yoman [Diary selections] (Tel Aviv: Arye Aharoni, 1981), 23.

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the spearhead of modernist poets implementing a revolution in Hebrew poetry. Shlonsky surrounded himself with tasks related to building the new Hebrew culture, from editing literary supplements to translating plays for the theater. This concentration on Tel Aviv’s cultural life and his ability to be an initiator in it probably distanced him from a “life in parentheses,” a life of anxiety and longing for the emptiness, death and solitude which nourished his poetry. His biography depicts an ambitious, active individual, a master of language who realized his desire to be a famous poet at an amazingly young age. Indeed, due to sensitivity to his surroundings and his realistic options, he became the most influential Hebrew poet are cultural trend setter before the age of thirty.⁸ In his contacts with others, Shlonsky chose to project the image of a virtuoso, nimble and witty in temperament. Shlonsky didn’t employ the romantic rhetoric of the suffering poet, rejected by a society unable to appreciate his poetry, which was the rhetoric and life style of many poets. Optimistic about the cultural revolution being nurtured by Russian futurism, he believed that through education it was possible to bring the audience closer to difficult modernist poetry.⁹ In his youth, he experienced feelings of self-doubt and anxiety as a young, unknown poet, but he forced himself to restrain these feelings.¹⁰ In contrast to the persona of the artist as a self-wounding individual, Shlonsky operated directly to publicize himself, due to his conscious awareness of his talent.¹¹ His articles in “Torim” (Columns) and in 8 See the chapter “To choose biography” in Hagorni-Green’s book, Shlonsky, 13–52. This chapter summarizes Shlonsky’s biography as a successful man. 9 In his article “Ta’anot u’ma’anot” [Arguments and responses] Shlonsky objects to the artist’s adapting himself to the reader’s level and wants to convince him of the need for high art. See his book Yalkut Eshel [The complete works of Avraham Shlonsky] (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1960), 28−32. Originally the article appeared under the name ‘Piroshim’ in Torim, Vol. 13, October 3, 1933, 1. 10 Shlonsky writes about this demand of himself not to cry in his poetry, but rather to build, in his diary entry, 22. Even Avraham Hagorni-Green testifies to Shlonsky’s perception: “The poet is a man – thus he maintained – an architect. Among a thousand predators, he is forbidden to cry, to reveal a private secret,” see Hagorni-Green, Shlonsky, 47. Also see the article “Atara l’yoshana?” [To crown the old]: “However I am not one of the criers, I don’t believe that by turning the clock backwards it is possible to return the hour which has been plucked and fallen for eternity,” in Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 175. 11 Avraham Hagorni-Green describes Shlonsky’s confidence, “…during the break, between the two parts of his lecture [Bistritsky’s…] a young, seventeen-year old approaches him, in the unique P. Cohen high school uniform and introduces himself, with no superfluous etiquette, by the name of ‘Avraham,’ a writer of poetry in Hebrew. He takes a school notebook out of his bag, extends it towards him and persistently demands that he read it. Without another glance, the high school boy adds, turning to go, that he read Bistritsky’s article about Bialik’s silence in Hashilo’aḥ. ‘Good, let him shut up a bit and let others show the force of their poetry.’ Moving away a bit, without expecting a response, he turns his head around and adds: ‘My last name is

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“K’tuvim” (Writings) were written with confidence, in the joyous, polemic style of an individual sure of his strength.¹² In light of his projected persona, his virtuosic plays on language in the poems, his refusal to cloak himself in the image of the rejected, suffering poet, and his refusal to direct his life in that manner, he did not convince many critics of his poetry’s themes of terror, emptiness, and solitude. Among those who offered negative criticism of Shlonsky’s poetry were poets and critics who were otherwise unalike as Dov Sadan, David Vogel, Gershon Shofman, Natan Zach, Meir Wieseltier, and Chana Kronfeld. A similarity of fundamental sentiments can be observed among the critics. The early critics, whose criticism was summarized, polished and formalistically and philosophically backed up by Natan Zach, accused Shlonsky’s poetry of a lack of authenticity, use of artificial language, “empty bells and whistles,” and of disengagement from a concrete humanity and landscape. As is known, Zach had the same criticism toward Alterman’s poetry as well as that to Shlonsky’s poetry which had a decisive influence upon Alterman. In the eyes of contemporary critics such as Chana Kronfeld and Michael Gluzman, Shlonsky’s poetics is shared by him and many other poets in the male Hebrew canon. This is a maximalist poetics which uses a rich Hebrew lexicon, based in a biblical, non-oral language, and is largely available to men with a background of yeshiva study; it is a hegemonic poetics representing a collectivist, socialist Zionism. This poetics contrasted to the minimalist poetics of Rachel Blubstein, Yokheved Bat-Miriam, Esther Raab and David Vogel, a poetics which was held in esteem by these critics.¹³ In his article “He’arot ḥadashot l’maḥloket yeshana – al sefer Avnei Tohu l’A. Shlonsky v’svivo” (New comments on an old controversy – about A. Shlonsky’s Stones of Void and its environment), Dan Miron relates directly to Zach’s criticism – the problem of a poetry which is not perceived as having its source in authentic experience. Shlonsky attempts to alter the common expectations of poetry readers, who ask that the Shlonsky.’ It would have been impossible not to be impressed by the ‘young man’s’ confidence, and the poems in the notebook would indeed be sent to Hashilo’aḥ.” (21) Hagorni-Green, Shlonsky, 25–26. 12 Even Shlonsky’s ‘serious’ programmatic articles contain humor and many plays on language. For example, in “Meshorer b’malkhut hashishit”, [Poet in the sixth monarchy],Shkonsky characterizes the relation between poetry and journalism as “a relationship of ‘shufra’ (‘beauty’) and ‘erah’ (‘occurence,’), Parnassus and ‘parnasah’ (‘livelihood’). Similarly, his impressionistic theoretical writings seem to sometimes include polemic. For example, in his amusing piece “Ha’antishemi’ut sheli” [My anti-Semitism], Shlonsky is not satisfied with merely a description of the Israeli obsessive invention of ‘creative’ names for its children, but rather engages in biting humor against it. “Meshorer b’malkhut hashishit,” Yalkut Eshel, 11–19; “Ha’antishemi’ut sheli,” ibid. 216–218. 13 Michael Gluzman, The Politics of Canonicity: Lines of Resistance in Modernist Hebrew Poetry (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 21–43.

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 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

poem convince them of the authenticity of its fundamental experience. According to Miron’s argument, this expectation necessarily results in disappointment with Shlonsky’s poetry and alienation from it. According to Miron, the reader’s lack of persuasion as to the experience which allegedly stands behind the poem stems from the disconnect between seemingly threatening and negative content, the “experience” that the poem tries to convey, and the lines of the poem with their exact rhyme conveyed in a light and flowing manner. Poetry disengaged from experience, argues Miron, is simply poetry with basic assumptions differing from the romantic ones, and as a result, Shlonsky’s poetry is a worthy example and a legitimate continuation of neo-classical poetry of wit. The misleading basic assumption of the romantic-experiential sort which lies at the foundation of the negative criticism of Shlonsky, from Dov Sadan to Meir Weiseltier, is given a concise, clear formulation by Miron. It is a mistake to expect a romantic poetics of experience in poetry which doesn’t obey this poetics. According to Miron, the central assumption of the poetics of experience is that the poem must originate in a “causal organic” manner in a heightened life experience, and it must persuade us by various formal means − rhythm, tone, structure of the stanzas, etc. – that the poem has developed from an honest and authentic experiential source. In other words, in contrast to the critical assumptions of a poetics of experience which tries to find in Shlonsky’s poetry a reading experience which his poetry did not intend, Miron offers the reader a Shlonsky who is a sharp, neoclassical poet, whose poetry imitates a certain subject, primarily a contemplative one, by means of a language perceived as appropriate to the subject it imitates but to which it has no causal relationship. According to Miron’s source, the critic F. R. Leavis, serious, witty poetry is a sub-category of a poetry of wit, which connects the tradition of seventeenth and eighteenth century poetry with the poetry of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. This poetry is “an attempt to combine and blend a light, playful expressive system with contemplative and even ‘serious’ emotive intentions in their matters, and sometimes even threatening in their writing.”¹⁴ According to this perspective, the aim of Shlonsky’s poetry is “in its ‘restraint,’ its ‘drying up’ of the stormy, liquid, emotional experience, and placing it by means of playfulness and sophistication as abstraction and generalization.”¹⁵ Miron’s defense deviates from the customary interpretation of poetry by significant use of the literary work’s reconstructed historical context. Indeed, Shlonsky states in his diary that poetry needs to be constructive and to refrain from an outpouring of feeling; however, a distance exists between his self-demand for emotional restraint and the poetics of wit, which demands an ironic, detached distance from a “press14 Ibid., 66 15 Ibid.

Rootlessness and authenticity as aesthetic criteria 

 11

ing” moral commitment regarding the world. As we shall see, Shlonsky adopts the poetics of wit only in selected parts of his poetry. The prohibition against an outpouring of emotion which appears in his diary is mainly a prohibition against presenting a speaker who “cries” and spills his guts, in favor of presenting a more objective point of view, expressive of the suffering in modern existence. Shlonsky’s declared poetics, as expressed in his articles and manifesto “Ra’ananut,” (Freshness) ¹⁶ also does not espouse witty poetics. Such a poetics was also not part of the audience’s expectations that poetry be a heightened expression by the individual who displays his aspirations and the suffering of his existence.¹⁷ An interpretative alternative to the criticism of Shlonsky’s poetry as inauthentic, in other words an interpretive alternative which could “save” Shlonsky’s poetry from the romantic expectations of an experiential poetics, is the postmodernist interpretation. This interpretation emphasizes precisely the artist and the work’s lack of autonomy and the manner in which the cultural discourse structures identity. According to this interpretation, the themes of emptiness and absence chosen by Shlonsky are not derived from an internal source of the soul, but rather, they express the modernist discourse of that period.¹⁸ Indeed, Shlonsky expresses perfectly the assumptions of the modernist discourse. In his articles, poetry, and diaries he presents an unmistakable example of all the characteristics of the modernist artist as culture hero: elitist individualism, revolutionary spirit, possessing a pessimistic and internationalist world view, writer of manifestos, founder of a school and publisher of a literary publication.¹⁹ According to this interpretation, “the desire for absence” in Shlonsky’s poetry is a further expression of the modernist discourse which to a great extent has established his identity.

16 Avraham Shlonsky, “Ra’ananut,” [Freshness], Manifestim shel Modernism [Manifestoes of modernism], ed. Benjamin Harshav (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2001), 202. 17 Shlonsky was aware of these expectations and even put them into the mouth of a pioneer in his article “Ta’anot u’ma’anot.” The pioneer argues against Shlonsky: “Write simply, the way our forefathers wrote, and express our suffering and yearnings simply, like in ancient times.” Where we are concerned, it is important to emphasize that despite the argument between the pioneer and Shlonsky about form, both of them agree about content: “Sivloteynu u’kisufeynu” [Our suffering and yearnings] Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 30. 18 Rachel already hints at the possibility for this interpretation and she is prepared to forgive the poet for his “delusions because of his talent to live so very much as a member of his time.” See Rachel, “El Ot Hazman” [To a sign of the time], Dvar, April 8, 1927. 19 See the works “Individualistn mesukan” (Dangerous individualist) and “Dor bli Donquishotim” (A generation without Don Quixotes) in which Shlonsky delineates with a vigorous precision the modern artist’s program. Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 36−40, 41−50.

12 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

Further on I will show how in spite of this, it is possible to find authentic experience throughout his abstract poetry, and the characteristics of Shlonsky’s modernist vision will be examined.

The importance of pessimism – the contrast with Bialik Shlonsky stresses the importance of adhering to a tragic and pessimistic vision. The tragic and pessimistic attitude is for him an important element to his sense of a rebellious and heretical world, unaccustomed to reality which leads to conflict with a reality which is stronger than the subject. He sees controversy as a central means to preserve spiritual tension,²⁰ despite spiritual weakness on his part owing to optimism and mutual agreement. A pessimistic consciousness is necessary to whoever perceives self-fulfillment as a struggle against the culture and society of his surroundings. An expression of a tragic and pessimistic preference can be seen in his eulogy of Bialik. In this eulogy, Shlonsky delineates Bialik’s “sentiment of the world,” but because he has built his self-image in contrast to Bialik’s, this delineation reveals the proper sentiment regarding the world according to Shlonsky himself. Bialik hated, not only hated in his world view, but rather, this principle of world sentiment, all the assembled sufferings, the ascetic, wallowing in the murky valley, committing heresy against the fertile principle of life and the moral-tragic despair rotting the tree of life at its base, which both his hands held fast to. He was the healthy gall, as opposed to beautifully diseased bile, symbolized for us in both sides of the coin, in the persons of Gnessin on the one hand and Brenner on the other.²¹

It is no coincidence that Shlonsky emphasizes the “healthy gall” in contrast to “beautifully diseased bile,” and in his rebellion against Bialik hints that he belongs to the pessimistic tradition of Gnessin and Brenner. This quote shows that tragic and moral despair are mainly an ideological choice perceiving such a world sentiment as sublime and lofty. The reader of Shlonsky’s articles and poetry frequently changes his feelings and position regarding the themes and experience conveyed. Often his poetry places contradictory demands which are difficult to reconcile. Many of his poems require a believing reader because the poems were indeed created following specific experiences (for example the poems in the cycles “L’abba-ema” [For father-mother] and “Shirei Hanakhar” [Poems of foreign lands], but in many 20 Shlonsky, “Me’inyan l’inyan” [From matter to matter], Torim, December 2, 1935. 21 Avraham Shlonsky, “Ḥaim Naḥman Bialik” Torim, Aleph (I), Vol. 45−46, July 13, 1934.

Modernist eclecticism and criticism of the “isms” 

 13

other instances the specific, experiential content of his poems forms an excuse for a display of self-serving linguistic virtuosity, in which it seems that Shlonsky could have used any experiential basis or utterance.²² The problem sensed by the reader relating to the poetry’s pessimistic themes is central to its evaluation and interpretation. Nonetheless, the prevailing attitude toward it is nearly stipulated in an absolute manner by the Zach-Alterman controversy, and therefore, based to a great extent on Avne’i Bohu, the book of poems which influenced Alterman. The emancipation of Shlonsky’s poetry from Alterman’s “bonds of criticism” may only be in a careful reading of his poetry and not by a reading which sees only the potential in the early poetry that was to be realized in Avne’i Bohu.

Modernist eclecticism and criticism of the “isms” The collections Stam, B’hefazi, and Dva’i (Anguish) mark the beginning of Shlonsky’s modernist poetry. The poems in these collections were published beginning in 1922 in different forums for Hebrew literature in Israel, such as Hapoel Hatza’ir, Davar, Hedim, and K’tuvim, and abroad in Ha’olam, published in Paris, and Prat which appeared in Vienna. These collections are to a large extent heterogeneous, as this period was the most experimental in Shlonsky’s poetry. The characteristic themes of Shlonsky’s poetry are expressed in a skillful array of different styles, from French symbolism through German expressionism and Russian cubofuturism and imaginism. Shlonsky, who identified with modernism in general, did not identify with any of its specific currents,²³ and his poetry was eclectic. The reasons for his identification with general modernism originate in a declared poetics and the condition of modernist Hebrew poetry at that time. In his article “Ale’i teref” (“Predatory leaves”),²⁴ he outlines his lack of willingness to adopt a specific modernist current, “ism,” in his twofold attitude toward Jewish tradition which he adopts and rejects simultaneously. On the one hand, this attitude is an integration of inspiration provided by the Old Testament, combining various genres, and on the other hand, it is a rejection of the Shulḥan Arukh. Shlonsky provides a good example of how the Old Testament serves all modernist styles:

22 Shlonsky’s light or popular poetry exemplifies linguistic virtuosity that functions as a basis for any content. See Ḥagit Halperin, Me’agvani’a v’ad simfoni’a: Hashira hakala shel Avraham Shlonsky v’parodiot al shirato [From tomato to symphony: the light poetry of Avraham Shlonsky and parodies of it] (Tel Aviv: Katz Institute for Research in Hebrew Literature, 1997). 23 Avraham Shlonsky, “Ale’i Teref” [Leaves of prey], Ktuvim, Ed. 9, October 6, 1926. 24 Ibid, 2.

14 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

Tell me now: which of the “isms” hasn’t been turned into a song in our Jewish Bible? And which of its expressions hasn’t come before the audience of the Lord? From ‘mountains will skip like rams’ and ‘the rivers will clap their hands’ (true imaginism!) and through every passage from the books of the prophets (total expressionism!) and ‘A ruin! A ruin! A ruin!’ Ezekiel’s dadaist cry, upon being driven mad.²⁵

The second aspect, in other words, is a rejection of the Shulḥan Arukh, and includes a rejection of all sets of rules, even rules that express themselves in the images of thou shalt and thou shalt not of modernist currents and manifestos. As stated, the identification of many in Hebrew and Jewish literature with modernism as a whole, a type of “classical modernism,” is a consequence of the specific circumstances of this literature, relating to its late and peripheral entry into modern literature and compensating for its marginality by eclecticism.²⁶ Similarly, the number of writers and readers of Hebrew literature was small and the majority, despite their participation in the modern Zionist project, experienced literature according to the norms of romantic poetry and the realistic novel of the nineteenth century. In such a literary atmosphere there may have been less room for internal squabbles between various modernist styles than in Russian and German literatures. These circumstances require an audience for modern poetry as a whole, before advancing one or another current. Indirect evidence of this lack of readiness by literary circles for significant conflicts (concerning form) within the modernist camp of that period can be gleaned from the late date (the 1950s) of what can be described as the first modernist internal controversy between Zach and Alterman. It can be assumed that the historical circumstances of Hebrew literature had been justified by a generally supportive ideology of newness and freshness in the poetry, without committing to any particular form. Indeed, Shlonsky commits to the new in general, without sounding eclectic and non-committal, by calling for internal rebellion, what he terms “restrained fire.”²⁷ That “restrained fire” is a symbol of “life,” the internal being that gives everything value, and thereby essentially denies any attempt to define poetic expression by general means and certain rules. As stated, because Shlonsky’s early poetry undertakes combinations and experiments, it is difficult to characterize it by criteria taken from a particular

25 Ibid. 26 See the introduction in Benjamin Ḥarshav, Introspectivism b’New York: kolel mivḥar shire’i A. Leyeles b’tirgum meyiddish [Introspectivism in New York: including a selection of A. Leyeles poetry in Yiddish] (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hame’uḥad, 1997). See also Amos Oz, “Contemporary Hebrew Literature”, Partisan Review, 49, 1982. 27 Shlonsky, “Ale’i teref.”

Modernist eclecticism and criticism of the “isms” 

 15

modernist style. Therefore, a good point of comparison would be to contrast his modern poetry to his pre-modernist poetry.²⁸ Shlonsky’s pre-modernist poetry tries to convince the reader of a world sentiment seeking negation, absence, emptiness and nothingness by means of a direct reporting of the poet’s emotions. Nonetheless, his modernist poetry is characterized by objectivity, meaning that it uses the world to indirectly arouse the emotions felt by the poet and which he asks to convey to the reader. One of the poems belonging to pre-modernist Shlonsky is the poem “B’dmi ye’ush” (In my silence of despair) which was published in Hashilo’aḥ in September 1918.²⁹

,‫ִירי ּו ְסח ְַרחַר ְל ָבבִי‬ ִ ‫ׁש‬-‫נִסְּתַ ְ ּלקָה בַת‬ .‫ּו ְכאִּלּו ְלח ֵֵרׁש נִ ְהיִי ִתִ י ּו ְל ִאּלֵם‬ .‫ׁשּלֵם‬ ִ ‫ – אֵין גְמּול ְואֵין‬,‫ּשׁמֶׁש ָעבַדְ ּתִ י‬ ֶ ‫ַל‬ ‫אֹורה‬ ָ ‫ – אֵי‬,‫ְאֹורה‬ ָ ‫ׁשַָאפְּתִ י ל‬ .‫ּבָל י ָׁשּוב עֹו ָלמִית‬, ‫ּכ ֹל ָחלַף – ְואֵינֹו‬ .‫ הּוא‬-‫ ּשְׁמֹו‬-‫ֹלא אֵדַ ע מַה‬, ‫ּובְעֹולָם ּתָ עִיתִ י‬ ,‫הַּת ֹהּו‬-‫ ֶבּן‬,‫ּו ֵמצִיק ַהי ֵאּוׁש ַהּמַר‬ .‫ו ְַרּבָה ַבּלֵב ָהעֲזּובָה‬ ,‫ירים‬ ִ ‫ׁשפ ְִר‬ ַ ‫נְג ֹהות ְו‬-‫ ַרב‬,‫ ֶה ָעבַר‬-‫אֵי פ ְִרחֵי‬ ?‫ׁשּנָג ֹז ְ ּכ ַמּשַׁק ְ ּכנָ ַפי ִם מִתְ ַרחֲקֹות‬ ֶ ,‫ׁשחֲקֹות‬ ַ ‫ּשׁמֶׁש ַה ְּמ‬ ֶ ‫ ַה‬-‫עֹוד א ְֶראֶה אֶת ק ְַרנֵי‬ ...‫ַאך ִל ִבּי ֹלא י ָר ֹן ִלק ְָראתָ ן‬ ,‫ׂשבָה ִמצָפֹון‬ ְ ָ‫ׁשּנ‬ ֶ ,ַ‫הִתְ חֹו ְללָה רּוח‬ .‫קּורי ַהחֲלֹומֹות ַה ִ ּפ ְלאִים‬ ֵ ‫וַּתְ נַּתֵ ק אֶת‬ ‫ׁשב ִָרים ֻמ ָּטלִים ֱאלִילִים‬ ְ ‫ְמנֻ ָּפצִים ְל‬ ...‫ׁשח ְָרבָה‬ ֶ ‫ ַהזָוִית‬-‫ְ ּבק ֶֶרן‬ ‫ ְל ָבבִי‬-‫ ּתַ לְּתַ ִלּים עִם ַצעַר‬-ַ‫ּופְרּוע‬ ‫ ַהּי ְגֹונִים‬-‫אֶתְ ַל ֵבּט ְ ּב ִפּנַת‬-‫אֶתְ ַּכּנֵס‬ ,‫ אֹוני ִם‬-‫ חֲדַ ל‬,‫ְו ֶאׁשְַאף ל ְַר ֵצּץ ֻּג ְל ָּגלְּתִ י‬ ...‫עִּתֹו‬-‫ׁשּמָמֹון ְבֹּלא‬ ִ -‫ִמי ֵאּוׁש‬

28 This comparison appears in Abraham Hagorni-Green’s doctoral thesis, “Milḥamto.” Nonetheless, Hagorni-Green analyzes the poem “B’dmi ye’ush” [In my silence of despair] (which will be analyzed subsequently) not consistently, but rather as a poem in which there are rich formulistic expressions, of solely linguistic relevance, ‘and they do not form part of the concrete reality in the poem,’ but even so express the experiential poetics that the poet is trying to free himself from. 29 Hashilo’aḥ, Vol. 38, issue 3−4, 107−108 (September-October 1918), 274.

16 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

My muse has gone away and my heart is dizzy, And it is as if I have become deaf and mute. I worked for the sun – there is no reward or pay. I aspired to its light – where is the light Everything transpired–and is no more, never to return. And I wandered in the world, and will not know its name, And bitter despair chafes, child of emptiness, And neglect multiplies in the heart. Where are past flowers, multi-luminous and canopies That vanished like a clap of wings into the distance? I will yet see the playful sun’s rays, But my heart will not go towards them in joy… A wind came, that blew from the north, And it would sever the wondrous webs of dreams. Blasted to pieces, cast-off deities In the desolate corner… And a wild head of curls with a sorrowful heart I will withdraw and ponder in my corner of sadness And aspire to shatter my skull, helpless, With premature dreary despair… In this poem the speaker relays a feeling of loss and sorrow in a direct, flowery manner.³⁰ The second stanza, for example, is entirely built on general arguments. It has no image of any kind. The images in the poem are abstract symbols and not concrete reality. The sun symbolizes youthful idealism, the flower – the abstract being of beauty and its worship, and the wind symbolizes bitter reality. The speaker, full of pathos, does not succeed in persuading us of his feelings mainly because he conveys them in an abstract, bombastic manner. In the last lines of the stanzas, “And bitter despair chafes, child of emptiness,” “And aspire to shatter my skull, helpless/ With premature dreary despair,” the reader is even invited to complete the last sentence in his imagination. The 30 It is possible to see this floweriness in the immature embracing of Bialik’s sentimental, and even ‘exaggerated’ verses, such as: ‘I knew that my tears – a cup of my tears amid the ruins/ People will not shine, hearts will not be broken; because of the torrent of my spilled tears/ They are a cloud in the salt water wilderness;/ Because tears that became old from thousands of years of crying--/ Their powers have turned from melting the hearts of stones--/’ From “Ḥirḥure’i layla” [Night thoughts], Ḥaim Naḥman Bialik, Kol Shire’i Ḥ. N. Bialik [The collected poems of H. N. Bialik (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1997), 18. Also see a comparison by Abraham Ḥagorni-Green to the verse “Alone I will ponder in the darkness and I will smash/My head against my wall,” from “Tsanaḥ lo zalzel,” [He descended to degradation] in the above, Milḥamto, 198.

Mythologizing, de-mythologizing and death in “Leylot” (Nights) 

 17

poem’s speaker leans toward the didactic. “And it is as if I have become deaf and mute,” and he uses a language that is flowery and full of pathos which is incapable of transmitting feelings, such as “Where are past flowers, multi-luminous and canopies/, That vanished like a clap of wings into the distance?” or “And I wandered in the world, and will not know its name.”

Mythologizing, de-mythologizing and death in “Leylot” (Nights) In contrast to his pre-modernist poetry, the lyrical poetry in the modernist collection Stam displays an objective-correlative in T. S. Eliot’s term, to the sentiments and feelings directly expressed by the speaker in the previous poem. Some of the poems display symbolist mythologizing in which abstract entities are personified, such as the sun, the city, the evening, etc., while other poems describe concrete urban scenes in an expressionistic style. In the first mythic-symbolic style as well as in the second expressionistic one, the speaker disappears along with abstract expressions such as arguments and sayings. In the fifth section of the “Leylot” cycle³¹ in Stam, one can perceive the manner in which feelings and experiences are directly reported by the speaker in the poem “B’dmi ye’ush,” and undergo symbolic mythologizing.

‫ה‬ ‫ ְל ַחּי ִים‬-‫ְ ּבי ָד אֳדֻ ּמָה נָׂשָא ע ֶֶרב ּכֹוס‬ .‫ּשּׁכָרֹון‬ ִ ‫ׁשּפְַך י ֵינֹו ִמ‬ ֻ ‫ְואֶל הַּתְ ֵכלֶת‬ ‫ּופִתְ א ֹם‬ ‫נֹפֶת‬-‫ְ ּכאֶל ַמּפַת‬ ‫זָהָב עָט‬-‫ע ֲַרב ְַרב זְבּובֵי‬ .‫ּשׁ ַמי ִם‬ ָ ‫אֶל מֶתֶ ק ַה‬ .‫ַה ִּמׁשְּתֶ ה ּתָ ם‬ ‫וְרּוחֹות‬ ‫ּתֵ צֶאן ָ ְ ּכבָר ְל ַכ ֵבּד אֶת הָאּולָם ַהּמִתְ רוקֵן‬ ‫ַאף‬-‫ּו ָבח ֳִרי‬ ‫הִתְ נַ ְפּלּו עַל ַהזְּבּובִים ְל ַהב ְִריחָם‬ .‫מִן ה ְָרבָב‬ ‫ ֶאחָד‬-‫ׁשָם ָצנְחּו ֶאחָד‬-‫אֵי‬ ‫גַף‬-‫ּבֹקֶר נִ ְכאֵי‬-‫ּכֹו ְכבֵי‬ 31 Avraham Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira: Kol shire’i Avraham Shlonsky [Six volumes of poetry: the collected poems of Avraham Shlonsky], Vol. 1–6 (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 2002), 20.

18 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

Heh (Five) With a red hand the evening raised a toast And its wine was poured into the blue from drunkenness. And suddenly Like on a cloth dripping honey A swarm of golden flies Swooping on the sweetness of the skies. The banquet ended. And winds Will have already left to honor the emptying hall And in great anger They fall upon the flies to chase them out from the stain. Somewhere they dropped one by one Morning stars gloomy, alone. The poem depicts a consistent central metaphor in which the semantic field of the banquet serves as a vehicle for the sunset’s semantic field.³² Feelings of ending, finality and solitude are relayed in an “objective” imagistic manner. This poem gives no direct report of the poet’s soul as seen in the previous poem (“And neglect multiplies in the heart,” “I will withdraw and ponder in my corner of sadness / And aspire to shatter my skull, helpless”). The images create an atmosphere of cosmic sinking by attributing mythological personification to the evening and wind. The cosmic death both attracts and repels; the golden clouds, seemingly pastoral, pounce upon the dying day like flies on a corpse. The images succeed in creating “a desire for absence,” an ambivalent attitude based upon erotic attraction to the end of the day, which lends its meaning to the end of life. The sensuality in the poem, aspiring to absence, benefits from the mythic story. The first two verses of the poem are a kind of exposition broken by the third line, containing only two words: “And suddenly” (only one word in Hebrew). This verse of only two words creates a change in direction arousing curiosity and tension about what follows. In the fourth and fifth lines we don’t get what we expected – what has “suddenly” happened – but rather we get a description suspending the reader and heightening tension and curiosity. Only at the end of the stanza do we arrive at the object of desire “the sweetness of the skies.” The postponement serves to raise tension and creates desire for knowledge of the object, 32 For the use of the term ‘semantic field’ for analyzing metaphors, see Benjamin Harshav, Sadeh u’Misgeret: Masot b’teori’a shel sifrut [Field and frame: essays in the theory of literature] (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2000).

Mythologizing, de-mythologizing and death in “Leylot” (Nights) 

 19

which in this instance is a combination of an object which attracts, “sweetness,” together with the skies which here signify the end of the day, which imply the end of life. Apparently, in contrast to Shlonsky’s pre-modernist poetry, the collection Stam signifies objectification of the poet’s sense of his world. The objectification is generally directed at two areas: the cosmic realm where the sun, world, day, and night are god-actors, and the clear realm of the human – the modern city in which houses and streets also undergo personification. An attractive emptiness is generally conveyed by the scenes of sunset in the cosmic realm and scenes of solitude and urban alienation in the human one. The desire for absence undergoes dual objectification, in the natural, cosmic area − the sun, world, day, and night – and also in the patent human realm, the modern city. Section “Vav” (Six) of the same “Leylot” cycle and dealing with urban solitude and neglect immediately follows “Heh” which deals with the cosmic realm. Shlonsky clearly steers the reader to the contrast between the cosmic and human realms, in which the contrast reinforces what they have in common – a sense of a world of emptiness and departures.

‫ו‬ ‫סְרּוחִים ְרחֹובֹות מִתְ רֹו ְקנִים‬ ‫נִדְ ָחקִים אֶל ַא ְבנֵי הַחֹומֹות‬ .‫ִמּק ָָרה‬ ‫ׁשִּכֹור מֵַאח ֲֵרי ַהגָּדֵ ר ְמכ ְֻרּבָל ִ ּבבְלֹוָאיו‬ .‫ְו ֶאגְרֹופֹו לֹו ּכָר‬ ‫ׂשעִירֹות‬ ְ ‫ְ ּבכַּפֹות‬ ‫ַמע ֲֻרּמֵי ַהּגָדֵ ר י ְ ַח ְבּקּו‬ .‫ִצ ְללֵי אִילָנֹות‬ Vav (Six) Streets empty out to their full length Squeezing themselves up against the stones Against the cold. A drunk behind the fence curled up in his rags Uses his fist as a pillow. With hairy hands Shadows of trees Will hug the fence’s nakedness.

20 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

This portion of the poem reveals a clear expressionist influence.³³ The poem maintains an extreme reductionism reminiscent of Japanese haiku, and succeeds in describing a cold day in a large European city. The scene of the streets emptying out and squeezed, as it were, by the cold, provides background for the drunk’s close-up behind the fence, resting on his fist, while the shadows of the trees falling on the fence beside him awaken in the reader the need for the comfort of the hairy hands, which were supposed to embrace him. Poems of this sort can call into question the characteristics which had become the critical norm for Shlonsky’s poetry, because in this poem, as in others, there is no attempt to engineer amorphous, fluid, and emotional experiences and dry them up, as in Dan Miron’s description of Shlonsky’s poetry. Nonetheless, the criticism common to David Vogel, G. Shofman, Natan Zach, Meir Wieseltier, Chana Kronfeld and Michael Gluzman is not valid for this poem. Despite the huge differences among these critics, their basic argument is that Shlonsky’s poetry while virtuosic in its meter, rhyme, and linguistic wealth, is sterile and inauthentic emotionally. At times, this fundamental judgment appears as a rejection of the “bells and whistles” of Shlonsky’s poetry, as expressed by Shofman. At other times, this judgment itself receives a theoretic, formalistic and sophisticated expression, as in Zach’s criticism of the constant rhyme and meter in the poetry. And yet, at times the poetics itself is connected to “maximalism” in poetry – in other words to a rich, scholarly, and bombastic style, expressive of a socialist, Zionist, male viewpoint, according to the analyses of this style formulated by Chana Kronfeld and Michael Gluzman. A variation of this basic judgment appears in nearly ever place where Shlonsky’s poetry is mentioned. This criticism obscures a considerable portion of Shlonsky’s best poetry, of which the poem we are examining is an example. The verse “Streets empty out to their full length” convincingly conveys a characteristic scene of a homeless person in a European metropolis in a manner which is direct and not engineered, with free rhyme and meter and a thin and minimalist poetics. The experience of isolation and alienation is heightened and unrestrained by the image of the shadow of the trees which seemingly hug the naked fence, and emphasize the absence of actual contact of the trees with the fence, serving as a metaphor for the neglect and apathy that the world displays toward the drunk. The entire poem deals with emptiness, detachment, an internal void, and emotional deprivation, which is made harsher by the image of the hairy hands.

33 The expressionism in this poem expresses an abstract and essential relationship to the homeless drunk’s existence, with an emphasis on its extreme solitude.

Mythologizing, de-mythologizing and death in “Leylot” (Nights) 

 21

Solitude, similar to life’s end, is contrasted to the fullness of life and human social relations and this represents the theme of absence in Shlonsky’s poetry. Adopting such a perspective toward the world places the speaker on the border between life and death and affords the poet an external, transcendent perspective both on the life of the individual and society as a whole. This perspective is a focal part of the rhetoric of Shlonsky’s poetry. It situates a mythic-charismatic self who we heed owing to his unusual spiritual existence beyond ordinary daily life of the individual, in which the cosmic sunset and the city at twilight form an objective correlative to this spiritual existence. From this mythic and transcendental viewpoint, Shlonsky develops an ambivalent and complex attitude toward absence and nothingness in the collection Stam. In the section “Dalet” (Four) of the “Leylot” cycle, the poet, whose poems usually describe fear and terror of death, suddenly experiences a spiritual liberation from this fear, based on an intuition of life’s eternal nature.

ֹ ‫ְכּעורב‬ ‫ ָצה ֳַרי ִם‬-‫ׁשלֶג‬ ֶ ‫ְחֹורה עַל‬ ָ ‫ַמ ְטלִית ׂש‬ .‫לְאֹור יְמֵי ֻ ּכּלָם ָעב ְַרּתִ י‬ ‫ׁשבִים‬ ָ ‫ּבַחּוצֹות ִהסְּתֹודְ דו עֹוב ְִרים ְו‬ :(‫)ו ְַר ִבּים ּגַם ּבָכּו‬ .‫ַה ַּליְלָה נֶ ְעלַם ַהּמֵת‬ ‫ ַהּמ ְַראֲׁשֹות‬-‫ׁשנֵי נֵרֹות‬ ְ .‫עֲזּובִים עַל ה ִָר ְצּפָה יַעֲמ ֹדו‬ ‫ֹלא ָצ ַחקְּתִ י ַרק ָאנִי‬ .‫ִכּי ַּבנְּתִ י‬ ‫שׁר י ָמּות‬ ֶ ‫אֵין ּדָ בָר ֲא‬ .‫ּו ְל ִחּנָם הֻדְ לְקּו לְר ֹאׁשִי נֵרֹותַ י ִם‬ ‫ ָצה ֳַרי ִם‬-‫ׁשלֶג‬ ֶ ‫יֹום י ַ ְל ִבּין‬-‫ו ְַרק יֹום‬ :‫ְו ַהּלֵילֹות – לֵילֹות‬ .‫ְחֹורים לְֹלא קֵן‬ ִ ‫עֹורבִים ׁש‬ ְ Like a raven A black cloth on noon-snow In light of all the days I’ve left behind. In the squares passers-by whispered (And many also cried): The dead one disappeared tonight. Two candles at the head of the bed left on the floor to be raised to stand. I was the only one who didn’t laugh.

22 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

Because I understood: Nothing dies And the candles at my head were lit for no reason. And only daily will the noon-snow turn white And the nights – nights: Black ravens with no nest. The poem opens with a clear oxymoronic and expressionistic description of light and dark. The poem’s speaker compares himself to a black raven, which like a dust cloth cleans the days of his life. The second stanza is a separate scene, beginning with distance from the speaker, and we stand in front of a new scene in which the speaker undergoes a near death experience. In this scene the speaker sees himself as dead from an apparent objective distance and an inability for appeal. In the third stanza, the speaker understands that “nothing dies” and that the “noon-snow” which symbolizes the beautiful and illuminated, will exist eternally, and “daily will…turn white,” and it is precisely the black raven, death, which remains without a nest. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker sees himself as a raven who erases all days, whereas at the end of the poem, the same raven, symbolizing the poet’s identification with death as finite, remains without a nest; in other words, the raven does not find a home or place in the poet’s heart. The poem describes the process of liberation from the consciousness of death as an end. The speaker is the only one who doesn’t laugh because he has understood and become enlightened about death as something finite and as a cessation does not exist. The poem begins with identification with death’s nothingness and ends with enlightened recognition of eternal beauty and it is precisely death which has no place in the world. Shlonsky expresses in his poetry an array of relationships regarding absence. The foundation of his attitude toward absence is that of the heroic poetic speaker, empowered by contact with the basic truth of life’s finitude which penetrates and undermines life’s daily web. The collection Stam ends with the group of poems “Al Hasaf” (On the threshold),³⁴ which expresses Shlonsky’s near obsessive preoccupation with death. The opening poem, “Al Hasaf,” also begins with an oxymoronic image, similar to the fourth poem of the “Leylot” cycle, which described “A black cloth on noon-snow.” Here, too, the oxymoronic image intermingles light and dark in a paradoxical manner. The first stanza:

34 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Vol. 1, 41–45.

Existential dread and the parody of dread in “Al Hasaf” (On the threshold)  

 23

‫ְחֹורה דֹולֵק לֹו ַה ַּלי ִל‬ ָ ‫ַּכאֲבּוקָה ׁש‬ ‫עַל סַף הַָאי ִן‬ .‫ׁשָם‬ ‫ּולְאֹורֹו נִ ְצעַן ַחי ִל ַאחַר ַחי ִל‬ ‫ ַעי ִן‬-‫עֲצּומֵי‬ .‫סְתָ ם‬ Like a black torch the night lights On the threshold of nothingness There. And by its light army upon army roam Eyes closed Randomly. The image of death as a raven wiping the noon snow with a dust cloth in the fourth poem becomes a black torch leading vague and meaningless life into nothingness.

Existential dread and the parody of dread in “Al Hasaf” (On the threshold) While the previous segment from “Leylot” leads to spiritual enlightenment regarding life or the eternal essence, the group of poems “Al Hasaf” is dedicated to the feelings of loss which originate in the recognition of death’s finitude and the dread this arouses. In contrast to the cycle “Leylot,” some of the poems in this group can be described as suffering from what various critics discerned as “a lack of poetic authenticity.” This is not a problem of the theme which is no longer relevant to the contemporary reader, whose steady secularism has dulled the dread of death felt by the reader living closer to the period of the loss of religious faith. Arguments about a lack of conviction regarding the dread and terror of death can already be found in Shofman’s criticism (1932) of the Ktuvim circle.³⁵ A lack of conviction regarding the experience’s authenticity is not coincidental here and represents a poetics deviating from experiential poetics. Thematically, these poems express an existential dread; however, their form contradicts the experience they represent. This group of poems accedes to Dan Miron’s analysis that 35 Ktuvim – a weekly literary magazine published in Tel Aviv from 1926 to 1933 and edited by Avraham Shlonsky and Eliezer Steinman. Ktuvim represented literary modernism in contrast to the romantic generation preceding it.

24 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

they indeed do express the terror of the experience, although in a light, entertaining, and witty manner. Readers who were looking for a heightened, authentic emotion or psychological realism were disappointed by the poetry’s emphasis of the pleasure derived from the poetic language. Reading the poems dealing with absence in the collection Stam uncovers several dominant positions in the relationship between the form and themes of the poem. The poem “B’yad adumah” (With a red hand) from the poem cycle “Leylot” is read as a tempting legend. The poem’s free verse and the structure of its verses strengthen its narrative effects, such as suspense and curiosity. The form draws us to the dying sunset’s repellant and attractive beauty. The poem “S’ruḥim reḥovot mitroknim” (Streets empty out to their full length) uses a “lean” language and free verse in order to heighten the experience. It could be said that only some of the poems in the collection respond to the characteristics of meter, regular rhyme, unrealistic transitions, and severance from concrete human experience – characteristics which furnished Natan Zach’s attacks (on Alterman) and Dan Miron’s defense.³⁶ In light of this multiplicity, the reader is confused by Shlonsky’s attitude to the existential theme of these poems. Does the poet set up a parody of expressionism’s existential assumptions in these light and rhymed poems with fixed meter, such as in “Tarnegolet b’dam tedadeh” (The chicken in blood falters)? Indeed, if he had seriously paid attention to expressionist norms, he would have used a “wild”, unorganized form, attempting to express the experience in language inattentive to artistic norms such as rhyme and meter. If he did make the attempt, as Miron argues, to “dry up” and “engineer” experiences by means of witty poetry, the question arises as to the meaning of all the poems in which form serves to heighten the experience. And as to the poems which give voice to a witty poetics, what could the motivation have been for this “wild” Third Aliyah expressionist poet to have embraced a poetics of wit? The collection Stam marks an experimental stage in Shlonsky’s poetry and he conducts many experiments in the relationship between form and content while maintaining constant experiences and themes. This experimental multiplication of styles is not a preparation for another completed and confirmed poetry, but rather it is a modernist value in itself, inasmuch as a multiplicity of forms creates 36 This defense was expressed in Dan Miron, Arba panim b’sifrut ha’ivrit bat-yamenu: iyunim b’yetsirot Alterman, Ratush, Yizhar, Shamir [Four aspects of contemporary Hebrew literature: studies in the works of Alterman, Ratush, Yizhar, Shamir] (Jerusalem: Shocken, 1978) and was expanded upon and developed in his book Meprat el ikar: mivne genre v’hagut b’shirato shel Natan Alterman [From detail to the essential: structure, genre, and thought in Natan Alterman’s poetry] (Tel Aviv, Hakibbutz Hame’uḥad, 1981).

The futurism of immigrants – the collection B’ḥefazi (In my haste)  

 25

a complex, many-sided relationship to theme. This poetry, which proclaims its experimentation and multiplicity of styles, gives rise to a critical distance from a perspective on the world emphasizing the existential threat, without denying the existence of such a threat. It may be that this is the motivation behind Shlonsky’s witty poetry and not the espousal of a witty style due to solely aesthetic considerations. In the name of complexity, which was a key value for Shlonsky, the poet alternately takes on both the pathos of the existential vision and the irony of that same vision by employing a witty poetics contradicting the sense of that world. Instead of forcing the reader to believe in a certain type of existence, or that certain facts are the basis for existence (as, for example, Uri Zvi Greenberg did), the light and entertaining poems subvert the seriousness and devotion which make it possible to adopt an existential world view, easily creating “meaning” and gravitas, and which places its spokesperson as an authority. Shlonsky also hints to us that this serious, existential world view is ultimately “arbitrary.”

The futurism of immigrants – the collection B’ḥefazi (In my haste) If in the collection Stam the poet displayed his expressionist and symbolist abilities, in the collection B’hefazi there are futurist characteristics as well as expressionist ones. There is a particular emphasis in this collection on speed, newness, chaos, attraction to the sordid, and freedom from place and tradition. The opening poem, for example, presents a speaker who wants to lose himself within the world’s chaos in madness and insanity, a speaker who seeks union with dirty, base things:

‫אִם ּתֵ בֵל ׁשִּכֹור ְוקָרּו ַע‬ ‫ֲאנִי הּוא ׁשִירֹו ַהּפָרּו ַע‬ .‫ֲאנִי ַהּשִׁיר‬ ‫אִם ּתֵ בֵל ֶּכלֶב ׁשֹוטֶה‬ ‫ּשׂפָתָ יו נֹוטֵף‬ ְ ‫ֲאנִי ה ִָריר ִמ‬ .‫ֲאנִי ה ִָריר‬ ‫ ַּגעְּגּועִים‬-‫ֲאנִי ַה ֶּגבֶר טְרּוף‬ ‫עַל ִּגלְּגּול ַאחֵר‬ ‫ִּגלְּגּול ָאדָ ם‬ If the world is drunk and torn I am its wild poem I am the poem.

26 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

If the world is an idiotic dog I am the drool dripping from its lips I am the drool. I am the man mad with longing for another incarnation. An incarnation of man.³⁷ Several critics have emphasized that drunkenness expresses the true nature of the world. The poet and the poem are a by-product of the modern world.³⁸ Other critics have stressed the similarity to symbolism, which also emphasizes life’s more repugnant aspects.³⁹ Representing the world’s sickness already exists in symbolism, but a case can be made that the self’s total identification with these repugnant aspects perhaps reaches its height in the post-symbolist currents, such as futurism. The desire of the self to become lost in a mad, revolting world is similar to the desire for loss of self in the futurist manifesto. In the futurist manifesto (1909), published by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, we can find sentences such as the following: Let us leave good sense behind like a hideous husk and let us hurl ourselves like fruit spiced with pride into the immense mouth and breast of the world! […] Let us feed the unknown, not from despair, but simply to enrich the unfathomable reservoirs of the Absurd! As soon as I had said these words, I turned sharply back on my tracks with the mad intoxication of puppies biting their tails.⁴⁰

Even A. B. Yoffe describes the poet as seeking to identify and become part of that mad, dizzying drunkenness: The madness of the world, with its foundations in question and its stable values breached, is seen in the image of a macabre fair in which carrion, skeletons removed from the scaffold, thieves, prostitutes and pug-nosed drunks intermingle. And the poet is among them – desiring to identify with them, to go down to the depths of hell, to taste the wormwood of self-mortification, symbol of man’s humiliation during this period.⁴¹

37 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Vol. 1, 49. 38 Boaz Arpaly, Ḥedvot Hahashva’a: Tmorot b’shira ha’ivrit hamodernit [The joys of comparison: transformations in modern Hebrew poetry] (Tel Aviv: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, Hakibbutz Hame’uḥad. 2004), 113. 39 Dov Landau, Iduna shel she’aga: Prakim b’yesodot hashira halirit [The refinement of the roar: chapters in the fundamentals of lyric poetry] (Tel Aviv: Papyrus, 1990), 203. 40 James Joll, Three Intellectuals in Politics (New York: Pantheon, 1960), 180. 41 Yoffe, Shlonsky, 181.

The futurism of immigrants – the collection B’ḥefazi (In my haste)  

 27

Many poems in this collection are clearly futuristic in style, such as the poem “Honolulu,”⁴² in which syntax is “destroyed,” nouns are arranged side by side and images appear consecutively, as in the opening of the second part of “Honululu,” “Akeda” (Binding):

‫ַע ְכׁשָו ְ ּכבָר ּגָדֹול ָאנֹכִי‬ ‫ִ ּפ ֵ ּק ַח‬ !ַ‫ַאי ִ ּפ ֵ ּקח‬ .‫סְתָ ו‬ ‫צְלֹוף ּדֶ לֶף‬ .‫סְטֹור רּו ַח עַל ֶלחִי‬ .ַ‫ׁשחַק צֹאֶה מִתְ י ַ ֵ ּפח‬ ַ ‫ורחֹוב מּול‬ ְ ‫ׁשוָן‬ ְ ‫ו ְֶרגֶל ּבֹו ֶססֶת ּב ֹץ אֱלּול ּתִ ׁש ְֵרי ֶח‬ .‫ׁשנָה‬ ָ .‫ֶאלֶף‬ .‫ה’ּתַ ְרּפַ”ג‬ Now I’m already big. Smart Oh smart! Autumn. Whipping dripping The slap of the wind on my cheek. And a street opposite eroding sobbing filth. And a foot trampled in mud Elul Tishrei Ḥeshvan A year. A millennium. The year 5683. Hillel Barzel characterizes the poem “Honululu” as significantly different from the poetic tradition preceding it: the combination of rhymes is random; the rhythm is totally free, and the long line is replaced by a short one. However, Barzel does not see in this poem “dogmatic traces and enlistment in the futurist school, but rather a design suited to theme and tone. ‘The great, last binding’ of a leprous world, must be heard with a wild rhythm and be issued in asymmetric forms.”⁴³ 42 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Vol. 1, 84−−88. 43 Hillel Barzel, Shirat Eretz Yisrael: Avraham Shlonsky, Natan Alterman, Leah Goldberg [Poems of the Land of Israel: Avraham Shlonsky, Natan Alterman, Leah Goldberg] (Tel Aviv: Sifri’at Hapoalim, 2001), 89–90. This collection is also not uniform, and next to poems nearer to futur-

28 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

Perhaps the very lack of “dogmatic traces” and non- “enlistment in the futurist school” noted by Hillel Barzel, are related to Shlonsky’s ambivalence regarding some of the values adhered to by the futurists. In contrast to futurists who espoused definite and content-laden values, such as the technological future, war, life’s fast pace, and the social revolution, Shlonsky’s futurism lacked any specific, positive content. The collection does not unequivocally support values such as the technological future, and certainly it does not support values of war, but rather it represents modern existence as one in a hurry, with an absence of positive vision. The chaotic view of reality in the collection does not include a vision of redemption. The speaker aspires to merge with the nihilistic spirit of the time, a spirit destructive of the old world, but with no clear plan for the new one. The collection presents the poet as someone who seeks to live a continuous, personal revolution. For example, the poem “Honolulu” in which the masses as well as the poet aspire to an exotic, unknown place, is a symbol of the speaker’s aspiration to uproot himself and turn his life into a modernist experiment in exotic and peripheral places and languages. It may be that the poem even expresses a self-consciousness, inasmuch as the choice of Hebrew and the Land of Israel is a peripheral, irrational, strange, and destructive choice, although an inevitable one. Indeed, Europe was undergoing a process of self-destruction, positioning itself on the stake. Honolulu is not a specific place, but rather it signifies the ends of the earth. Emigration and movement are placed within the general framework where Europe is burning and must be fled for other locations, nearly all of them similarly peripheral and “exotic.” The emphasis on emigration and wandering lends a uniqueness to the collection B’ḥefazi. In this collection, Shlonsky is influenced by the cubo-futurist poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky,⁴⁴ although he also preserves his thematic uniqueness. Symptomatic of this is the group each one of the poets identifies with. While the Communist Mayakovsky joins the economically exploited, Shlonsky joins the refugees and immigrants. The emphasis on the universal refugee and immigrant, and the emigration to the Land of Israel was ism in style, such as “Honolulu” (which break syntax, use series of nouns, etc.) some of the poems show a moderation of the style, such as “B’hefazi.” See Ḥaya Shaḥam, Krovim reḥokim: ben-textuali’ut, maga’im u’ma’avakim b’sifrut ha’ivrit heḥadasha [Distant relatives: intertextuality, contacts and struggles in new Hebrew literature] (Beersheba: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2004), 111–112. 44 Communist futurism is differentiated from Italian futurism by its emphasis on proletarian aspects of literary activity. Literary activity is a kind of industrial activity and the word becomes the material that undergoes processing, etc. Likewise, Communist futurism, as its name indicates, was committed to Communism and dealt with propaganda for the Soviet regime. See Harshav (ed.), Manifestim, 39–44, 72−78.

The futurism of immigrants – the collection B’ḥefazi (In my haste)  

 29

only one option among several distant destinations considered “the ends of the earth” at that time, such as America and Honolulu. The emphasis on the universal immigrant and refugee adopts the Zionist viewpoint and at the same time contradicts it. These poems of Shlonsky’s surprised and annoyed the critics and audience with their exclusively universal emphasis, which seemed to separate them from their target audience. Nevertheless, it was logical that a Zionist viewpoint such as Shlonsky’s would emphasize those who found themselves outside the national state which at that time was only within the realm of an aspiration for many.⁴⁵ The collection concentrates on the daring and vulnerability of the lone immigrant and also on the chaos of being a refugee and emigrating against the backdrop of World War I and the Communist Revolution. Shlonsky universalizes the situation of the Jews in Europe who formed part of dozens of other small nationalities with similar fates at that time. Indeed “the framing story” of the poem is not the specific problems of the Jewish people, but rather the escape and mass emigration from Europe, “a new journey of the beginning of the human race.”⁴⁶ Just as Mayakovsky set himself at the head of the workers, students and prostitutes, in other words, in the forefront of those lacking money and the economically exploited, so Shlonsky’s speaker places himself as the speaker for the wanderers and essentially, for the immigrants and refugees. Shlonsky’s attitude toward immigrants and the masses in general, similar to his attitude toward other aspects of modern existence, expresses a complex and ambivalent position. In his writings, “Lo Tirtsaḥ” (Thou shalt not kill) and “Ta’anot u’ma’anot” (Arguments and responses), he warns against the capriciousness of the masses who, in a kind of mass psychosis or epidemic, follow “barbaric and reactionary ideals,”⁴⁷ and he stresses the importance of the artist’s autonomy and intrinsic motivation. Indeed, the poem “Asafsuf” (Rabble) begins with the speaker’s first person opposition to the crowd.⁴⁸

.‫ׁש ְַרּתֶ ם ְואִיׁש ִמּכֶם ֹלא ׁשַָאג‬ !‫קֵץ‬ :‫ סְתָ ו ְוהֵד ֹלא ָלעַג‬:‫ֲאמ ְַרּתֶ ם‬ !‫ׁשקֶר לֵץ‬ ֶ 45 For the constitutive and symmetrical relation between nationalism and Diaspora see Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays (London: Granta Books, 2000), 176. 46 Barzel, Shirat Eretz-Yisrael, 87. 47 Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 28. 48 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Vol. l, 55–58.

30 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

‫עַל ּכֵן ֲה ַלכְּתֶ ם ְואִיׁש מ ְַרּגְלֹותֵ יכֶם ֹלא הִתְ ַר ֵפּס‬ !‫עֹוד‬ ?‫מִי ִ ּב ֵקּׁש ז ֹאת ִמּי ֶדְ כֶם ִכּי תָ בֹואּו‬ :‫ּשׁוְא יְגַעְּתֶ ם ּפ ֹה ְל ַה ְכ ִכּיב אֶת הַּב ֹהּו‬ ָ ‫ַל‬ !‫נִגְלָה הַּסֹוד‬ !‫ֲה ַלכְּתֶ ם – טֹוב מְא ֹד‬ You sang and no one among you roared: End! You said: Autumn and no echo mocked: Lie clown! For that you left and no one lay down at your feet Yet! Who asked of you to come? You tired yourselves out here for no reason to strew stars in the chaos: The secret has been revealed! You left − very good! The poem criticizes and ridicules the masses. It asks them to have no influence upon the individual. The speaker opposes the way in which the masses try to give a transcendental, romantic meaning to their lives by means of a political ideology (“to strew stars in the chaos”), by giving significance to a naked modern existence, devoid of meaning and secrecy. However, in the third part of the poem, the speaker moves to first person plural, and speaks in the name of a group of an explicit nature and whose predominant characteristic is that it consists of wanderers and exiles. The masses, the immigrants, and the exiles – only they have the ability to experience true spirituality, because they are the ones who “ask” and the ones who “desire.” The first verses of the third part are a paean to those same wanderers:

‫ג‬ ‫ ֹלא נַעֲמ ֹד ִמ ֶּלכֶת‬:‫ׁש ַּבעְנּו‬ ְ ִ‫נ‬ .‫ּשׁחִי‬ ֶ ‫ְוכָל מְא ֹדֵ נּו מִּתַ חַת ַל‬ ‫ׁש ֶּלכֶת‬ ַ ‫יֹורקֶת‬ ֶ ‫ִלק ְַראת ּכָל רּו ַח‬ .‫סֹוט ֶֶרת עַל ֶלחִי‬ Gimel (Three) We swore: we will not stand still With all our might under our arm.

The futurism of immigrants – the collection B’ḥefazi (In my haste)  

 31

Toward any wind spitting autumn leaves Slapping a cheek. Those who swore to wander toward “any wind spitting autumn leaves” are a symbol of the soul that suffers but affirms modern times – the force of history that bursts and sweeps away – or the uncontrollable natural force, as Shlonsky called it, following the lead of Alexander Blok.⁴⁹ The historic force is symbolized here and in the following sections by the wind and the rain; the speaker asks them to masochistically mortify him with their “Christian” punishments of spitting and slaps. The wandering masses are represented in the fourth section as if the sun itself was peeking out at them; in other words, true spirituality belongs to those who aspire to an unknown future in another place.

– ‫ֹלא ְמ ַעּטִים ָאנּו‬ !‫ַר ִבּים‬ ‫ׁשמֶׁש לָנּו‬ ֶ ‫ׁשוְא ֵמ ָעבִים ֵהצִיץ‬ ָ ‫ֹלא‬ .‫ׁשנַ ִבּים‬ ְ ‫ְ ּכמִן ֶא‬ ‫א ַך ּדֶ לֶף י ַָרק ַּב ָּפנִים‬ .‫רּו ַח ִה ְצלִיף ְבּׁשֹוט‬ !ַ‫ּדֶ לֶף! רּוח‬ !‫עֹוד‬ Not few are we – many! Not in vain did the sun peek at us from the clouds Like from behind a grille. But dripping spit on our faces. The wind whipped us. Dripping! Wind! More! The affirmation of wandering and immigration in the poem is not detracted from or moderated by the inconsistent rhyme and meter, but rather is reinforced and heightened by the drumming, driven movement they create. Thus, the critical agreement – in which a constant rhythm and set rhyme are the factors moderating and distancing the poem from a strong, emotional expressiveness – finds its contradiction in these futurist poems of Shlonsky’s, in which the rhythm and 49 Avrham Shlonsky, “Al tslav Halirika (5 shanim l’mot Blok)” [On the lyric cross – 5 year anniversary of Blok’s death], Ktuvim, Ed. 6, August 27, 1926, 2–3.

32 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

rhyme in fact heighten the experience. The necessity of universal wandering and immigration implies even the poet himself whose departure from home in the poem “B’ḥefazi” is not represented in a specific Zionist context, such as a description of longing for the Land of Israel, a feeling of strangeness in Europe, or becoming a Zionist against the backdrop of anti-Semitism. The poem, “B’ḥefazi,” which gives the title to the book of poems directly following “Asafsuf,” focuses on the poet himself as a cosmopolite. The poet leaves his homeland, the Ukraine and is on his way. In the first part of the second stanza he gives reasons for his departure:

:‫ָאמ ְַרּתִ י‬ ‫ׁש ַמי ִם‬ ָ ‫ ַּבי ִת ֲאנִי ּתַ חַת ּגַג ּכָל‬-‫ֶבּן‬ ‫ָאדָ ם ִכּי ַרּבּו‬-‫ׁש ְכּנֹות‬ ְ ‫ּו ְב ָח ְפזִי ֵבּין ִמ‬ ‫ש ֹדֶ ה‬ ָ -‫ּפ ֹה ֶאלְק ֹט ּכֹו ָכבִים ְכג ְַרּג ְֵרי‬ ‫ׁשָם אִינֵק ֵמ ַחּמָה ֲעגֻּלָה ְ ּכׁשַד‬ I said: I am at home under the roof of the entire sky and in my haste between the dwellings of man which have multiplied here I’ll gather stars like seeds of the field there I will nurse from the sun round as a breast Again, and in contrast to the lyrical norm of Bialik “at his foundation” and Uri Zvi Greenberg “to his right,” Shlonsky emphasizes his lack of commitment to nationalist or social values, and commits to a personal-revolutionary life style taking its life force from nature and wandering at the expense of a stabilizing ideology. In Shlonsky’s poems, “Yarid” (Fair), and “Honolulu,” no revolutionary future can resolve the tensions and bring about redemption. There is a scene of an international exodus, in which all humanity moves to new locations. Honolulu, the faraway place of some primitive past, is linked to America, a place no less distant or exotic, symbolizing the future as the preferable destination for the immigrants.

!‫– הַּסּו !הַּסּו‬ !‫– י ְדַ ֵבּר צ ְָרפָתִ ית‬ !‫– ַאנְ ְּגלִית‬ !‫– ס ְֶר ִבּית‬ !‫ּפֹורטּוגָלִית‬ ְ – !‫– ֶא ְסקִימֹוסִית‬ :ַ‫שֹפַת ֶא ְס ֶפ ַּרנְטֹו ֵצחָה יֹודִ יע‬ ְ ‫ָאז יֵצֵא ַהּכָרֹוז ּו ִב‬ ‫ָמחָר‬

The futurism of immigrants – the collection B’ḥefazi (In my haste)  

 33

‫ עִיר‬-‫אֹורלֹוגִין‬ ְ ‫ְ ּבהַּכֹות ּבַָאחֲרֹונָה‬ ‫ש ֵֹרה ַּפעַם‬ ְ ‫ ֶע‬-‫ְ ּבט ֶֶרם ל ְִרסִיסִים יְנֻּפַץ ׁשְּתֵ ים‬ ‫ׁשנָּה‬ ָ ‫י ַ ְפלִיגּו ִמנְמַל לֹונְדֹון הָעֹולָה ַּב ֲע‬ :‫ ְר ָבבָה טִי ַטנִּיקִים‬-‫ַא ְלפֵי‬ !‫– ַל ֲאמ ִֵריקָה‬ −Hush! Hush! −He’ll speak French! −English! −Serbian! −Portuguese! −Eskimo! A proclamation will go out and in pure Esperanto will announce: Tomorrow At the last stroke of the city clock Before it explodes to bits twelve times From the port of London rising in smoke Tens of thousands of Titanics will sail: To America! The choice to thus represent America not only shows its preferential place in representing immigrants and refugees, but a preference owing to being a preferred destination for futurist descriptions in the Russian avant-garde.⁵⁰ In an intentional absence of a positivist Communist or national solution to the anarchy and chaos reigning in the world, the picture created is of a kind of futile tumult which can only be overcome by espousing it. In contrast to Russian and Italian futurism, there are no clear, positive values in this poem, such as class solidarity or belief in race and nation, or in a technological future promising meaningful, societal change; rather, there is a devotion to its description of meaninglessness in the tumult of modern existence. If in the collection Stam, absence is depicted by metaphysical, symbolist scenes of a setting sun wherein the speaker experiences his finitude, here he loses himself in the whirlwind of the modern world.

50 At least two of the LEF group, the central group of the Soviet artistic avant-garde (1923–1929), devoted one main work to America, which was perceived by the group as a place where a kind of technological futurism was being realized. Sergei Eisenstein asked to make a film about America, but was rejected by Hollywood and made a documentary called “Viva Mexico.” Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote a travel novel entitled My Discovery of America. Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kakh giliti et America [My discovery of America], trans. Edna Kornfeld (Merḥavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1950).

34 

 The Collections Stam (Ordinarily) and B’ḥefazi (In my Haste)

As we have seen in the first poem, the poet compares the world to an idiotic dog and maintains, “I am the drool dripping from its lips / I am the drool.” The idiot dog lacks self-control, and similarly, the world and its people described in the collection create a modern, international Tower of Babel of refugees and immigrants who no longer have control over their lives. According to Shlonsky, the brave path to cope with modern existence is to adhere to this existence and be actively swept away by it instead of opposing it. The desire for absence in this collection is the desire to “ride” the nihilistic chaos of the modern.

Chapter Two Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa Immigration to Palestine as romantic nihilism Immigration (aliyah) to Palestine was not an obvious choice for Shlonsky whose ideology was modernist and universalist. Modernism espoused internationalism, and most modernist artists chose, both practically and based on principle, to emigrate from their countries of the periphery to artistic centers in the large cities of Western Europe. Many of them wanted to feel foreign in their surroundings. Modernism was a movement that was neither popular nor easily understood by the general public, and its various factions were engaged in constant battles. As a result, large artistic centers were a necessity for the modern artist’s survival. In light of this, Shlonsky’s choice, the choice of a modernist-Zionist artist to immigrate to Palestine was many-sided and more ambivalent than the critics and public were prepared to admit (the critics and public were committed to Zionism to an extent which did not allow them to express such ambivalence). Shlonsky’s reception as a representative of socialist Zionism was a projection of the later Shlonsky who was to assume a clear political identity¹ unto the earlier Shlonsky. The critics saw him as a committed poet who emphasized the affirmative and constructive building of the land, and as a master whose output in translations and editing was great. His choice to immigrate to Palestine was, in their eyes, complete, logical, and in a strange way, obvious. In contrast to the critics’ rendering, Shlonsky’s choice to immigrate to the Palestine must be examined in historical context, in contrast to the central alternatives available to him at that time. For a poet who wanted to be an influential modernist, the choice of Palestine expressed a kind of romantic nihilism. At that time, Palestine was a peripheral, distant location, unconnected to world centers of culture and literature. In the period of Shlonsky’s immigration to Israel in 1919, it was not clear that Palestine would become a principal center of Jewish and Hebrew culture. Among the alternatives available to him, perhaps the most natural choice, and the one which remained even after he had rejected it, was to join in the building of Russia’s new revolutionary culture in its major cities. This

1 See Avraham Shlonsky, “Et l’hizdahut” [Time to identify], Itim, 15, January 30, 1948, 2.

36 

 Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa

possibility attracted Shlonsky, and for years he conducted an internal and external dialogue with it.² Shlonsky, like many others, was drawn to the Russian Revolution.³ Nonetheless, he felt that it threatened him as a Zionist Jew inasmuch as Marxist ideology didn’t line up with the historical changes in the status of the Jews, particularly not with the nationalist Zionist ideology. On the one hand, there was Shlonsky’s attraction to and admiration for the Communist avant-garde, and on the other hand, there was his awareness of the significant ideological differences between himself and Zionism; these created a need to interpret and represent his immigration to Palestine and his pioneering work as “a small revolution,” taking place alongside the big revolution. The common ground between the two revolutions would have been an abstraction, and therefore created a need to relinquish central Marxist principles, most importantly class struggle and the commitment to worldwide revolution, and a need to suppress Zionism’s colonialist aspects which were completely contradictory to Marxism-Leninism. In spite of this and in order to create common ground with the Communist revolution, the writers and thinkers of that time neither interpreted that revolution as connected with Marxism, nor did they interpret it through the romantic prism of the “stormy Russian soul” of the Revolution’s big personalities (Lenin, Trotsky, etc.), nor did they attribute a universal, ahistorical, spiritual essence to the Revolution. Uri Zvi Greenberg’s attitude toward Lenin is an example of the monumental style of representing the Revolution by its leading figures: In the gospel for working humanity Lenin bleeds like a red magnet. They nearly fail in a supernatural religiosity. It is already possible to believe in a miracle and redemption and in the force of the reign of the single man. It is impossible – no if will is there! The heretical, worn-out nation, emptied of its mosques, will again become religious, mourning Lenin, will go again, as it went before, in a religious procession to his funeral. The Kremlin bells will ring and they will be heard in their religious trembling. Seen among the icons will be: Lenin. – It was said: the flags that were lowered as a sign of mourning in Moscow, are a tapestry of the faithful workers in all lands.

2 Shlonsky’s most diverse and richest exchange of letters is with Jewish poets and writers who chose to remain in Russia. See Avraham Shlonsky, Mikhtavim l’yehudim b’Brit HaMoatzot (Kinus, he’arot v’petaḥ davar Aryeh Aharoni [Letters to Jews in the Soviet Union] (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1977). 3 A description of the “one-sided love” of the Zionist leadership for the Russian Revolution can be found in Anita Shapira, “’Black Night – White Snow’: Attitudes of the Palestinian Labor Movement to the Russian Revolution, 1917–1929,” in Studies in Contemporary Jewry an Annual IV: The Jews and the European Crisis, 1914–21, edited by Jonathan Frankel, Oxford University Press, 1988.

Reception of the poem “Gilboa” 

 37

Also it is the simple cloth, the handiwork of the workers. The shadow too on the houses of the masters! The Hebrew proletariat on the Hebrew island stands facing Moscow in salute to Lenin’s funeral!⁴

Shlonsky, on the other hand, chose to relate to the Revolution through radical abstraction. Regarding the October Revolution, he did not see its importance in its influence upon the lives of the Russian people and their neighbors, nor in its universal historical significance; rather he saw its importance in its embodiment of an essential and eternal spiritual quality, the “spirit of revolt” and “the quest for the tempest.” In the manifesto, “Ra’ananut” (Freshness), he writes: It is not true, Mr. Y. R. that ‘only the young’s strength lays in the storm…a middle age’s [strength lays] in quiet in style.’ Breakdown and Bereavement was written precisely in middle age, and Maxim Gorky himself (and not the young Igor Severyanin) lent an ear (and in his middle age!) and also actively participated in the Russian Revolution, in the tempest. Apparently, indecision does not depend upon age, and the tempest – is a fundamental quality of the spirit, which cannot be altered according to the clock.⁵

According to Shlonsky, the Sturm und Drang in the negation of the present are eternal human qualities. These qualities are not dependent upon the specific age of the individual in question or the historical period. They are fundamental and have received full expression in the mythic past of the prophets in the Old Testament and found contemporary expression with the poet Shlonsky himself. Shlonsky’s Zionism, with its key poetic expression in his pioneering poetry, presents immigration to Palestine and the pioneering act as an irrational, religious-masochisticromantic one, and its nihilistic aspects count for more than its constructive ones. It is an act which relies upon an atmosphere that is dark, uncertain, complex, and steeped in itself, a kind of salvation through suffering and negation of self.

Reception of the poem “Gilboa” Shlonsky’s pioneering poetry in the collection Gilboa (1924) is a clear example of a mood of seeking salvation through suffering, although the poems are seemingly constructivist, extolling the pioneer’s work in general, and specifically, its material and physical connection to nature. Indeed, critics who were committed 4 Uri Zvi Greenberg, Kol Katevav [The complete writings], Volume 15 (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 2004), 34. The bold in all the quotes are in the original. 5 Shlonsky, “Ra’ananut,” 203.

38 

 Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa

to the Zionist project hastened to represent these poems as possessing a theme of redemptive building, although they ignored the desire for destruction underlying it.⁶ Israel Levin, for example, exclusively attributes the work ethos of the members of the Third Aliyah to these poems. It has already been said that the landscape was conquered by human toil. Therefore we find in “Gilboa” a surging hymn to toil. Toil was the concrete expression of the renewed covenant between the Jewish individual and nature. More than revealing an intellectual attitude to the value of creative work, it is the revelation of an emotional, nearly mystical attitude. To a certain degree, this was the attitude of the generation to labor, the generation’s ritual of labor. They saw in it the depth of the revolutions in national and social life. They saw in it a strong force to bring about change and release from life’s convolutions, the one gate open to redemption. It was an end in itself. And thus, it had the ability to be the source of individual happiness, to attract abundance to his soul, to redeem him from its shells. In hard work there was great celebration, in hard work – joy and satiety of spirit. This is a time to dance the hora late at night, adorned by the Hasidic yearning for redemption. It is a time of beautiful nights in Canaan, sung with devotion by the tent flaps at the start of a day of toil. Therefore, the hymn to labor, “Gilboa,” is the hymn to hard work – and to happiness. Prominent is the deep, humane sentiment of revolution, with labor as its concrete expression […] [S]ometimes we hear the ritual of flesh, the ritual of the body, blood, in its rhymes. And in this context also praise for the savage fingernails, cracked and horny skin, salty sweat streaming over the body to bedew ‘my body like a morning field.’⁷

A. B. Yoffe sees in these poems “a deep poetic expression of the struggles of the young Hebrew laborer regarding the connection to the spiritual and the material, the realization of the existent, the putting down of roots in the growing and building enterprise in the earth.”⁸ Levin and others make a connection between the appearance and feelings of the pioneer and the work: “In the adoration of the cumbersome outer appearance, the dirt, the bare feet, the exposed chest. The inebriation of freedom, of the earth, of real simplicity, an inebriation of bare feet and messianic mystery in relation to redemptive toil.”⁹ Indeed, the pioneer appears in these poems in Tolstoy’s Russian version of the noble savage of Rousseau, in the Russian rustic outfit of white shirt and bare 6 Dan Laor from a greater historical distance points out work as having a “religious” status in the discourse of the Third Aliyah in general and in the collection of poems Gilboa specifically. Dan Laor, “Shire’i Gilboa v’ha’etos shel ha’aliyah hashlishit: he’arot petiḥa” [The Gilboa poems and the ethos of the Third Aliyah: opening remarks] Mozna’im 49 (1979) 7 Yisrael Levin, Ben gdi l’sa’ar – iyunim b’shirat Shlonsky [Between a kid goat and a tempest – a study of Shlonsky’s poetry] (Merḥavia: Sifriat Poalim/ K’tavim, Hakibbutz Ha’artsi Hashomer Hatsa’ir, 1960), 53-54. 8 Yoffe, Shlonsky, 23. 9 Levin, Ben gdi l’sa’ar, 54.

Reception of the poem “Gilboa” 

 39

feet. The poems are even unreserved in verses reminiscent of Walt Whitman’s “Songs of Myself,” such as these verses in Shlonsky’s poem, “Parum ḥultsah (An unraveled shirt):”

‫ׁשע ֲֵרי הֵיכָל ְפּתּוחִים‬ ַ ‫ ֻח ְלצָה ְ ּכ‬-‫פְרּום‬ .‫ ּבֹקֶר‬-‫ְ ּב ֶא ְצּבְעֹות ַרגְלַי ֲא ֵל ְּטפָה ַאדְ מַת‬ .‫ אֵם‬-‫ִהּנֵה אֶתְ ּפ ְַרקֵד א ְֶרּבַץ לִי – חֵיק‬ ‫ְוכָל ַה ּנְהָרֹות יֵלְכּו ֵאלָי‬ ‫וי ְך ׁש ָָרׁשָיו ִבּי ָכּל אִילָן‬ ‫ הָעֹולָם‬-‫ּכָל‬-‫ּומִתְ ַרפֵק ָעלַי אֲֹלהֵי‬ :‫וְלֹוחֵׁש לִי בְַא ֲהבָה‬ ...!‫אַּתָ ה‬...!‫אַּתָ ה‬ An unraveled shirt like a hall’s open gates With my toes I will caress the morning earth. Here I will recline and lie down – in mother’s lap. And all the rivers will come to me And each tree will strike roots in me And the god of the entire universe will cling to me And whisper to me lovingly: You!...You!...¹⁰ These poems do not reveal the speaker as a romantic nihilist in his relationship to nature. On the contrary, many of the poems in this collection are songs of praise to nature and describe it in a symbolist and fantastic manner as part of the speaker himself. The speaker generally is engaged in an intensive relationship with nature. In this relationship, the speaker is both part of nature and controls it. In the poem, “Anokhi” ¹¹ (Me), from the poem cycle “Adamah” (Land), the speaker is the “conductor” over the whole world:

‫הַּתְ ִה ִלּים‬-‫ְמֹורי ֵספֶר‬ ֵ ‫ָאנֹכִי ַהּנַ ֲעלֶה ְ ּב ִמז‬ .‫ ּתֵ בֵל‬: ‫ׁשֶּק ָֹרא לֹו‬ :‫ָאנֹכִי ַהּנַ ֲעלֶה ַּב ְמנַ ְ ּצחִים עַל ּכָל ַה ַּמ ְקהֵלֹות‬ I am the exalted one in the songs in the Book of Psalms Who called it: world. I am the most exalted conductor over all the choirs: 10 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 2, 41. 11 Ibid., 25.

40 

 Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa

The poem goes on and indicates the connection between body and nature and the place of the speaker, “Anokhi,” as part of the world as well as its creator. In the rest of the poem, the speaker is the musician, the principal musician of the savage, natural world (contrasted to the forlorn flowerbeds which belong to the bourgeosie and aristocracy), and nature responds to him and strengthens him. The end of the poem joins all areas of wild nature – earth, desert, and brambles – into one song, “Anokhi.” The world described is a pantheistic one; in other words, nature and the world have become divine and sing a common anthem in which the speaker is the principal conductor.

Dismantling the body and masochism in “Amal” (Toil) Nevertheless, there is a difference between the relationship to nature and the relationship to work in the collection; the relationship to work is more complex and has more of a dual meaning. The emphasis the critics place on work as being of central value is the result of several factors. Among these factors is the centrality of the Third Aliyah’s declared socialist ideology and the creed of Aharon David Gordon¹² and others for whom liberation lay precisely in working in nature. However, Shlonsky’s collection Gilboa upholds the connection between labor and nature only at times, and many of its poems deal with a nature unconnected to labor. When the representations of labor are examined in the collection, a more ambivalent picture is formed than the one expected from a Third Aliyah poet. In the poem “Amal”¹³ there are verses such as the following:

‫הֹו ַאׁש ְֵריכֶן ָה ֶא ְצּבָעֹות אֹוחֲזֹות ַמּגָל בְיֹום ָקצִיר‬ ‫חֹובְקֹות ֶרגֶב ֻּכּסָה חָרּול‬ Oh the fingers grasping a sickle on harvest day are a joy for you Embracing a nettle-covered clod of earth However, when these lines and others are read in their context, a negative attitude is revealed toward the labor of the pioneer, undermining the constructive and idealistic images. Several verses before the verse “Oh the fingers…are a joy for you,” the delicate fingers of the pioneer are in danger of breaking from the force of the difficult work:

12 A. D. Gordon, HaAdam v’haTeva [Man and nature] (Jerusalem: Hasifri’a ha’tzionit, 1951). 13 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 2, 11–15.

Dismantling the body and masochism in “Amal” (Toil) 

 41

‫י ָד לָנּו ְק ַטּנָה ְו ֶא ְצּבָעֹות ָחמֵׁש לָּה‬-‫ּכַף‬ . ‫ּשׁבֵר‬ ָ ‫ׁש ֲעוָה דַ ּקֹות ְל ִה‬ ַ -‫ֶא ְצּבְעֹות‬ We have a little hand with five fingers Thin wax fingers to be broken. The use of the metaphor of broken fingers made of wax heightens the harshness of the work and the damage of the work to the body. A line after “Oh the fingers… are a joy for you,” the poem ends with the question:

:‫ִאמְרּו אַּתֶ ן‬ ?‫מַה י ֵ ָעׂשֶה ָל ֶא ְצּבָעֹות ָה ֲענֻּגֹות‬ You say it: What shall be done to our delicate fingers? These lines are an allusion to The Song of Songs (8:8). Shlonsky’s verse, “We have a little hand with five fingers,” hints at the phrase, “We have a little sister,/ And she hath no breasts;” whereas the line “What shall be done to our delicate fingers?” relates to the phrase “What shall we do for our sister/ In the day when she shall be spoken for?” This allusion heightens the contrast between the delicacy of the fingers and the danger threatening them – agricultural labor. In many of the poems which refer to the work of the pioneers, the work is painful to the pioneer and tears his body into a series of suffering parts. The pioneer is not only a passive sufferer of these acts of violence, but even forces himself to acts of violent rape of the earth itself. The famous poem “Amal,” which is usually offered by many critics as a clear example of a paean to the pioneering ethos of labor, essentially expresses a violent relationship toward the soil. In this poem, the earth undergoes confinement, binding, and harnessing by the pioneer:

:‫ֵמ ָעקַת ַהּבֶטֹון ּפ ֹה ּתֵ ָאנַ ְחנַה דְ יּונֹות‬ ‫ָלּמָה ּבָאתָ ָאדָ ם אֶל מִדְ ּב ִָרּיֹות‬ !?‫ׁשלִיך ֶרסֶן ֱאלֵי ִפּינּו‬ ְ ‫ְל ַה‬ From the weight of concrete here the dunes will sigh: Man, why have you come to the deserts To throw a bit into our mouths?! The earth doesn’t remain in debt to the pioneer and whips him with sand brought by the east wind:

42 

 Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa

‫ּו ְלפֶתַ ע ִה ְצלִיף רּו ַח קָדִ ים‬ ‫ּו ְכעֶדְ ֵרי גְ ַמ ִלּים ֲאׁשֶר ֹלא י ָדְ עּו ַא ְפסָר‬ ‫ִהׂשְּתָ עֲרּו עַל ַה ִק ְּרי ָה ַה ּנִ ְבנֵית‬ !‫חֹולֹות‬ And suddenly the east wind whipped up And like herds of camel that knew no bit Attacked the town under construction Sands! The pioneer in his turn restrains and binds the desert:

!‫ִרתְ מּו ַהּמִדְ ּב ִָרּיֹות‬ !‫ּוכְמֹוׁשְכֹות מַּתְ חּו ְכּבִיׁשִים‬ Harness the deserts! Stretch out the roads like reins! Finally the pioneer’s building wins out over the earth, but this victory is completed by his use of his fists:

:‫ְ ּכ ֶאגְרֹופִים גְדֹולִים ָרבְצּו עַל הַחֹולֹות‬ .‫ּבָּתִ ים ּבָּתִ ים ּבָּתִ ים‬ Like huge fists lying down on the sands: Houses houses houses. The struggle with the earth exists throughout the collection and causes suffering to the pioneer and to the earth. The collection is far from taking up the Third Aliyah’s ethos of agricultural labor in a comprehensive, unequivocal manner. The lyrical presentation, which by nature compresses images and emotions, exhibits working the land as a seemingly impossible combination of redemption and building of the self through violence and destructiveness.

Working the land as murder The comparison to Shlonsky’s later poetry dealing with the relationship to working the land illuminates and clarifies his attitude toward agricultural labor. In his later poetry, there are harsh attitudes toward the soil and harsh images of

Ambivalence toward agricultural work 

 43

it, but interestingly, his ambivalent attitude is described using the same violent means already found in Gilboa. The poem, “Oved adamah” (Tiller of the soil) which appears in the poem cycle “Bereshit aḥeret” (A different genesis) in the collection, Al Mil’et (Inlaid with jewels)¹⁴ explicitly connects tilling the soil with murder:

‫ ַה ַּלהַב ֶהחָד‬.‫ָּגמָל – ּו ַמח ְֶרׁשֶת‬ .‫ַהפ ְֵרד מִתְ י ַ ֵּג ַע ֵבּין ֶרגֶב ל ְֶרגֶב‬ ‫מֵעֹודֹו ֹלא ָהי ָה הָעֹולָם ּכ ֹה ֶאחָד‬ .‫ְוכָל ַה ּנְ ָצחִים חֲבּוקִים ּתֹוך ה ֶָרגַע‬

.‫לרצַח‬ ֶ ‫זה ֶרמֶז‬ .‫זֶה ַלהַב מֻדְ חָק‬ ‫מעולם לא היה כה מעט המרחק‬ .ַ‫ׁשּב ֶָרגֶב ַמ ְבקִיע‬ ֶ -‫זֶה ַקי ִן ַאחְדּות‬ ‫ֵבּין ָאדָ ם‬ ‫ְוגָמָל‬ .ַ‫ו ְָרקִיע‬ Camel – and plow. The sharp blade Separates wearily clod from clod. Never was the world so unified And all eternities joined in that moment. This is a hint of murder. This is a repressed blade. This is Cain splitting the clod’s unity. Never was the distance so small Between man And camel And firmament. The poem shows the agricultural idyll, the romantic realization of the unity of man and nature in which “Never was the world so unified/ And all eternities joined in that moment,” yet it contains within it the most violent act – murder. Agriculture’s idyllic situation contains the “repressed blade.” The two-stanza poem creates a parallel between the first verses of each stanza with their expressions of violence. In the first stanza, “The sharp blade” and the strenuous, dif14 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 4, 24. The spacing in quoting the poems throughout the book is as in the original.

44 

 Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa

ficult act occurring in the phrase “Separates wearily clod from clod” parallel the first verses of the second stanza “This is a hint of murder/ This is a repressed blade,” whereas the last lines of both stanzas describe an almost idyllic unity. The first stanza ends with the lines “Never was the world so unified,” “And all eternities joined in that moment.” Similarly the second stanza idyllically ends “Never was the distance so small/ Between man/ And camel/ And firmament.” A linguistic tension is created between both stanzas in the contradictory movement between unity and separation. In the first stanza, the tension is built between the first two lines describing the separation and splitting of the clods of earth and the last two lines describing the unity of “All the eternities joined in that moment,” and in the second stanza in which the climax of separation and splitting is concentrated in one phrase – “This is Cain splitting the clod’s unity.” Like the poems in Gilboa mentioned above, this poem also reveals negativity and violence erupting beneath the constructive idyll. Shlonsky, by means of the image of plowing as murder in the first stanza and by use of the word “Cain” in the second stanza, with both its meanings –the blade of the spear and Cain as the first farmer and first fratricide – formulates a merger of murder and agriculture and creates an image of “murder of the earth.” The phrase “This is Cain splitting the clod’s unity” reveals the unity of murder and agriculture. This image is one of the most extreme in Shlonsky’s poetry, but as we shall see in other poems, the earth itself also responds with violence toward the farmer.

Ambivalence toward agricultural work in “Me’agvani’a v’ad simfoni’a” (From a tomato to a symphony) Shlonsky shows pain and emotional ambivalence about working the land in his poetry more than he permitted himself to do in his articles. Nevertheless, he also criticized the religion of labor in his articles; however, this wasn’t due to pain, but rather due to an approach which sought normalcy in material and cultural production. In his autobiographical article, “Me’agvani’a v’ad simfonia” (From a tomato to a symphony),¹⁵ written in 1954, almost thirty years after his chapter as a pioneer, he criticizes the extreme and abnormal transition made by the Jews from an exclusive religious spiritual labor to its other extreme, also abnormal, of a religion of labor absent in spirituality. Was it not the logic of every revolution at its inception to dash off exaggeratedly from one extreme to the other, until balance and the right proportion are arrived at. Yesterday – learned, 15 Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 237–241.

Anti-romanticism, negating the self, and heresy 

 45

arch-learnedness, at the highest level of any learned gentile; today – demonstrable ignoramuses, simple and crude on principle, – ‘And a boo to cosmetics!’ … We remembered the leader of the Russian futurists at the onset of his rebellion, who asked, in the name of ‘the yellow shirt’ and ‘the slap on the cheek to public opinion,’ ‘to throw Pushkin from the ship of the generation’ and begin with a new culture. We, in our pioneering ‘futurism’ have not sufficed with that: we asked to throw the essence of culture behind our backs, bent over from so much study of books. Therefore we were ignorant with intention, barefooted in spite. After all, ‘we have a little hand with five fingers, thin wax fingers to be broken,’ – and with our lack of talent to really grasp work tools, on a regular and obvious basis, we removed them from their simplicity and made them symbols and religious articles, – holiness of the other hand […] Thus we escaped from a surfeit of the one holiness – not to the beautiful burden of the secular, where holy and profane serve in complete reciprocity, but rather to a surplus of another kind of holiness. A kind of spiritual divestment – exactly the opposite and the balanced response to generations of the Hitpashtut Hagashmiut¹⁶ in Israel. Sabbath and holiday Jews in the incarnation of the day to day. ‘Clothe me, dear mother, a splendid coat of colors and at dawn lead me to toil.’¹⁷

In the article, Shlonsky assumes an amused and ironic attitude toward the extremism of the pioneers who ask “to throw the essence of culture behind its back, bent over from so much study of books,” without aspiring to a balance “the beautiful burden of the secular, where holy and profane serve in complete reciprocity.”

Anti-romanticism, negating the self, and heresy As has been demonstrated, the poem “Gilboa” reveals a serious attitude and one full of pathos toward the work and experience of the pioneer.¹⁸ This attitude articulates the pioneering act as one accompanied by aggression, both directed inwardly and outwardly. That being the case, despite the ironic and amusing tone of his article, Shlonsky’s poetry reveals the masochism in physical labor. This aggression and masochism are a response (in the psychoanalytic sense) to specific events, such as violence and anti-Semitism, and to the demand for modernization which at the time bore an existential, survivalist nature. At that time, the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century (1884–1914), when imperialism was at its height, it was clear that if a particular nation did not undergo rapid mod16 A Hasidic term which translates as “divestment from the body and the physical” which usually results in an attainment of oneness with God. 17 Ibid., 237–238. 18 It can be assumed that this attitude also stems from the distance of time. The collection, Gilboa, was written a short time after Shlonsky’s own experience as a pioneer; in other words in the early 1930s, while the article “Me’agvani’a v’ad simfoni’a” was written in 1954.

46 

 Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa

ernization – combining central government, a general emphasis on industry and a specific emphasis on the war industry (at the expense of individual liberty) – it would at best become a faltering colony, poor, and exploited economically, and in the worst case, it would be conquered, displaced, and its people slaughtered. The sudden awareness of this threat, as opposed to its repression and rationalization, in other words as opposed to the desire not to know, was articulated in many works by those of Shlonsky’s generation, for example, in Agnon’s The Lady and the Peddler and in Uri Zvi Greenberg’s first books of poetry. The aggression and masochism in response to this threat were expressed by Shlonsky as a negation of the poetic tradition preceding him. The nihilistic masochism in negating the past, then, does not only receive expression in a harsh attitude toward the pioneering tilling of the soil, but also in an aggressive rejection of Bialik’s romantic poetry. Shlonsky rejected bourgeois, romantic values, beauty and refinement, the romantic and the mystical, incorporeal sadness, boredom, stars, and flowers. He opposed these values and espoused the new values of immanence; in other words, he preferred substantive life and productivity, the earthy and the rough, justice and political action, while expressing extreme feelings of anxiety, pain, and grievance. Shlonsky writes in an article published in Mishmar in 1943: “All labor – whether it is labor of thought or manual labor – which does not fulfill man is a labor of Satan. And therefore, poetry too, in which the human is not at its center, is a poetry of the devil. When did the poets begin to banish the individual from poetry’s center and in its place put nature and beauty for its own sake? The time of this event was the day catastrophe was born.”¹⁹ However, in actual fact the post-symbolist values express more negation than positivism. The poet in essence rejects all of culture and humanity as they exist. The post-symbolist poet, who for the most part is not a member of the bourgeoisie and therefore unschooled in humanism and classicism, in any case stands outside canonic western culture. Therefore, he has a critical perspective and an interest in rejecting that culture. Although the post-symbolist poet stands outside bourgeois romanticism, it exercised great influence in his youth. Therefore, he must uproot any residue of bourgeois, romantic lyricism in a masochistic ritual. Thus, Mayakovsky tears his heart from his body, stomps upon it and turns it into the red flag of the Revolution:

‫ְו ַכ ֲאׁשֶר‬ ‫אֶת ּבֹואֹו‬ ,‫ּתְ ַבּשְׂרּו ְבּמ ֶֶרד‬ 19 Quoted in Ya’akov Bahat, Avraham Shlonsky: Ḥeker v’iyun b’shirato u’behaguto [Avraham Shlonsky: research and study of his poetry and thought] (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1986), 15.

Anti-romanticism, negating the self, and heresy 

 47

‫ּתִ נְהֲרּו ִלק ְַראת ַה ַּמ ִצּיל‬ –‫ְבהִּלּולָה‬ ‫ׁשבִי ְלכֶם‬ ְ ּ‫ִב‬ ‫אֶת נַ ְפׁשִי אֹוצִיא‬ ‫ּוב ְֶרגֶל‬ ‫ּדַ ק‬-‫א ְֶרמ ֹס עַד‬ – !‫ׁשֶּתִ ְהי ֶה ּגְדֹולה‬ .‫ ְכּדֶ גֶל‬,‫ ּדָ ם אֶּתֵ ן אֹותָ ּה‬-‫ְוזָבַת‬ And when, His arrival You will announce in rebellion, You will throng towards the savior In celebration – For you I will uproot my soul; And under foot I’ll trample it till it’s thin That it will be big! – And dripping blood I’ll offer it, as a banner.²⁰ Or Yitzhak Lamdan in the opening of “B’pnim mulatim” (With a covered face):

‫ְלגַ ְלּגֵל ֵלבָב חָׂשּוף ְ ּכגַ ְלּגַל לְֹלא ִחּשּׁוק‬ ,‫דְ ָרכִים ּפ ֹה‬-‫על פני ָחצָץ ַו ֲע ַק ְלקַּלֹות‬ ‫ ַמכְאֹוב‬-‫ׁשחִי לְהּוט‬ ֶ -‫ש ֹאת ּתַ חַת ֵבּית‬ ֵ ‫ְו ָל‬ –‫ש ֹאת ָטלֶה י ְתּום מ ְִרעֶה ָועֵדֶ ר‬ ֵ ‫– ְ ּכ‬ –‫אֶת ַה ְּמגִּלָה ָה ִעב ְִרית‬ To wheel an exposed heart like a wheel with no hoop Here on gravelly winding roads, And to bear under an arm, hot with pain Like bearing a lamb orphaned of pasture and flock – The Hebrew scroll.²¹ 20 From “A Cloud in Trousers,” Hebrew translation by Benjamin Harshav, in Benjamin Harshav, Shira Modernit: Mivḥar tirgumim [Modern poetry: a selection of translations] (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1990), 169. 21 Yitzhak Lamdan, Kol shire’i Yitzhak Lamdan (The Collected Poems of Yitzhak Lamdan) (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1973), 79.

48 

 Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa

Shlonsky devotes several poems in Gilboa to rejecting old, romantic values while presenting new values. In his poem “Tenuva” (Crop),²² the speaker sacrifices and humiliates himself, rejects the holy value of purity for the collective value of the earth’s productivity. In this poem, Shlonsky criticizes the beautiful, melancholy symbolist-romantic soul, the comparison of the poet’s soul to stars and palaces in the name of a new culture, which adopts the corporeal body and earth, the field with its dirt and fertilizer. In the second part of the poem, the wounding and sacrifice of the self approach the extreme of suicide in the name of the new value. The pioneer turns to the earth and demands that it be a tyrant, and the pioneer, delicate and feminine, is faithful to the brutal earth while it strangles him, as Othello strangles Desdemona.

‫ב‬ .‫ָוארי ְל ֻע ֵלּך אֲדָ מָה‬ ִ ‫ּכָפּוף ַצּו‬ .‫ּכְָך ּתַ ְר ִכּין ָה ֶעגְלָה אֶת ר ֹאׁשָּה‬ .‫ׁש ָממָה‬ ְ ‫אֵי ע ֹל? אֵי ַמ ְלמָד? ְוׂשָדִ י‬ .‫נַ ֲהלִינִי ְוׂשָדִ י ֶאחֱרֹׁשָה‬ .‫נַ ֲהלִינִי ֶסלָה! וְלּו ׂשָדי ֶאבֶן‬ .‫ׁשעֶה‬ ְ ‫ִלׂשְדֹות ז ִָרים ֹלא ֶא‬ ‫נַ ֲהלִינִי ֶסלָה! ֵמאֲבּוסִי אֹכַל ּתֶ בֶן‬ .‫ּש ֹדִ י דֶ ׁשֶא‬ ָ ‫ּו ִמ‬ !‫ָארי נַ ֲהלִינִי ֶסלָה‬ ִ ‫ּכָפּוף ַצּו‬ .‫ִכּי ּתְ נּובָה ָח ַפצְּתִ י ְוז ֶַרע‬ ‫ְכּר ֹאׁש ּדֶ סְּדֵ מֹונָה ְ ּבחֵיק אֹוטֶלֹו‬ .‫ָאנֹכִי ְבחֵיקֵך ַהפ ֶֶרא‬ Bet (Two) Bend my neck to your burden earth. Thus the calf will bow its head. Where is the yoke? Where the cattle prod? And my field is a wilderness. Lead me and I will plow my field. Lead me Selah! If only my field were stone. I will not take myself to foreign fields. Lead me Selah! I will eat straw from my feeding trough And grass from my field. 22 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 2, 22–24.

Anti-romanticism, negating the self, and heresy 

 49

Bend my neck lead me Selah! Because I desired seed and crop. Like Desdemona’s head in Othello’s lap I am in your savage bosom. If the second part of the poem ends in murder (suicide) of the pioneer by the earth, the poem’s third part is extremely heretical in its concepts of beauty and purity. There is an active attempt to shock; the pioneer’s body takes on the dung and the urine of the cattle, participates in the mating of the sheep and cattle and receives and swallows their dung:

.‫ח ֲַרזְּתֶ ם‬ ‫ַארמֹון‬ ְ ‫ִלּבֵנּו‬ ,‫הֵיכָל דְ ּבִיר‬ .‫ִרּפְדּוהּו ְ ּב ַט ִפּיטִים ּו ְבכָל ֵח ֶפּץ יָקָר‬ ‫ַו ֲאנִי ֹלא אֵבֹוׁש‬ ‫לּו ִל ִבּי ֶרפֶת‬ ‫א ְֻרוָה‬ ,‫דִ ּיר‬ .‫ְואֶת ֶּגלְלֹו ּופ ְִרׁשֹו יַּטִיל ִבּי ּכָל ָּבקָר‬ .‫ּכי יָקָר לִי ּכָל לֵב עַל ְ ּבקָרֹו ְועַל גְּ ָללָיו‬ !‫ּורבּו ִעּמָדִ י‬ ְ ‫ב ֹאנָה צ ֹאן! ּופְרּו‬ ,‫ִמּכָל ֲעטִינַי ִם ְמ ֵלאִים ֶאׁשְּתֶ ה ָחלָב‬ .‫ּו ִמּכָל ֶפ ֶּרׁש חַם ֲאזַ ֵבּל ׂשָדִ י‬ .‫ׁש ְ ּככָבּוהּו לֵילֹות‬ ֶ ‫שחַק‬ ׁ ַ ‫ ִלּבֵנּו‬:‫ח ֲַרזְּתֶ ם‬ .‫מ ְִרעֶה ְלכָל ֵעגֶל ּו ְלכָל ׂשֶה‬-‫ לּו ֱאהִי ׂשְדֵ ה‬:‫ַו ֲאנִי‬ ‫ִכּי אֶת ּכֹו ְכבֵיכֶם ַּכ ֲענָבִים ְ ּבׁשֵלֹות‬ .‫ְ ּכבָר ָּבצ ְַרּתִ י ְוזָ ַללְּתִ י ְ ּבכָל ֶפּה‬ You’ve rhymed: Our heart is a palace The Holy of Holies, Decorate it with wallpaper and with every precious object. And I would not be ashamed If my heart was a cowshed A stable A sheepfold,

50 

 Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa

And each cow deposited its manure and excretion upon me. Because every heart for its cattle and manure is precious to me Come sheep! Be fruitful and multiply with me! I’ll drink milk from all full udders, And from each hot dropping I will fertilize my field. You’ve rhymed: our heart heaven that nights cover with stars. And me: if only I were a pasture for each calf and each kid. Because your stars like ripe grapes I have already picked and gobbled up with my whole mouth. The first and third stanzas create a comparison and contrast of values by means of rejecting the romantic values and norms represented by the “palace,” “the Holy of Holies,” “wallpaper,” “precious object,” and “our heart heaven that nights cover with stars” and identifying the poetic speaker with opposites of these, with the “cowshed,” the “stable,” the “sheepfold.” These negatives and positives are particularly prominent in the first stanza by means of the rhyme in Hebrew “dvir/ dir” (Holy of Holies/sheepfold), “yakar/bakar” (precious/cattle). However, the speaker’s identification with the “sheepfold,” the “cowshed,” and the “stable” is not only a negation of lofty romantic norms and values, but also a humiliation of the self, because his heart identifies with the places where the cattle leave their droppings and excretion. The close and intimate relationship continues in the speaker’s invitation to the sheep to “be fruitful and multiply,” in his drinking milk from the udders and fertilizing the field with the excretions of the cattle and sheep. Trampling previous values for new ones is done in the poem with the help of symbolic use of space, such as high-lofty, low-worthless, as in heavens and stars as opposed to field and manure. The use of the manure droppings is not random and it even appears in the collection “Dva’i” (Distress).²³

!‫– ְּג ָללִים! ְּג ָללִים! גֶ ְללֵי ק ֹדֶ ׁש‬ !‫ נַ ְח ְ ּפנָה מְלֹוא ַּכּפֵינּו ִמּכֶם‬,‫– ִהּנֵה נַ ְח ְ ּפנָה‬ !‫– ִהּנֵה נִמ ְְרחָה נִמ ְְרחָה ְבׂש ֵָרנּו ָּבכֶם‬ – Manure! Manure! Holy manure! – Here, we will fill, will fill our palms full with you! – Here, we will spread, will spread our flesh with you!

23 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 1, 115.

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 51

This radical denial and rejection of concepts of beauty and poetry and the active attempt to shock in the third part of the poem are not coincidental. It is precisely this heretical attitude toward commandments and norms relating to purity which has deep internal logic in Judaism itself. Judaism maintains that creation is in God’s image and many purity laws are a result of that. The negation of purity is deeply heretical and calls into question God’s traditional image. By denying and negating purification, there is a hint of negating the entire world, causing its proximate end and redemption. However, despite the reference to the Jewish religion, this collection can be said to make extensive use especially of Christianity and the New Testament.

Affinity with the New Testament The central rhetoric of this collection, which converts the worthless and the low into the uplifted, and which uses masochism and humiliation as a means of negating the world and tradition, finds its principal inspiration in the New Testament and not in the Jewish world. In the New Testament, Jesus shows the moral shallowness and superficiality of avoiding impure people in contrast to the depth of true altruism (such as in his connection to prostitutes). Thus, Shlonsky annuls the values of cleanliness in the name of the value of collective productivity. The adoption of the New Testament’s main point of persuasion, in other words, the sacrifice of the one for the collective, is an especially effective rhetoric for pleading the case of the speaker’s revolutionary, altruistic ethos, inasmuch as such a sacrifice would not involve any self-interest undermining the validity and honesty of the Gospel. Shlonsky’s “Gospel” is the new, universal ethos of life as production, and in its name he denies and rejects the “tradition” and “commandments” of romantic symbolism. In the poem “Tenuva,” Shlonsky employs the rhetoric of the New Testament, comparing the speaker’s values with those of another collective. Jesus’s rhetoric in the New Testament is executed by means of a claim relying on the conventional opinion of the interpreters of the Torah; it presents, in a certain manner by contrast, the loftiest ethos maintained by the speaker. Thus, Jesus says for example, “You have learned how it was said to our ancestors: ‘You must not kill’ and if anyone does kill he must answer for it before the court. But I say this to you: anyone who is angry with his brother will answer for it before the court; if a man calls his brother ‘Fool’ he will answer for it before the Sanhedrin; and if a man calls him ‘Renegade’ he will answer for it in hell fire.”²⁴ 24 The Gospel According to Matthew 5:21–22.

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 Agricultural Work, Heresy and Negation of Self in the Collection Gilboa

As has been stated, in the poem “Tenuva,” the speaker compares his values with those of the romantics. The use of New Testament rhetoric in Shlonsky’s poem not only originates in the great influence of the New Testament on Russian culture and literature, and by way of them, on Shlonsky, but its use is mostly due to the deep, internal similarity of the situation of the Jewish people in the two periods concerned – one in the early twentieth century and the other in the early Christian era. Third Aliyah thinkers and poets emphasized this similarity and they had a special relationship to Jesus and the New Testament, as can be seen in Uri Zvi Greenberg’s obsessive preoccupation with Jesus and the contribution of thinkers Yeḥezkel Kaufmann and Yosef Klausner in connecting Jesus to Jewish tradition (positively). Shlonsky chooses to characterize his inner feelings as typical of his time, a period in which there was a crisis of faith and violence, by means of the story of Salome from the New Testament. In the poem “He’eder ki yigalesh” (The herd when it will spill over),²⁵ which appears in the poem cycle “Ohaleynu” (Our tent), John the Baptist’s beheading is compared to the speaker’s day being cut off.

‫ ֶמלֶך‬-‫ְכּדָ ם ׁשֶל יֹו ָחנָן עַל ֶא ְצּבְעֹות ּבַת‬ ?‫ ְלמִי דָ מִית‬: ‫ ִאמ ְִרי‬. ‫ׂשפָתַ י ִך לִי הַּיֹום‬ ְ ‫י ָדַ עְּתִ י ִכּי י ֵׁש ׁשֵם וְהּוא ַרק הּוא יָאֶה לָך‬ .‫ׁשְלֹומִית‬: ‫וְֹלא ה ְִר ַהבְּתִ י ע ֹז לֹומַר ְבּקֹול‬ ‫ִהּנֵה יָנִיף ע ְַר ִבּי ח ְַרּבֹו ַהמְג ֹ ֶאלֶת‬ ?‫ׁשקִיעֹותַ י ַהנִּּג ִָרים – לְָאן‬ ְ ‫ִבּדְ מֵי ּכָל‬ ‫ הַדִ ּמְּדּומִים יַּגִּיׁש ָאז ַלמְחֹו ֶללֶת‬-‫עַל טַס‬ ‫ַה ַּלי ִל הַּכּוׁשִי גֻלְּגֹלֶת יֹו ָחנָן‬ Like John the Baptist’s blood on the fingers of the king’s daughter Are your lips to me today. Speak: Who do you resemble? I knew because there is a name and only it befits you And I didn’t summon the courage to say aloud: Salome. Here my evening will raise its sword polluted With the blood of streaming sunsets – where to? On the platter of twilight the black night will then serve John the Baptist’s skull to the dancer. If the images of John the Baptist and Salome are characteristic of the poet’s inner feelings, indeed these feelings focus on an absence of purpose and an absence of values. The story symbolizes a period in which rulers under the auspices of Rome were capricious murderers. Herod grants a request to Salome on his birthday, 25 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 2, 51.

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because she danced and pleased his guests; after consulting with her mother, she then requests the head of John the Baptist.²⁶. However, this story also marks a period on the verge of a new religious revolution – Christianity. Shlonsky creates an analogy between the periods of the New Testament and his own in both these respects. As far as he’s concerned, his period is lacking in values and is a violent one, but it also possesses the potential for a spiritual revolution. The parallel between the periods also touches upon the depth of the crisis in Jewish society during both these periods. Jesus’s teachings were a reaction to the religious crisis of Jewish society in his time, a crisis caused by the loss of political power. A people, whose belief in its God was based to a great extent upon a covenant promising independence and political power, needed a significant change to its religion when these hopes were dramatically dashed. Jesus’s teachings, the new covenant made between God and man, are just such a change promising eternal life to the individual in the world to come instead of self-rule and political power to the Jewish people in this world. The Jewish people at the onset of the twentieth century were also engaged in a crisis of faith, and this time belief in God did not provide a framework giving meaning to destruction and violence. Thus, Shlonsky and his generation found themselves relying upon the famous precedent of Jesus’s rejection of traditional Jewish religion in order to justify their rejection of it. It is possible to see in this nihilistic rejection of Jewish tradition by Shlonsky and his generation an echo of Jesus’s protesting and disparaging tone in the New Testament, of his rejection of the world and all that is in it. In Shlonsky’s case, the analogy to the heresy of Jesus against the Jewish religion in the name of universal values is particularly appropriate, inasmuch as Shlonsky’s place in the annals of Hebrew literature is mainly preserved by his rejection of sectarian particularism in form and content in Hebrew literature and by the universal values of international, modernism. Shlonsky’s heresy against the particularist preoccupations of Hebrew poetry and his unwillingness to respond to the demand for writing poetry preoccupied with life, found expression in his article “Ta’anot u’ma’anot” (Arguments and responses), in which he ridicules and mimics this demand: “Sing for us the poems of Zion! Rhyme your rhymes about the camel’s neck, about the monarchy of David’s house, or about the cow milked on the Gilboa.”²⁷ Negation and nihilism for Shlonsky become heresy and continuous revolution. The practice and rhetoric of constant heresy strengthen the argument that Gilboa expresses more than the obligatory sacrifice in tilling the soil. Shlonsky criticizes the anti-intellectualism of the Hebrew revolution’s “joy in busy hands” 26 The Gospel According to Mark, 6:17–18. 27 Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 30.

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– “the unconscious drunkenness ‘until they don’t know’²⁸ only from ‘busy hands’ and the distorted and belittled attitude toward the creative spirit, engraving for itself and its fellow other tablets of the law.”²⁹ Shlonsky also became known for his struggle with Berl Katznelson over the recognition of writers’ status as professionals. While Berl Katznelson supported the model of the writer-worker, in other words, the writer who must take an active part in the physical building of the country, Shlonsky supported and even obtained recognition of the vocation of the professional writer as a full-time one. In his article “Me’agvani’a v’ad simfoni’a,”³⁰ he takes on an amused attitude toward the pioneers’ “religious” fanaticism, which attempts to conceal a grievance against the harsh physical labor which caused him to leave Ein Harod for Tel Aviv after nine months. In this article, Shlonsky laughs, seemingly in a good, nostalgic spirit, about the pioneer who believes in hard work and physical suffering as sacrifice or as the tashlikh (casting off) he performs in order to be reborn as a Hebrew man. However, he takes pains to criticize the fanaticism which has led to an almost exclusive emphasis on the body. In the article, “Meshorer b’malkhut hashishit” (A poet in the sixth kingdom),³¹ Shlonsky compares the Jewish people in the Diaspora to a head without a body, a symbol of spirituality and holiness lacking materiality, and again he criticizes the disparagement of intellect and culture by pioneering culture. It is typical, that the few who have made an effort to adapt, did not ask how to participate, but rather opened first of all by ‘tashlikh’ (casting off), by alienation from what they call in a ridiculing manner ‘universality,’ and they began to tear out the hairs of their past in the hope that new tresses would grow. And thus, from self-coercion, they became bald on the one hand, but not blessed on the other. ³²

Summary The collection Gilboa, more than any other collection, conveys the pioneering experience as an act of negation and nihilism equal to its being an act of con28 The phrase comes from the rabbinic saying (Meg. 7b) that one should celebrate Purim by drinking wine “until one no longer knows” (ad de’lo ya da) the difference between “blessed be Mordechai” and “cursed be Haman.” 29 Levin, Ben g’di v’sa’ar, 34. 30 Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 237–241. 31 Ibid., 16–17. 32 Ibid., 17.

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struction. However, the emphasis placed by the critics until today upon its constructive aspects has hidden the nihilistic aspects dominating this poetry. The pioneering spirit presented in this collection relating to work and a connection to nature essentially cancels out and negates the values of European bourgeois symbolism. These values of individualism and the demand for the good of the individual are rejected in heretical deeds of a sacrificial, masochistic nature. The masochism reinforces the heresy, and the heresy reinforces the masochism. The masochism – self-sacrifice, and behavior deviating from the individual’s rational self-interest – is convincing because of the speaker’s altruistic and sacrificing nature, and serves as a successful rhetorical base in order to bequeath new heretical values. The heresy itself, entailing for the most part shocking and harsh acts, bears a masochistic nature. Nevertheless, these poems have not unequivocally adopted a sacrificial, masochistic stance and they display ambivalence toward it. On the one hand, these poems compel the heroism, rebellion, and tempest involved in this sort of life, while on the other hand, they express a narcissism conscious of the price exacted from the self.

Chapter Three Loss of Belief and Madness in the Big City in the Collection Lekh Lekha (Go Forth) The collection, Lekh Lekha (Go forth), is a very varied collection. If, generally speaking, Gilboa focused on the experience in nature, and specifically, the experience of the pioneer in nature, the subject matter of Lekh Lekha is broader: the existential condition of the modern individual. The collection includes the poem cycles, “B’Tel-Aviv” (In Tel-Aviv) and “Meshirot b’nakhar” (From the poems of foreign lands) which describes the rootless condition of the individual in the big city; the cycle “Po” (Here), which describes the experience of travel and immigration by sea; the poem “Rakevet” (Train), which represents and imitates the experience of train travel; and the cycle “Lekh lekha” (Go forth), which represents the modern individual’s severance from the traditional social frameworks of community and religion. The feelings of absence, emptiness, and nothingness in this collection are particularly conveyed in the urban poem cycles and in “Lekh lekha,” which gives the collection its name. The modern individual finds himself cut off from social systems and feels an absence of meaning in the present and a loss of the communal and religious culture of the past. The sentiment of “Lekh lekha,” wherein the speaker experiences emptiness and lack of meaning in the cosmos, is a generalized variation of this sentiment felt by the rootless youth in the big city. In the poem cycles “B’Tel-Aviv” and “Lekh Lekha,” Shlonsky presents a dazzling, polished poetry which organizes a refined and conscious sublimation of the sentiment of absence. The linguistic virtuosity is not only a neutral representation or structuring of the sense of absence – in its use of the language’s rhetorical-erotic force, the poetry lures the reader to the experience itself. The suffering of absence is not something to be avoided or prevented, and consciousness of it is not only an authentic awareness, but a lofty aspiration in itself. The accomplished poem makes use of seductive language, thereby turning the experience of absence into a desired one; meanwhile, it “argues” that only life which experiences absence can tolerate real desire. In another formulation: lack of connectedness to another individual through love and work-related companionship – both these lacks permit real desire, being of necessity based on a need for an unattained object. Shlonsky’s early poetry is based on the experience of absence as a basis for desire.

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Abandonment of socialist futurism and adoption of urban symbolism – The “B’Tel-Aviv” poem cycle To a certain extent, Shlonsky sought experience of absence and lack. Difficulty and dissatisfaction with the pioneering life in Ein Harod led him to first become “half-worker half-teacher,” and nine months later (1922), he left the kvutza for the life of a professional journalist in Tel Aviv. A year later, he left to study at the Sorbonne. These transitions are reflected in the book B’galgal (In the wheel) published in 1927. B’galgal included the collections Gilboa and Lekh Lekha. This book is diverse in content as well as in form and includes many of Shlonsky’s poems dating to that time. In this chapter, I will focus on analyzing absence in the two central poem cycles in the book: “B’Tel-Aviv” (In Tel-Aviv) which opens the collection, and “Lekh Lekha,” which lends its title to the entire collection. As mentioned previously, the book opens with the poem cycle “B’Tel-Aviv,” which returns to the lyrical emotions of melancholy and compassion, refined feelings which had been rejected by the post-symbolist rhetoric of Gilboa, first printed several years earlier. “B’Tel-Aviv” and other poems in the collection anticipate the move Shlonsky would make in B’Avne’i Bohu (Stones of void) – a return to symbolist poetry. This move is one of the most surprising and fateful in the history of Hebrew poetry. Inasmuch as Shlonsky influenced many poets, such as Natan Alterman, Leah Goldberg, and Yonatan Ratosh, they chose to write employing symbolist style and didn’t follow the post-symbolist example abandoned by Shlonsky. A movement was thus created in Hebrew poetry that was nearly the opposite of the natural development of modernist poetry in the rest of the world, where poetry usually transitioned from symbolism to post-symbolism. Shlonsky’s great influence on Hebrew poetry did not stem from the style of his pioneering poetry, but from his return to an urban poetry and international symbolism. In the collection, Lekh Lekha, most of the poems adhere more or less to a symbolist style, except for the poems, “Rakevet” (Train), “Kru’im anu” (We are torn), and “Ta’atu’im” (Illusions). The return to symbolist style and the abandonment of futurist style are linked to Shlonsky’s rejection of pioneering life. The life of the pioneer, which negated all previous ways of life, particularly the religious and bourgeois ones, to a great extent parallels futurism, which also rejected bourgeois, romantic art.

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Shlonsky formulates a complex comparison between pioneering life and futurism in his written work, “Ta’anot u’ma’anot”.¹ This piece is principally devoted to dealing with the Israeli public’s alienation from and grudge toward the rootless, modernist internationalist persona reflected in Shlonsky’s poetry. This persona neither reflected nor represented the essence of the Israeli public. Shlonsky dramatizes the arguments and places words of grievance into the mouth of one of the pioneers: Listen! So what if they, these decadents, these people without roots, who have no part and parcel with us, so what if they twist about things written and twist the lyrical forms, after all it’s within the realm of the natural and the obvious: they don’t recognize us and our experience; but you, who went from among us to literature, you – what do you have to do with this futurism? Leave off these pranks friend! Write simply, the way our forefathers wrote, and express our sufferings and yearnings simply, like in the past.²

This quote is Shlonsky’s self-portrait from the simple pioneer’s point of view. He seems like a person, who, despite being a pioneer in every way, rejects the pioneers by his spiritual acts and belongs to the rootless, decadent “other,” in other words, to the urban European Jews or non-Jews. The portrait flatters Shlonsky and underlines his daring and complexity, as it indicates a man engaged in a double revolt – first, by his choice to become a pioneer, and afterward, by a revolt against the pioneers themselves. Shlonsky answers the argument of that friend from Ein Harod in the ḥeyder’s polemic style (that of the traditional religious Jewish classroom): Listen! So what if they, destroyers of Zionism, haters of Israel, don’t care about our toil and efforts here, so what if they distort our lives and twist our concepts, made holy by a tradition of many generations, after all it’s within the realm of the natural and obvious; but you, zealous over the building of Zion, what’s this social futurism to you? Leave off the pranks, friend! Build simply the way our forefathers built, like Petaḥ-Tikvah or Zikhron Ya’akov, by way of example.³

The person addressed does not directly respond to the pioneer’s arguments and the focus of opposition to Shlonsky’s poetry because of its lack of affinity for the local experience is diverted in a sophisticated, rhetorical manner to an opposition to cultural advancement. Shlonsky tries to make a connection between the bond to the local experience and simplicity and explicitness (“We don’t want symbols and elevating – we want your small daughter Rachel. Only explicitly 1 Published in: Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 28–35. 2 Ibid., 30. 3 Ibid., ibid.

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and simply in the essence of meaning and simplicity”),⁴ and to present both of them as a reaction and a contradiction of advancement. In this manner, he seeks to present the pioneer from Ein Harod as a partially progressive individual. Shlonsky represents cultural progressivism, whereas the pioneer – half progressive and half reactionary, lives a progressive, egalitarian life style, but aspires to an old-fashioned culture. Shlonsky’s term for the pioneer’s way of life is “social futurism,” a poetical term which probably does not reflect the way the pioneers perceived themselves and serves as a metaphorical expansion of the term which primarily indicates an artistic style. This is evidence that the pioneering way of life, for Shlonsky, was inseparably connected to the futurist style of poetry. It can be assumed that when Shlonsky abandoned the kvutza at Ein Harod and moved to Tel Aviv in 1922, he also abandoned futurist style and returned to a symbolist style of writing and a bourgeois way of life. These were considered reactionary in the places where modernism had developed, in Germany or France, for example, not to mention the Soviet Union. The collection, Lekh Lekha, is characterized by his symbolist style in its initial use of the form of Ashlar stone, in other words, the use of symmetrical, polished stanzas, with less use of impulsive, futurist style with its typical features of destruction of syntax, words fired in rapid succession, and lines consisting of one word. Shlonsky had doubts about the pioneers’ life of toil and created a different “new Jew” in the Land of Israel: the Hebrew writer as international bohemian and modernist. In his poetry, he even emphasized values and experiences opposite to those of the pioneer. In contrast to the values of nature, the connection to roots in the earth, simplicity of manners, innocent joy, hard physical labor and belonging to the kvutza, Shlonsky emphasized in Lekh Lekha, urbanization, lack of rootedness, sophistication, world sorrow, inaction, and solitude. His dissatisfaction with the kvutza didn’t originate only with its literary taste (romantic realism) and its lack of support for artistic creation, but was also due to his perception of group life as creating too much serenity, fullness, and self-satisfaction. In a letter to the poet Yitzḥak Lamdan, Shlonsky warns him that agriculture, together with the success of Zionism and Bolshevism and their styles, are a danger to his poetry.⁵ The happiness and fullness they create are threatening. In contradiction, Shlonsky describes desirable urban existence with its vocabulary of decadence, in other words, with its vocabulary of disease. According to Shlonsky, agriculture does not have “needles or nails that puncture, that tear out pieces of flesh;” it has 4 Ibid., ibid. 5 See the exchange of letters ‘Shlonsky-Lamdan-Hame’iri’, Israel Levin (ed.), Sefer Shlonsky Aleph [Shlonsky Book 1] (Tel Aviv: Katz Institute for Research in Hebrew Literature and Sifri’at Hapoalim, 1981), 215.

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“drops of bromine” that put the soul to sleep. Shlonsky was aware that Lamdan would see a kind of degeneracy in Shlonsky’s desires and way of life. He rhymes in Hebrew, saying, “You say: Degenerate! But I don’t care!” This defiance not only shows an awareness that his preferences would be seen as degenerate, but also that he actively aspires to this condition. Non-agricultural existence is what provides the poet with “zigzagging,” “shaking,” “a sort of telegraphic tapping,” and “jumps in temperature.”

Absence in the universal city Urbanization was perceived in Shlonsky’s poetry as an absence and deprivation in contrast to the special satisfaction and fullness represented by pioneer life. This fullness was expressed by the totality of agricultural life. One of the most common perceptions is that a total unity exists between economics and culture in the pioneer way of life. This perception and experience of pioneer culture necessarily creates emptiness when this social totality is rejected in favor of the emptiness and absence of the city. In the city, separation exists between the economic and the cultural, seemingly in a stage of human development which is less progressive and less just. Shlonsky describes the city’s absence and emptiness in a universal manner, which means that they undergo abstraction, removing any sign of a specific place. As in “B’ḥefazi,” there is universalization of the emigrantimmigrant experience and it undergoes abstraction of place and origin (to a large extent, Shlonsky omits his Judaism, his Ukrainian birthplace, and even his destination, the Land of Israel). Here, too, the Tel Aviv urban experience is identical to the urban experience in any other city (any other European city). It may be said that Shlonsky minimalized reference to place and was clearly a poet of time. It was for good reason that he called himself “a poet of the twentieth century” and emphasized his birth in 1900. Indeed, his historical tendencies dramatically emphasize the contemporary as the end of a process, as telos, which the past has lead him to, and his life in the periphery (the Ukraine and Palestine) have made him a poet who emphasizes the present and future rather than place. In principle, even the collection Gilboa could have been written in a Russian village undergoing collectivization without having to change much. To a certain extent, it is possible to describe Tel Aviv in the 1930s as a central city with 100,000 inhabitants, 94 hotels and boarding houses, 1,511 factories and workshops, 40 banks, 19 insurance companies, 166 dairies, 405 grocery stores, 175 cafés, 15 hospitals and clinics, 286 doctors, 60 pharmacies, and 110 educational institutions. Not a small village, but a real city undergoing rapid develop-

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ment and anticipated to shortly become a metropolis. However, Shlonsky ignores Tel Aviv’s growth and relates to it as an old and decadent city rather than as a city being built before his very eyes. For this reason, it is surprising that there is no significant difference between a poem about Tel Aviv, the new, white city, and a poem about Paris, the world capital at that time (poems about each one are juxtaposed in Lekh Lekha), despite their differences and despite the Jewish-Hebrew poet’s different situation in each of these cities in the 1920s. Indeed, the poems “Mesherut b’nakhar” (From service in foreign lands) and “B’Tel-Aviv” (In TelAviv) in Lekh Lekha, describe similar experiences using similar means, although the first one describes Paris and the second, Tel Aviv. Both poems contain emptiness and vagrancy, time spent meaninglessly, depression and rain falling on streetlights, cafés and tiny rooms to which the young romantic returns in conflict with himself and alone as evening falls. The city is the backdrop or projection of the solitary youth’s conflicted soul. Tel Aviv’s qualities do not differ from those of Paris as a backdrop to his spiritual life. Shlonsky does not present Tel Aviv as a city under construction and no detail in the poem describes it concretely. The poem cycle “B’Tel-Aviv” opens the collection Lekh Lekha, and its immediacy in following Gilboa, the collection about pioneering life, is almost conspicuous. The cycle shows Tel Aviv as background for the rootless youth, full of weltschmerz, a cosmopolite who is worn-out, limp, and passive. The poem opening Lekh Lekha depicts Tel Aviv overtly as a universal city (European, of course). To the extent that any particular reference is made, it is to the condition of a Jew in the modern metropolis and not to a Hebrew in the first Zionist city. The Jew in the poem is a random Jew, coming and going, and he does not belong to any collective enterprise. This person represents the European ennui of the late nineteenth century more than the socio-political position of the artist in the 1920s. This representation originates in Shlonsky’s aesthetic and existential positions and not in the poet’s biographical situation. Similar to many artists, writers and playwrights of the 1920s and 1930s, he was involved in dozens of intensive, joint projects, including the establishment of a periodical, active participation in theater (which at that time was inseparable from his literary pre-occupations), and translation of Russian poetry with Leah Goldberg. As previously mentioned, Shlonsky abandoned the pioneering, futuristic enterprise, the avant-garde integration of economics and culture which united the totality of social being in one rational enterprise, and sought a new urban existence marked out by its nothingness. Accordingly, the emptiness and nothingness in “B’Tel-Aviv” are not simply internal states and do not position an empty subject face to face with a full social reality; the social milieu is also presented as empty. In Shlonsky’s poetry, there is an intentional abolition of the distinction between subject and object. Throughout, images and metaphors are

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employed which blend together individual and environment. In Shlonsky’s pioneering poetry, the pioneer is a kind of giant whose face and body encompass the entire world. Whereas the poem “B’Tel-Aviv” is the opposite of his pioneer poetry in which the body encompasses the world, here we are witness to a series of metaphors which formulate a projection of the self upon the urban.

Disorientation and Search for Salvation in the Big City For Shlonsky, the city was primarily a stage for the “religious” drama of the young, romantic hero. The young hero, under the pressure of solitude and poverty, turns the city into a place to search for salvation. This is one of the classic themes of nineteenth century literature, particularly of Russian literature, as seen, for example, in Nikolai Gogol’s short story, “The Portrait,” or in Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poem “A Cloud in Trousers.” This literature is populated by young heroes searching for salvation in the city. These heroes are focused upon the drama of their lives, severed from their familial pasts, their studies and any clear future. The significant severance from social frameworks was experienced by means of dramatic transitions, beginning with a feeling of omnipotent freedom, based on rootlessness and apparent independence from others and ending with a feeling of loss of self-worth due to an absence of social reinforcement. This duality is represented differently in the poetic medium. Whereas feelings of narcissism and omnipotence are mainly translated in Shlonsky into prodigious metaphors in which the self contains the entire city or in which it is an equal partner with cosmic forces, feelings of futility and loss of self are directly translated into a mimetic representation of the unemployed youth whose environment is indifferent to him. The second section in the “B’Tel-Aviv” poem cycle demonstrates the dynamic of the urge to be heroic, vital, and omnipotent – an urge which encounters an apathetic, prosaic reality:

‫ב‬ ‫עֹוד אֶת ְּגבִיעִי ֹלא ָמצִיתִ י‬ ‫עֹוד ּבֹו י ֵינִי זֹוהֵב זֹוהֵב‬ ‫עֹודי ָה ֶאגְרֹוף קָמּוץ הֵיטֵב‬ ‫עֹודִ י ׂשֹונֵא עֹודִ י אֹוהֵב‬ ?‫עֹודִ י !עֹודִ י! מַה ּלָך ֶמ ְלצָר‬ :‫ׂשעָה ְמ ֻאח ֶֶרת‬ ָ ‫– ְ ּכבָר ַה‬ ...‫צ ִָריך ִלנְע ֹל ְ ּכבָר אֲדֹונִי‬ (!‫– ְ ּכבָר? ( ַה ִּמּלָה ַה ַּמ ְמא ֶֶרת‬

Abandonment of socialist futurism and adoption of urban symbolism – 

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Bet (Two) I still haven’t drained my goblet My wine still glitters in it My fist is still well clenched I still hate I still love More! More! What’s it to you waiter? – The hour is already late: We need to close already sir... – Already? (The fatal word!) The youth leaves the wine house and the reality outside is also a mixture of apathy and alienation: “Revolting and cold headlights,” a night with no brother or sister. The youth sometimes experiences reality in a heightened, fantastic manner as a result of a grandiose sense of self together with separation from normal social reality. The fourth section of the cycle can be read as a sort of montage, representing above all the lyrical hero’s internal chaos which nearly envisions his fatigued and hungry condition.

‫ד‬ .‫רֹוכֵל ְמ ַפהֵק ׁשַח עַל ֻקּפָתֹו‬ .‫ ה ְָרחֹוב‬-‫ּכַת ׁשֶל ַס ָּבלִים ְ ּבק ֶֶרן‬ .‫ּתִ ינֹוקֹות‬. ‫ גַּ ֶּמלֶת‬.‫אֹוטֹו ּב ֹץ י ַּתִ יז‬ .‫ע ֲָרבִי עִם קֹוף‬ .‫אֹורלֹוגִין ַה ִּמגְּדָ ל‬ ְ ‫צֹופֶה קִיקְֹל ִפּי‬ .‫צֹורח בְע ֹז‬ ֵ ‫ּתֵ י ָמנִי‬″ ‫ ֶרץ‬-ָ‫א‬″ :‫ַּארּבַע ַה ְק ָּרנֹות‬ ְ ‫ּדּו ָכנִים עֲזּובִים ְב‬ !‫ּגַּזוז‬ .‫ ַּב ָּטלָה‬. ‫ ַּב ַּטלָה‬. ‫ְויָמִים עַל יָמִים‬ .‫ָעי ֵף ָאנֹכִי ו ְָרעֵב ִ ּכ ְמעָט‬ .‫ ִּמּשָׁם אֶל הַּדַֹאר‬. ‫ֵא ְלכָה לִידִ ידִ י‬ .‫ ֵאלִי! ַרחֵם עַל ִּבנְך ִכּי מָט‬... ‫ִמּשָׁם‬ Dalet (Four) A yawning peddler bends over his money box. A group of porters at the street corner. A car splatters mud. A caravan. Babies. An Arab with a monkey.

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The clock tower watches like a cyclops. “Ah–retz” a Yemenite screeches vigorously. Abandoned stalls on the four corners: Soda! Day after day. Idleness. Idleness. I am tired and a bit hungry. I’ll go to a friend’s. From there to the post office. From there…my God! Have mercy on your son who is about to fall. Although the scene described here preserves the unities of time and space – in other words, there is no jumping about to other places and times – an effort is made to make a montage of the visual experience in which there is no coherent sense of place. If this portion could be portrayed in a cinematic, visual manner, we would move from a close-up on the yawning peddler, zoom out and notice his general physical condition, bending over his money box, and move on to the “group of porters,” whose spatial relation to the peddler is not clear, and then fast cuts take us to the bedlam of the car splattering mud, the caravan of camels, the babies, the Arab with the monkey. It is actually in the second stanza that we are given the description which usually comes first in literary convention – the overall description, the long shot, describing the entire surroundings before the description of the details. According to convention, the description would have begun at the tower, afterward moving to the stalls at the corners, and next to the group of porters on the street corner when we would be introduced to the yawning peddler, the babies and the Arab with the monkey from the hero’s viewpoint. The second stanza also brings with it a paradoxical integration of the basic scene (what in cinema is called the establishing shot), which usually is described with the accompanying general bustle of the entire scene together with the shouting Yemenite advertising a newspaper. The content also builds a sort of hallucinatory situation in its oriental overtones contributed to by the Arab with the monkey, the caravan, and the Yemenite. The jumping around and disorder construct a lyrical hero who finds himself in a hallucinatory state, seemingly gazing at the yawning peddler, when a series of images and sounds ultimately bring him to the reality described in the last stanza. This reality pictures a tired, hungry, and idle hero, who is looking for some kind of salvation. The internal chaos of the first two stanzas, which represent a hallucinatory experience, is presented as a contrast to the true abstract reality, the emptiness of the third stanza, a reality based in absence and emptiness: an absence of work, sleep and food. The last three sections of the poem – Heh, Vav and Zayin (Five, Six and Seven) – are devoted to an abstract description of the hero’s existential state, a state of suffering, aimless-

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ness, and meaninglessness. The youth moves about the city with no direction and when he finally arrives home, his home’s absence of a home-like feeling is emphasized and it is likened to a coffin. The home and the room are not an alternative to the city’s alienation; the opposite is the case. The room is marked by deprivation, alienation, death, hunger, and solitude. Similar to the city itself, the room is not separate from the speaker, but rather, it is a projection of his sense of emptiness and the fear of his own death by its comparison to a coffin. In the poem cycle “B’Tel-Aviv,” the self projects its sense of its own absence on the entire city. The city is not completely separate from the poetic self expectant of recognition by his surroundings and disappointed by the indifference of the place toward him. However, since there is no separation between the poetic self and its surroundings, this disappointment with the city is also disappointment with the self, which supplies the poem’s characteristic sentiments of remorse and an oppressive arbitrariness. On the other hand, the narcissistic self possesses a powerful self-directed desire. As a direct product of the lack of separation between the self and its surroundings, this desire is then turned toward the city. This love and desire are expressed in the skillful and delightful verbal representation of the experience. Shlonsky’s urban poems create a paradoxical effect of the reported “content” of an experience of emptiness, apathy, depression, and arbitrariness and the “form” which, with its hypnotic rhythm and spectacular and changing images, lures us to that experience and expresses the powerful desire of the poet.

Loss of tradition and religion in the poem cycle “Lekh lekha” (Go forth) Whereas the backdrop for the sense of absence in the poem cycle “B’Tel-Aviv” is the rootlessness of the urban youth who roams meaninglessly without destination in the city, in the poem cycle “Lekh Lekha”⁶ the speaker finds himself wandering without meaning or purpose. The sense of absence in this poem cycle is expressed by the exiled poet’s absence of belonging to tradition or society, particularly his severance from religion and family. The poem cycle “Lekh Lekha” is one of the most important statements rejecting tradition and religion in Hebrew literature, particularly in its expression of the emptiness remaining after this rejection. This is Shlonsky’s first poetic representation of Jewish religious tradition. If up until the writing of this poem, his attitude toward religion had been based selectively upon taking certain values and figures from the Jewish Bible (such as the revolutionary spirit and fervor of 6 Shlonsky, Shisa sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 97–103.

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the prophets, the theological questions and test of faith in Job, which appear intensively in the poem cycle “Dva’i,” for example), “Lekh Lekha” marks a taking stock accompanied by a sense of loss and mourning over the commandments and customs of the Jewish religion. Until the poem cycle “Lekh Lekha,” when motifs from tradition appear in Shlonsky’s poetry, they were generally taken from the Jewish Bible, particularly figures and events with a universal relevance. This is also true regarding his articles. Shlonsky portrays his time through biblical figures. The general brutality of the period is represented by Cain, and the meanings of this violence in terms of divine justice are represented by Job.⁷ In the poem “Lekh Lekha,” a process of mourning for Jewish tradition can be seen for the first time; in other words, there is a significant change in how the poet represents religion in his poetry or the meaning he attributes to secularization. Hebrew poetry and Shlonsky’s attitudes toward religion are complex and undergo several defined stages which sometimes overlap the conventional stages of development from religion to modernity in western culture. Matei Calinescu⁸ analyzes the four historical stages of the relationship between modernity and religion. In the first stage in the Middle Ages, the word Modernus first appeared, used by thinkers in contrast to the word Antiques. The modern signified the individual of the new day, as opposed to antiques which signified the religious and spiritual respect given to the past. In the second stage, beginning with the Renaissance and ending with the Enlightenment, a nearly absolute separation occurred between modernity and Christianity. In this stage, modernity found expression outside of religion, principally in areas such as the philosophy of nature, philology, and the social sciences. The third stage was the romantic period, beginning toward the end of the eighteenth century. In this period the idea of “Christian art” as a complete organic body was first formulated, equal and parallel to pagan art and culture. The Christian style of art had a life process of birth, development, and death, similar to that of Greek art. Accordingly, romanticism saw itself as on the threshold of the death of Christian art and culture. The fourth stage confirmed the death of God and examined the spiritual possibilities resulting from that. These possibilities are very diverse both ethically and aesthetically, since a culture’s values are mostly connected to religion

7 Shlonsky, “Dor l’lo donquishotim,” Yalkut Eshel, 41–50. Also the many references to Cain and Job in the poem “Dva’i,” Shisha sidre’i Shira, Volume 1, 105–205. 8 Matei Calinescu, Panim shel moderni’ut [Faces of Modernity: Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch] (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1977), 62.

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and the true nature of secular culture is not clear, having no foundation in values whose source is religion.⁹ The third and fourth stages are compressed in Hebrew literature and overlap each other. A neo-romantic writer such as Agnon, for example, summarizes and eulogizes traditional Jewish life while clarifying the meanings of secular life in other works. The death of God found poetic expression with Bialik, Brenner, and Berdichevsky, making Shlonsky, as it were, a poet of the fourth stage, the stage which assumes radical secularization as a historical given and not as an emotionally-loaded event of the present; however, as we shall still see, Shlonsky does not relate to secular life as obvious. His nearly obsessive preoccupation with religion does not stem only from his critical place in the secularization process of Hebrew literature, but rather from a personal tendency of a biographical origin. Avraham Hagorni-Green, who interviewed Shlonsky’s distant relatives and friends, relates that the Shlonskys were neighbors of Rabbi Levi Yitzḥak Schneerson’s family. The rabbi’s wife, Chana, was close to Shlonsky’s mother, and the rabbi’s son – the one who would become the Lubavitcher rebbe – studied with Shlonsky in ḥeyder. Shlonsky himself would go into religious ecstasies on Jewish holidays.¹⁰ As a result of these childhood experiences, Shlonsky didn’t stop writing poems dealing with the religious experience, whether affirming certain versions of it or rejecting it. The central spiritual experience for him is negation and spiritual search. True faith is an infinite quest, a negation of established religion and any ultimate, total array of beliefs and life.

Belief vis-à-vis religion and “againstness” In his article, “Dor bli Donquishotim” (A generation without Don Quixotes), Shlonsky contrasts religion and faith:

9 Late stages in secularization explain early stages as a variation upon religion which preserves many of its meaningful components. Thus, for example, Marx relates to the French and American Revolutions’ liberal values as Christian values in their essence, for example, in their concern for the individual’s soul. Thinkers belonging to modernism, such as Erich Fromm, or to postmodernism, such as Julia Kristeva, relate to Marx’s and Freud’s teachings as substitutes for religion which preserve its central characteristics. To the former the doctrine of human salvation is attributed, whereas to the latter a transformation to the fathers of modern love is attributed. See for example the Marxist-Freudian interpretation of Christian love by Erich Fromm, Amanut ha’ahava [The Art of Loving], Dafna Levi, trans. (Lod: Maḥbarot l’sifrut, 2001) or a Lacanian postmodernist version by Julia Kristeva, Tales of Love (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987). 10 Hagorni-Green, Shlonsky, 16.

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Religion – 613 commandments, serenity and satiation for whomever has already found his God, and his teaching within his gut, and he is secure, and the entire weight of his burden in his ethical-spiritual world is the burden of the fulfillment of commandments, of implementation, of a set ritual and Shulḥan Arukh. If it can be stated thus, this is the technique and civilization in relations between man and his Maker and between man and man. And its opposite – faith: no serenity and no security, but rather storm and anxiety for the seeker of God, the one who complains, who demands from the ideal, as much revelation as possible, all of it, in its entirety. Not the satiety of those for whom everything is understood and who are cautious, and whose laws are decided and formulated, but rather the hunger of he who stands barefoot and bareheaded in front of the ‘all’ and the ‘nothing,’ and he is so poor and so rich in this world.¹¹

Established religion defines from the start the relationship with God and its meaning; it is established religion which promises the individual serenity and satisfaction in his spiritual world, whereas faith is the true, heroic, spiritual relationship. Faith is a constant test of the relationship between God and the individual. The new spirituality is situated in this position of dialogue after the rejection of traditional religion. Shlonsky calls this “againstness,” and it is a spontaneous discourse with a living God: Permanent hunger – this is the sign of faith, as opposed to permanent satiety, which is the sign of religion, according to the analysis above. Hunger versus satiety – like Job versus Eliphaz. Moreover: hunger – as a steadfastness against God. Perhaps allow me to quote myself: ‘I love you, man against God!’ Because in this againstness – if it may be permitted to speak thus – I have always felt the secret and foundation of the greatness and smallness of the human being. And in my opinion, it is also the secret and foundation of faith as opposed to religion. And… – and this is my main point: also the secret and foundation of true art. This is that very great heresy, which is true religiousness. This is the ‘a man of strife and a man of contention for all his days.’¹²

The discourse against God stands in contradiction to life according to Jewish law. This “againstness” can be compared to the philosophy of dialogue of Martin Buber, Shlonsky’s Third Aliyah compatriot. Both give supreme spiritual preference not to God’s law, as expressed in the commandments, but rather to direct contact in dialogue with God. It seems that Shlonsky’s term expands upon Buber’s dialogue, inasmuch as the concept “againstness” includes the entire person standing against the divine and not only the “I-Thou” relationship based upon language. This corresponds to Shlonsky’s emphasis of both the verbal and non-verbal relationship, expressed by form, to the divine and to the world. In both these world views, God’s call is identified as standing beyond any self-inter11 Shlonsky, “Dor bli Donquishotim” [A generation without Don Quixotes],Yalkut Eshel, 42. 12 Ibid., 43.

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est or super-ego directive originating in education and the environment. This call pulls the individual out of his ordinary life and imposes a public, usually tragic, life upon him, but one that is always historical and intensive. Both men even saw themselves as prophets and built their personae as such. However, for Shlonsky the mission was an aesthetic one whereas for Buber it was a mission of renewal and a demand for universal Jewish values (such as prophecy, justice, etc.).

Dialogical spirituality in the poem “Hitgalut” (Revelation) As has been mentioned, Shlonsky sees true faith in negation and great heresy. In Gilboa, different gradations of heresy are emphasized: from one emphasizing a bared head to the harsh rejection of purification laws. The pioneering life in the Land of Israel is a dialectical step in relation to European bourgeois existence and in relation to traditional Judaism. Shlonsky’s pioneer experience involves suspending halakhic laws for a liberated, heretical, and mystical spirituality. This spirituality is expressed in his poetry as an individual dialogue with the living God. This dialectical and heretical step obtains its authority from those places in the Old Testament where there is a personal, dialogical relationship between man and God. Thus, in Shlonsky’s poetry, there is an emphasis upon and renewed dramatization of those Old Testament dialogues, particularly those of a universal, non-specific nature (those connected to the faith of the Jewish people), such as the dialogues of God with Abraham, Job, and Jonah. The special importance which Shlonsky attributes to the dialogical stance is expressed by how he continually opens the reissuing of his poems with the poem “Hitgalut” (Revelation), which clearly articulates and exemplifies this spiritual stance. This spiritual-ideological position is one of the two adopted by Shlonsky before the collection Lekh Lekha. Before this collection, Shlonsky’s poetry assumes two basic spiritual positions. The one expressed in the poem “Hitgalut” is charismatic and prophetic; the other, expressed in the poem “Stam,” is a contrary spiritual position in which no faith exists in a meaningless, cosmopolitan world. The first position, the charismatic, prophetic one expressed in “Hitgalut,”¹³ chosen by the poet to open his collection of poetry, creates a parallel between the poet and the young Samuel in the classical biblical scene. The boy Samuel, who is lying down in the Temple, hears God call him and mistakenly thinks it is Eli the priest:

13 Shlonsky, Shisa sidre’i shira, Volume 1, 9. “Hitgalut” was first published in Hapoel Hatsa’ir, 17 (1923), edition 1–2, 9, and was the introductory poem in the collection B’galgal (1927), in the first volume of Shirim (1957) and in Khatavim (1971).

‫)‪ Loss of Belief and Madness in the Big City in the Collection Lekh Lekha (Go Forth‬‬

‫ׁשמַע‪.‬‬ ‫אֵי‪-‬מִי ק ָָרא לִי ‪ְ :‬‬ ‫ׁשמִי‪.‬‬ ‫אֵי‪-‬מִי ק ָָרא ִ ּב ְ‬ ‫מַה?‬ ‫מִי?‬ ‫ׁשכָב‪.‬‬ ‫ֵעלִי ָאמַר‪ׁ :‬שּוב ְ‬ ‫ּשׁוְא‪.‬‬ ‫ֵעלִי ָאמַר‪ַ :‬ל ָ‬ ‫ֵעלִי ָאמַר ‪:‬אֵין חָזֹון ‪ִ ,‬כּי ָּכהֲתָ ה עֵינִי‪.‬‬ ‫ׁשמַע‪.‬‬ ‫א ַך ׁשּוב ק ָֹרא לִי ‪ְ :‬‬ ‫ׁשמִי‪.‬‬ ‫א ַך ׁשּוב ק ָֹרא ִ ּב ְ‬ ‫אֵיכָה ַאעַן‪ִ :‬ה ּנֵנִי?!‬ ‫חֲצֹות ‪ֵ .‬עלִי יָׁשִיׁש עַל י ְצּועֹו י ִתְ י ַ ֵ ּפחַ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ָּ ″‬בנַי‪...‬הָּה ָּבנַי‪″...‬‬ ‫ּשׁקִיעָה‬ ‫ּו ְכבָר רֹובֵץ ַהי ְקּום ִבּי ‪ּ,‬פָצּו ַע ַּכ ְ‬ ‫ֵבּין ִ ּפג ְֵרי‪ֲ -‬ענָנַי‪.‬‬ ‫י ָדַ עְּתִ י ‪ִ :‬הּנֵה י ָבֹוא י ְהֹוָה‪.‬‬ ‫ִהּנֵה י ָבֹוא וִינַׁשֵק ִ ּפ ְצעֵיכֶם ְּב ָסעַר‪.‬‬ ‫ְו ֵעלִי זָקֵן מְא ֹד ‪ּ.‬ו ְבנֵי ֵעלִי נְ ָבלִים‪.‬‬ ‫ַו ֲאנִי עֹודִ י נָעַר‪.‬‬ ‫אְַך ִהּנֵה ׁשֹואֵג י ְקּום‬ ‫הִּנֹו ּכֹואֵב ו ָָרן‬ ‫קֹורָאה‪.‬‬ ‫ּו ַב ִּמז ְָרח הָָאד ֹם ֶא ְצּבַע ּב ָָרק לִי ְ‬ ‫–ּדַ ֵבּר י ְהֹוָה ִכּי ׁשֹו ֵמ ַע ַעבְדֶ ּך‪.‬‬ ‫‪Someone called me: listen.‬‬ ‫‪Someone called my name.‬‬ ‫?‪What‬‬ ‫?‪Who‬‬ ‫‪Eli said: lie down again.‬‬ ‫‪Eli said: for no reason.‬‬ ‫‪Eli said: there is no vision, for my eyes have waxed dim.‬‬

‫ ‪70‬‬

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And again he called me: listen. And again he called my name. How shall I answer: Here I am?! Midnight. Old Eli will sob on his couch: “My sons…oh my sons…” And already the universe hangs over me, wounded like a sunset Between my clouds’ carcasses. I knew: here comes God. He’ll come and kiss your wounds in a storm. And Eli is very old. And Eli’s sons are base. And I am still a boy. But here a universe roars Here it aches and sings And in the red east a finger of lightning calls me. –Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth. Similar to the biblical story, the poem presents the speaker-poet as an innocent youth chosen by God, but who mistakenly thinks that the old priest is the one calling him. The established priestly religion (in the person of Eli) is rejected in favor of individual charisma and dialogical spiritualism, represented by the poem’s speaker – Samuel – free of societal or institutional assumptions. God’s voice, which appears at night to the youth, links the divine to sleep, dreaming, and young girls. The poem emphasizes the binary contrasts which also find expression in Shlonsky’s essays, such as childhood versus maturity, imagination and dream versus realism, moral innocence versus moral erosion and most importantly – charisma versus institutionalism. Many critics interpret the poem in a context of generational transition in Hebrew poetry and Shlonsky’s attack upon Bialik. According to this interpretation, Shlonsky is the innocent youth chosen by God to replace Eli-Bialik who says “There is no vision, for my eyes have waxed dim.” Aharon Komem opposes this popular interpretation in his article “Hitgalut and haparasha: ben Shlonsky l’Bialik” (Revelation and the compromise: between Shlonsky and Bialik).¹⁴ 14 Aharon Komem, “Hitgalut v’haparasha: ben Shlonsky l’Bialik,”[Revelation and the affair: between Shlonsky and Bialik], in Sefer Shlonsky Bet, Miḥkarim al Avraham Shlonsky v’yetsirato. Ed. Yisrael Levin (Tel Aviv: Katz Institute for Research in Hebrew Literature, Sifriat Poalim, 1988).

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Komem maintains that Shlonsky’s major attack upon Bialik was only conducted in 1943, in his work “Ḥevle’i Shir” (The vanity of poetry). At the time Shlonsky wrote the poem, Bialik’s influence upon Hebrew culture was at its height, and it may be that Shlonsky was aware that Bialik’s reign would delay his own rise as a poet, inasmuch as he was forced to wait nearly ten years until Bialik had weakened. According to Komem, the power of “Hitgalut” is not in its real world connection but rather in its historical poetic staging of the relationships between the unique personalities, Eli and Samuel. It may be that there is truth in the interpretation which determines that the poem describes Shlonsky’s attack upon Bialik as well as Aharon Komem’s interpretation, which sees the realization of the historical situation in the poem. Nonetheless, both interpretations miss out on the spiritual values espoused by Shlonsky. The choice of Samuel and Eli is not random; in other words, this is not just a selection of a scene from the Old Testament for its own sake, but this is also not a representation of the relationship between Bialik and Shlonsky. This scene was chosen because it represents the spiritual values adhered to by Shlonsky, such as personal, “masculine” charisma, free dialogue with God, and the life of the prophet versus that of the priest.

Priest-prophet, man of the hearth-man of the spirit In his article, “Maḥana’im: Bet. Mum u’metom” (Two camps: 2. defect and perfection), which was published in the July 21, 1933 edition of Torim, Shlonsky compares the image of the priest with that of the prophet. He rejects the image of the priest not only because of its connection to the establishment, but also because of its “foppishness,” its “pomp,” and its lack of defect. This absence of defect reveals its inconsequentiality, its being “secondhand,” and feminine. In contrast, Shlonsky presents the image of the prophet “in his torn clothes, with his mussed hair” as the possessor of a fundamental masculinity, “this is the desert with God face to face!” Priest and prophet…for what is a priest? – a beadle, a secondhand servant before God. And in contrast to him, his converse, the polar opposite, – this is the desert with God face to face! (the difference between the ‘ḥasid’ and the ‘misnaged,’as formulated in the expression of the Kotzker rabbi is a wonderful thing: the misnaged fears the Torah, and the ḥasid fears God). And it isn’t difficult to find here the inverse existing in masculine-and feminine, the priest’s uniform, all this ritual foppishness, the mincing gait, the serviceable position – aren’t these symbols of femininity? The anointing oil poured on his head, the incense and cosmetics and all the perfumed heads, and the precious jewels on the ephod (nearly all the priests of all nations are dressed to this day in an ensemble of feminine costumes)…you are the priest, you don’t give – you receive, you implement. Therefore you are the advocate to

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the regime. To any regime – whoever and wherever the gift decided upon. You won’t upset the bowl. Because you eat from it, you eat from what is ready, from the set table, you are a member of God’s household.

Shlonsky goes on and contrasts the prophet’s positive spirituality with the priest’s negative spirituality by interpreting the phrase “They shall be led with gladness and rejoicing; they shall enter into the king’s palace:” There are many interpretations of this small phrase. And an individual is known by the interpretations he gives to concepts in the world. The priestly interpretation is: in absolute silence (‘praise waiteth for Thee’), pleasantly (‘the words of the wise spoken in quiet’). Because it is forbidden to raise your voice (‘the voice of a woman is nakedness’) and truly: about whom, about what? Doesn’t the world act according to laws? Will the capital complain about the leader – and we only obey his words, we only receive from him, receive and don’t give. With gladness and rejoicing, with gladness and rejoicing we will walk in the courts in the midst of God. In a slight silence – and in submission. That is one interpretation. However there is also an opposite explanation. The interpreters interpreted: wind-rain-snow. That is one interpretation a petrel’s interpretation. There is also the opposite explanation. His representative is the opposite of the man who is the breastplate of judgment. He is the man who stands outside the house. Outside. In the crosswind. In the mists. Bareheaded beneath the burning stars. The wind rips the uniforms, breaksthe implements, imposes a defect. And the defect shouts. Protests. He has accusations and arguments against the leader of the capital. He upholds Torah’s judgment with the Creator, like Levi Yitzḥak of Berditchev. With the regime and the regime’s people. And he will not silence his quarrel. Thus he will disturb the silence, the silence of those who accept and submit. Because he is the man (‘I am the man that hath seen affliction’).

Shlonsky defines what he considers to be correct spirituality by repeating contrasts: prophet-priest, outside-home, man-woman, rebellion-acceptance of authority, ḥasidim-misnagdim, defect-perfection, noise-silence, pleasantnessunpleasantness, man of the spirit-man of the hearth. The comparison between priest and prophet is characterized by an extreme, misogynous rejection of traditional feminine qualities and an affirmation of masculinity. The elaboratelydressed priest with his garments and cosmetics is the feminine one, whereas the prophet is the imperfect man. The necessary condition for being a creator is this defect in the male, the defect of the prophet.

Loss of the Jewish world of belief in the poem cycle “Lekh lekha” (Go forth) Contrary to the charismatic, prophetic, spiritual position as it received its classic expression in “Hitgalut,” Shlonsky obtains revenge for the loss of the Jewish world

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of belief for the first time in his poem cycle “Lekh Lekha”¹⁵ in the collection Lekh Lekha. This collection expresses spiritual absence not as a universal lack of faith and meaning, but rather as a lament for the loss of Jewish faith. Thus, after he had written a body of three hundred pages of poetry, Shlonsky for the first time uses materials from the traditional Jewish world of belief (and not only from the Bible). In the first stanza he describes his devout grandfather who “spoke with his God in the holy language,” and in the next stanza he already situates the grandfather’s death as the death of Jewish tradition, which has no continuity and he stresses that the grandson cannot carry it on. The third stanza describes the grandson’s trek to the Land of Israel – the poet uses the word “v’eylekh” (and I went), which is, so to speak, a modern-Zionist fulfillment of the biblical command “Lekh lekha” (Go forth) to Abraham, which defines monotheistic faith. The classical, biblical context has been added to the modern context of leaving an organic-communal life and passage to an unknown, desolate place where the self needs to be re-invented. However, in contrast to the command in Genesis, characterized by Abraham’s perfect and certain faith, the experience described in the first section of the “Lekh Lekha” poem cycle is accompanied by uncertainty, despair, and ambivalence. The poet leaves without tallith (prayer shawl) and tefillin (phylacteries), without a Father in Heaven and without the prayer said by his father and mother upon embarking on a journey. He arrives in the Land of Israel and meets the substitute for faith in the transcendent God, the faith in the imminent, productive, living, and evolving people. However, the encounter with the people experiencing their national revival does not satisfy him. The arrival in the Land of Israel without faith cannot be a full victory, despite the living people. The absence of full salvation is characterized by the stooped rabbi who bursts forth from the poet’s folded bundle, which symbolizes the immigrant-pioneer as a pauper, spiritually poor despite immigration to the Land of Israel. The poem moves again and again from the identification of Zionism as a new Jewish faith, parallel to the traditional Jewish faith, to the awareness that the national faith cannot be a true faith inasmuch as the modern skeptical man does not constitute suitable soil for such a faith. The disappointed hope that the new nationalism would lead to personal redemption only strengthens the feeling of loss of the original Jewish faith. As the poem progresses, the poet emphasizes the enormity of the world and the smallness of the individual who looks for meaning in it. The stanza of the poem describes the infinite multiplicity of the world (by describing the countries of the world) and the cosmopolitan consciousness aroused by this itemization, in contrast to the particularism and unreasonable certainty of traditional Jewish belief. The speaker does not only note the enormity and variety of the world, but 15 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 2, 97–103.

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also defines his situation as an exile. Further on in the poem, he wanders back to Europe, where the search receives both a particular and universal aspect without “Am Yisrael Chai” (the people of Israel live).

‫ ְוכָך‬-‫ּו ִבׁשְנת ּכָך‬ ‫וְָאנֹכִי ְבצ ְָרפַת ְ ּבלִי ַט ִלּית ּותְ ִפ ִלּין‬ ‫ְמ ַב ֵקּׁש אֶת סֵדֶ ר הַּתְ פִּלֹות ּו ְסלִיחֹו‬ .‫ּשּׁשִׁי‬ ִ ‫לָָאדָ ם ָּב ֶאלֶף ַה‬ And in such and such a year And I am in France with no tallith or tefillin Seeking the order of prayers and sliḥot For a man in the sixth millennium. The order of prayers and sliḥot (prayers of atonement) for a man in the sixth millennium is a persistent problem for someone who has lost his individual Jewish religion. This futuristic image amuses Shlonsky who uses a radio to pray to God while standing on the Eiffel Tower. The end of the poem is a prayer made by the poet on top of the Eiffel Tower – all of the sixth section is devoted to this prayer. The various stanzas emphasize the perfection and beauty of different aspects of creation, such as the sun, the moon, and the human body. In light of the perfection and beauty of creation, the poet asks why God hasn’t created man to be happy with his life. This is a question which has been asked in different variations at least since the time of Kant, who argued that if the essence of the individual was to be happy, then just as the eye and other organs were created in a manner to ensure vision, the individual’s soul was created in a manner to ensure happiness. Nonetheless, while for Kant this argument serves to say that the essence of the individual is to act according to the moral imperative without consideration of the happiness resulting from its fulfillment, Shlonsky chooses to leave the creation of man as a creature for whom happiness is not ensured as an argument against God.

!‫ עֹולָם‬-‫ׁשֶל‬-‫ַאך ִרּבֹונֹו‬ ‫י ֵׁש ָקטָן ְבַּא ְלפֵי יִׂש ְָראֵל‬ ‫ׂשאַּתָ ה יְצ ְַרּתֹו‬ ֶ ‫ְואַּתָ ה ִ ּפ ַּלגְּתָ ֲאב ִָרים ּבְגּופֹו‬ ‫ְוגַם ֶאחָד ֹלא נִג ְַרע ָחלִילָה ִמ ִּמנְי ַן ְרמָח‬ ‫ׁשּבָא ְ ּב ַמּגָלֹו‬ ֶ ‫ְו ָלּמָה ֲעׂשִיתֹו ּכַּיֹוגֵב‬ ?‫וְדָ גָן ֹלא ָמצָא ְב ַּרּנֵן ַה ָּקצִיר‬ ! ‫ ע ֹו ָל ם‬- ‫ׁש ל‬ ֶ - ‫ָה ּה ָל מ ה ִר ּב ֹו נ ֹו‬

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Yet Lord of the Universe There is a small one in the myriads of Israel Whom you created And whose organs you separated in his body And not even one is God forbid lacking from the count of all the two hundred forty eight And why did you make him as a farmer who came with his sickle And found no wheat in the joy of the harvest? H a w h y Lord of the Universe! The entire poem cycle is built around the dynamic of desire for absence resulting from loss of belief in Judaism. The cycle opens with a personal description of loss of “the family religion” and with an awareness that Zionism cannot serve as a substitute for religious faith. In its middle, Shlonsky describes the lost condition of the post-Jewish individual in global, universal existence. The end of the cycle displays a grievance against God for creating man as an unhappy creature. This passage from the loss of traditional Jewish belief to man’s universal condition as lost in an unhappy, modern, global existence affirms, as stated, an attitude of “againstness,” of man alone against his God. The relinquishment of all social institutions, such as family, community, nation, and country, leaves the individual in his naked subjectivity against what was God.

Chapter Four The Process of Secularization in the Collection Metom (Perfection) Secularization as a new form of binding The collection Metom (Perfection) is principally devoted to the secular condition of the modern individual. Shlonsky frequently employs different characteristics of modern existence as a thematic basis for his poetry and selects titles for his books of poetry according to these characteristics. The collection B’ḥefazi, for example, emphasizes the chaos of modern existence, whereas the collection Lekh Lekha expresses sentiments typical of existence in the city and the diaspora. Similar to these collections is Metom which focuses on one important characteristic of modern existence: the severance from tradition and religion. Metom is the perfect, complete religious experience which had become lost. The word metom hints at Isaiah 1:6: “From the sole of the foot even unto the head/ There is no wholeness in it;/ But wounds, and bruises, and festering sores.” In the article “Maḥana’im,” Shlonsky compares defect and perfection (wholeness); in his opinion, “perfection” characterizes the priestly tradition and established religion, whereas “defect” characterizes the prophet and revolutionary.¹ The engagement of Shlonsky’s poetry with severance from tradition and religion formed a central position in Baruch Kurzweil’s interpretation of Shlonsky’s poetry. Kurzweil argues that all of Shlonsky’s poetry “deals with desacralization.” However, this secularization process does not convey a feeling of self-satisfaction and arrogance due to having achieved freedom and liberation (as conveyed in the modern poetry of Shlonsky’s day). The obvious and absolute secularism of Shlonsky’s poetry is what has allowed him to discover deep admiration and an affectionate attitude toward the religious and traditional world.² And indeed, if secularization is not the principal subject of his poetry, it is at least the thematic center of Metom. Kurzweil argues that it is precisely the secularism of Shlonsky’s poetry which paradoxically allows a positive attitude toward the traditional-religious world. In this collection, Shlonsky does indeed attempt 1 See Torim, July 21, 1933, 1. For the relationship of Shlonsky’s poetry to tradition, see Yaakov Bahat, “Moreshet Yisrael b’shirato u’behatuto” [The tradition of Israel in his poetry and thought], in Avraham Shlonsky: Ḥeker v’iyun b’shirato u’bhaguto [Avraham Shlonsky: Studies and research in his poetry and thought] (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1986), 94–174. 2 Baruch Kurzweil, Ḥazut hamavet v’harat olam b’shire’i Avrham Shlonsky, ben ḥazon l’ven ha’absurdi [The appearance of death and the fatal day in Avraham Shlonsky’s poetry: between vision and the absurd] (Jerusalem: Schocken, 1973).

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to characterize existence in the secular world alongside mourning for a lost traditional world. The beginning and middle of the collection are devoted to the representation of secularism, particularly to secularism as a loss of tradition, a loss of the familial-religious way of life in which the place of the individual seems “natural.” The treatment of the individual who lacks a religious framework is central in the poem cycles “Ḥulin”³ (Worldliness) and “Metom.”⁴ In these poem cycles, the experience of an existence without faith is represented by extensive use of surprising images and metaphors. In “Lekh Lekha,” we have already encountered secularization as a tragic process, represented by the deformation⁵ of central images from the Bible. As has been mentioned, this poem cycle is Shlonsky’s first expression of loss of the world of Jewish faith. Shlonsky conducts a transformation and distorts the biblical command “go forth,” which does not lead to a new faith or to the promised land in which God’s promise will be fulfilled, but rather, he proposes the opposite – sending the individual to a condition of foreignness among “the nations of the world,” where he is alone facing his God, without the intermediary of any societal institutions. The poem cycle “Hulin” similarly employs the framework of the biblical story of the binding of Isaac. The variation in the story of the binding employed by Shlonsky serves to create several layers of meaning. First of all, the use of the binding represents secularization as a sort of new faith which necessitates a sacrifice or at least a new test of faith, parallel to the tests undergone by Abraham. Modernist secularization represented by Shlonsky necessitates a “binding,” inasmuch as authentic secular life is not a passive abandonment of religious life. Modernist secularization cannot resemble bourgeois worldliness, in which religious customs and principles have been abandoned in favor of personal advantage, but rather, it requires the creation of a new myth.⁶ This myth will be expressed by extreme (performative) deeds such as forming collective agriculture settlements, deeds similar in self-denial⁷ and idealism to religion itself. 3 Ibid., 136–138. 4 Ibid., 139–149. 5 For a discussion of the deformation of religious language in Russian poetry, see Krystyna Pomorska, Russian Formalist Theory and its Poetic Ambiance (The Hague: Mouton, 1968). For the implementation of Pomorska’s theory in Shlonsky’s poetry, see Dan Laor in The Gilboa Poems. See additional reference to the shifting of concepts from their religious context to a secular one in Chaya Shaḥam, “Ha’et kuvan mul hayeshimon” [The spade directed against the wilderness], Mozna’im, May 2000, 29. 6 This new faith mainly stems from assimilating Nietzsche’s philosophy in Hebrew culture. See Yaakov Golomb, ed. Nietzsche b’tarbut ha’ivrit [Nietzsche in Hebrew culture] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2002). 7 In Shlonsky’s poetry these deeds are never far from a kind of self-sacrifice, whether it is a question of the binding of Isaac or whether the constant reference to the sacrifice of Jesus. In Gilboa, the sacrifice was connected to debasement of the self by eating and lying about in manure.

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Romantic secularization, modern secularization Shlonsky’s modernist perception of secularization was opposed to the romantic perception. As previously mentioned, the romantic perception is conscious of the finitude of a way of life and its beliefs and religion. Together with a tragic consciousness and the “work of grieving” for the dying religious world, the romantic perception calls for a preference of alternative values to this world, such as nature, beauty, or imagination.⁸ In the context of Hebrew poetry, the romantic perception was above all represented by Bialik’s poetry, to which Shlonsky’s poetics were opposed. The poem “Hamatmid”⁹ (The persevering one), for example, adheres to norms which contrast nature with religion. The third stanza of the poem emphasizes the injustice which religious life causes to nature. Six innocent years pass by for the youth like a “lifeless” shadow – as if nothing had occurred during this time, as if the seasons, spring, summer, autumn, winter, had not happened, as if there were no sun or moon, etc. Religious life is represented in the poem as failing to recognize the existence of actual nature. It is indifferent to the change of the seasons and is experienced as a kind of death in life. The poem hints that secularism looks beyond the world of nature. Bialik’s speaker does not want to create “a new religion” which uses the motifs, stories, and language of the old religion, but he simply abandons traditional religion. Toward the end of the poem the speaker declares:

,‫אֹבַד ִע ָּמכֶם‬-‫ ג ַָרם ַמּזָלִי ִכּי‬-‫ֹלא‬ .‫ֲע ֵמלִים ֲענִּי ִים – ִמ ִ ּס ְ ּפכֶם נִפ ְָרדְ ּתִ י‬ ,‫ ָלחֶם‬-‫ׁשעְּתִ י עַל‬ ַ ‫ ָּפ‬,‫תֹורתִ י‬ ָ ‫נָ ַטׁשְּתִ י‬ .‫ּובְדֶ ֶרך ַאח ֶֶרת ְלבַדִ ּי ָאבָדְ ּתִ י‬ My fortune did not result from being-lost with you, Poor toilers – I have parted from your threshold. I have abandoned my Torah, I have committed a crime for bread And on another path alone I have become lost.¹⁰ In contrast to this perception of secularism, which looks to nature and abandons religion and its institutions, Shlonsky’s modernist poetry is committed to dealing with religion with the strength of religion itself; in other words, he means to offer a mythic, independent substitute which does not rely upon the values of nature 8 For example, see the opening to Heinrich Heine’s book, Eretz Ashkenaz: Hagadda shel stav [Germany: a winter’s tale] trans. S. Ben-Tsion. (Tel Aviv: Davar, 1938), 10–14. 9 Bialik, Kol shire’i, 314. 10 Ibid., 332.

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or politics, such as freedom or equality. This modernist-mythic substitute makes use of religious tradition in order to create a new kind of contradictory religion which is “dialectically” advanced relative to the former religion. This advance and contradiction found expression in support for “pagan” values such as beauty and tangible form at the expense of the moral abstractions of the Jewish religion. In his article, “Tselem” (Image), Shlonsky provocatively expresses his “neopagan” perception, which is a religious alternative to the Jewish religion: Image. ‘I am the Lord thy God…thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image.’ Where image of God? And where is the man you made in his image? Man wants a body and a body image. Man wants to see the voices. Therefore – all the people broke apart: Calf! Calf! They always thrust upon me: Judaism! Judaism! We are the sons of prophets. And the vision of the prophets – ‘Speech’ it is and not ‘an image.’ At best: the test of ‘to what can the thing be compared,’ ‘to give a clear and simple explanation.’ And the principle? The principle is ‘the moral principle.’ The moral lesson. However, the ‘principles,’ ultimately, are put in ‘the junk box’ of humanity. Today or tomorrow. And the idols we dig up and take out from the earth. Because the image of the principle is the eternal. The face, the expression […] the picture he has [the author has] is only a literary incarnation, in other words: the unaffirmed question, the result of observation and standing aside, – and not a vision, and not an ancient impression of a believer. Because faith is needed, the need for an idolatrous feeling, raising the metaphor to image, to symbol, to mythological creature. Crazy is the person for whom ‘crazily beautiful’ is stuck in his heart, because it is fashioned from glass, – it marches always mincingly and carefully, so as not to be defeated and broken to pieces. Here because there needs to be the lyrical picture: ‘Crazily beautiful.’ Idolatrous. Committed. The test of: ‘Literally.’ Or as the ḥasidim say: ‘In actual actuality.’ As to the principle – I don’t care. A person doesn’t live on principles. And as to the feeling, to the impression (not due to the concepts’ academic content, but because of their great human significance) – here I praise the ‘calf’ more than the ‘tablets’ And finally even Moses wasn’t satisfied until he saw his God, at least from the back. Because a man wants a body. In the image.¹¹

Here, Shlonsky clearly connects between form as the most important value and paganism, meaning the rejection of Judaism’s values. According to this viewpoint, faith aspires to “an idolatrous feeling.” Shlonsky hints that even the Jewish religion, which emphasizes ethics and commandments, is based upon Moses’s confidence as a result of seeing God. According to this concept, form and image are supreme, eternal, and precede morality or values. The unmediated connec11 Avraham Shlonsky, “Tselem” [image], in Harshav, (ed.), Manifestim, 205–206.

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tion of the individual with form is what spiritually sustains him and forms the basis of values or alters them, and not the opposite. In other words, values do not precede and dictate the myth. Priority of form and myth over values leads every attempt at all-encompassing cultural change to occur through form and myth. In Hebrew culture, in general, and specifically in relation to Shlonsky, such a deep cultural change takes place through use of the Bible. Sometimes the use of the Bible is as “formal material,” – through use of biblical vocabulary severed from its original context – and sometimes there is greater reliance or use of the Bible and constitutes a variation or deformation of the biblical text, which, despite its innovativeness, retains much of the original context and meaning of the biblical text. Therefore, this is not an abandonment of religion for different, alternative values, such as beauty and nature, but rather, this is an active, transformative use of religious myth itself.

Secularization and binding in the poem cycle “Ḥulin” (Worldliness) In the poem cycle “Hulin,” Shlonsky transforms the original myth of the binding in order to promote new, seemingly opposite, values. Initially, the speaker opens by turning to his father:

‫א‬ ‫ַאּבָא‬ ‫ ּותְ ִפ ִלּין‬-‫ָהסֵר הַּיֹום אֶת ַה ַּט ִלּית‬ .‫ְָארחְּתָ עִם ִּבנְך אֶל ּדֶ ר ֶך ְרחֹוקָה‬ ַ ‫ו‬ Aleph (One) Father Remove today your prayer shawl and tefillin And go a long road with your son. In this opening, there is a dominant ironical reversal. It is not God who directs himself to the father, Abraham, to sacrifice his son, but it is the son who, like God, commands his father to undergo a new and difficult test of faith together with him which begins with distancing and rejecting the characteristics of traditional religion. The opening itself is saturated with ambiguity. Who is being brought to sacrifice? The title “Hulin,” and the commandment directed to the father (who is more traditional and religious than the son), characterizes the father and his religion as the son’s sacrifice. However, the father is not sacrificed, and the bibli-

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cal frame story is breached. Instead of leading the father or son to the new test of faith, we are witness to a series of mystical, symbolic images, seemingly without meaning:

.‫ִיריו‬ ָ ‫סֹובֵב הַׁשעַר עַל צ‬ .‫יָמִים י ָב ֹאּו ְו ֶחׁשְּבֹון י ְ ַב ְקּׁשּו‬ ?‫מָה אֶּתֵ ן‬ .‫ׁשקִיעַת ַה ַחּמָה‬ ְ ‫ָּפעֲתָ ה גְדִ ּי ָה עִם‬ .‫נֶ ֱאסַר ַהּשֹׁור אֶל אֲבּוסֹו‬ The gate turns on its hinges Days will come and they will ask for an accounting What will I give? A bleating kid while the sun sets. The bull is bound to his feeding trough.. What is the function of these dream-like images which have replaced the continuation and conclusion of the biblical binding story? Shlonsky avoids telling the complete binding story and only provides its opening in order to show us that the modern “test of faith” cannot be realized by a defined narrative story in which the hero experiences a certain objective event of fateful significance. Modern secular existence is an existence in which it is impossible to undergo a clear test or to give an account of decisions and life styles; therefore, the secular test is an internal, psychological test, characterized by ambiguity and anxiety, an absence of meaning and a sense of an arbitrary end and existence’s limitations. The images of the gate turning on its hinge, the bleating kid at sunset, and the bull bound to its feeding trough arouse sensations typical to modern, psychological and secular experience according to the way Shlonsky sees it – arbitrary and lacking direction – similar to the gate turning on its hinge, a sensation of finitude and death aroused by the bleating kid at sunset, and the sensation of limitation or lack of movement similar to the bull forced to his feeding trough. The first part of the poem ends with a variation of the opening which brings it closer to the biblical story.

‫ַאּבָא‬ ‫ ּותְ ִפ ִלּין‬-‫ָהסֵר הַיֹום אֶת ַה ַּט ִלּית‬ ‫ְונָ ַהגְתָ ּ אֶת ִּבנְך בְדֶ ר ֶך ְרחֹוקָה‬ :‫ַּמֹורּי ָה‬ ִ ‫אֶל הַר ה‬

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Father Remove today your prayer shawl and tefillin And lead your son on a long road To Mount Moriah. The last stanza repeats the first stanza with a few changes and thus, creates an informational redundancy, which is the repetition of the same information seeking interpretation and which creates important meanings in the text.¹² In the poem’s first stanza, the combination “And go a long road with your son” does not mark the speaker as a clear sacrifice, but rather as a participant. In contrast, the combination “And lead your son” marks the son as sacrifice, and the mention of “Mount Moriah,” the specific place of the binding of Isaac, makes the sacrifice more concrete when added to “a long road” which appears in both stanzas. The change from “And go […] with your son” to “And lead your son” and the addition of “To Mount Moriah,” returns the reader to the original biblical story of the binding, because the relationship between father and son is also similar to the biblical story, as well as their destination, Mount Moriah, the original destination of this story. Because this repetition is closer to the source, it places more emphasis on the son as sacrifice. In this poem, in which the speaker is the one who orders and commands his father to go “To Mount Moriah” “Father/ Today remove your prayer shawl and tefillin,” the son, a kind of Isaac who wants to bind himself, of necessity raises a death wish. How does self-sacrifice sit with the original meaning of the binding? The classic meaning of the binding is connected to the demonstration of Abraham’s great faith. Nevertheless, a long tradition of post-biblical commentary presents Isaac as the one who in actuality sacrificed himself heroically for faith. Similar to Shlonsky, many other Third Aliyah poets wrote about Isaac’s selfsacrifice, as noted by Yael Feldman in her article, “Yitzḥak o Oedipus? Migdar v’psykho-politika b’gilgule’i ha’akeda” (Isaac or Oedipus? Gender and psychopolitics in the variations of the binding).¹³ In this article, she uses post-biblical literature in order to interpret the seemingly surprising fact of how Isaac’s passive image became a successful model for Zionist literature. Feldman maintains that

12 This redundancy begs for interpretation inasmuch as the literary text tends to be concise. About repetition in the biblical story, see Meir Sternberg, “The Structure of Repetition: Strategies of Informational Redundancy,” The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985). 13 Yael Feldman, “Yitzḥak o Oedipus? Migdar v’psykho-politika b’gilgule’i ha’akeda” [Isaac or Oedipus? Gender and psycho-politics in the variations of the binding] Alpai’im, Issue 22, May 2001, 53–77.

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many Third Aliyah poets represented Isaac’s image in reference to the post-biblical tradition wherein Isaac was given up for sacrifice. There is much irony in the fact that Isaac’s self-sacrifice is a midrashic archetype and not a biblical one, whereas the Zionist discourse turned the Bible into its canonical text, thus exiling the literature of the Midrash to the margins of the cultural system.¹⁴ The post-biblical tradition which had a decisive influence upon Hebrew literature, a tradition which Feldman attempts to uncover, is an additional layer to understanding the use of the binding in Shlonsky’s poetry. However, even without this influence, the use of Isaac’s self-sacrifice can be understood in the interpretive framework of modern secularization. As has been stated, secularization utilizes religion’s central myths and therefore, it is no wonder that images were chosen which, by their actions and relation to God, communicated religion’s most fundamental issues. The biblical figures Shlonsky frequently uses in his poetry, such as Cain, Abraham, and Job, are those which glaringly illustrate universal issues, such as Cain’s sin of jealousy and murderous act, Abraham’s abandonment of home and homeland for faith, and in Job, the question of evil and the justness of judgment. It is no wonder that Shlonsky chooses these figures and not those whose biblical context involves the political fate of the Jewish people, such as Samson or Jacob. However, is the post-biblical tradition necessary in order to explain Shlonsky’s use of the binding of Isaac? Is the interpretation which sees Isaac as sacrificing himself the reason Shlonsky uses the binding as a framework for his poem, or is the choice of Isaac a means to express Shlonsky’s version of modernist secularization, committed to the use of the biblical myth in order to prepare cultural change, in other words as a means of transformation? It may be that Shlonsky opposes the post-biblical tradition which interprets the binding of Isaac as indicating God’s unwillingness for human sacrifice. Such an opposition would afffirm human sacrifice as part of an idolatrous affirmation. In favor of the second interpretation, there exists the sympathetic attitude of a portion of Hebrew (Zionist) poetry and culture toward idolatry,¹⁵ as we have seen above in Shlonsky’s own manifesto. The second part of the “Ḥulin” poem cycle settles the issue, in my opinion. Identification with the post-biblical tradition is partial and ambiguous at best. Although the speaker wishes to present himself as someone who possesses a vague, suicidal desire, he does not identify with someone who dies for belief. He 14 Ibid., 62. 15 The sympathetic attitude of many Hebrew and Zionist writers toward idolatry is an active opposition to Orthodox Judaism, sometimes by the deliberate adoption of Orthodoxy’s perception of Zionism as idolatry worshipping force and territory.

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renounces the image of Isaac as martyr, and represents himself as someone who does not aspire to simple sacrifice, but rather, to a poetic existence, ambiguous and complicated by a lack of meaning, in other words, as someone who aspires to absence. The second part of the poem opens with the presentation of three figures to whom the speaker presents himself in contrast:

.‫עֹולָתֹו‬-‫י ִ ְצחָק טֹועֵן אֶת ֲעצֵי‬ .‫ּולְָאחִי – ּבַת ְק ַטּנָה ַצ ְח ָקנִית‬ .‫ ַא ָּפי ִם‬-‫חֹורׁש אֲדַ מָה ְ ּבזֵעַת‬ ֵ – ‫ו ְֵרעִי‬ .‫חֹורׁש אֲדָ מָה‬ ֵ :‫ּפָׁשּוט‬ ‫ש ֵֹרך ּב ְִרחֹובֹות ַה ִקּרי ָה ְ ּכ ַבּי ָכֹול‬ ָ ‫ו ְַרק ָאנֹכִי ְמ‬ .‫ׁשמָתִ י‬ ְ ִ‫ נ‬-‫ּו ֵמטִיל ְסעָרֹות ִבצְֹלחִית‬ Isaac claims the wood of his sacrifice. And for my brother – a small, laughing daughter. And my comrade – who plows the earth by the sweat of his brow. Simply: plows the earth. And only I wend my way in the streets of the city as it were And lay tempest in the saucer of my soul. The meaning of the life of each one of these three figures is certain and guaranteed. Each one of them is represented by one significant characteristic and in contrast, the speaker is vaguely represented as having an unreal existence. Their way of life is clearly contrary to that of the speaker of the poem and he apparently is jealous of them.¹⁶ The first figure described by the speaker is Isaac. In contrast to the central place of the binding of Isaac in the first part of the poem, in the second part, Isaac is the first of three figures. Including him in a series of figures diminishes his uniqueness and denotes the speaker’s distance from him. Here, Isaac serves as the first of the figures whose life essence is assured, and among whom the speaker clearly is not counted. “Isaac [who] claims the wood of his sacrifice” is part of the divine covenant with Abraham, and due to his spot on the chain of God’s plan, he has a guaranteed spot and significance. The second figure is the poet’s brother who the reader has already met in the previous poem in this collection (“L’abba-ima”). Here too, as in “L’abba-ima,” the brother represents the parent, meaning the one whose life has meaning by virtue of his parenthood. The third figure is of the friend, whose life takes on meaning by plowing the earth, in other words, by bringing crops and fertility to humans. In stark contrast to these

16 See Hagorni-Green, Milḥamto, 309–310.

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three, the poet represents his rootlessness, his remoteness, and his urban and artificial existence. Shlonsky empowers this existence by a comparison to a dog, as he has already done in the poem “B’Tel-Aviv.”¹⁷ However, in the poem “B’Tel-Aviv,” the use of the image is terser and more concise than in the present poem, and is presented thus:

‫ ע ֶֶרב אָׁשּוב ְלבֵיתִ י‬.‫ יֹום ֶאעֱמ ֹל ֲע ָמלִי‬-‫יֹום‬ .‫וְֹלא ֶאנְעַל הַּדֶ לֶת‬ ‫ּו ְכ ֶכלֶב ִ ּבמְלּונָה ֲאכ ְַרסֵם ּב ָָרעָב‬ .‫אֶת ַהּפַת ַהקְֹל ֶקלֶת‬ Day in, day out I will labor at my toil. Evening I will return to my home And I won’t lock the door. And like a dog in a doghouse I will hungrily gnaw My poor piece of bread. In “Ḥulin” there is a significant expansion of the image. The image is not transposed totally to the speaker, but rather to his heart with which the speaker conducts a dialogue and tries to calm down. Whereas in the poem “B’Tel-Aviv” the image of the dog demonstrates hunger and solitude, in “Ḥulin” the recalcitrant dog image indicates the struggle or failed attempt to turn the speaker/self (who is like a recalcitrant dog) into someone who has discipline and the ability to find his path and life’s meaning, similar to that of the three figures mentioned in the beginning of the stanza. The second part ends with the last line “Your burden is heavy upon me – and I will be saved.” This line creates a poetic closure (the sense of a closed text) and seemingly articulates the speaker’s desire, perhaps only seemingly since both of the first two stanzas express a contrary desire which does not covet a solution of certain salvation following increased suffering. As we have already seen, the condition of ambiguous uncertainty is preferable to the speaker. According to Shlonsky’s poem, up to this point the condition of meaninglessness and existential suffering resulting from an absence of knowledge and salvation, is a heroic and authentic condition in contrast to salvation and the certainty of faith. From the quantitative division in the second part of “Hulin” devoted to each type of salvation, existence which seeks meaning is a preferable existence, and not the existence in which meaning is guaranteed. Isaac, who represents the religious individual, and thus, the father and the farmer whose existences are apparently preferable and enviable, are more or less described in one line, a line of literal 17 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 2, 79.

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description lacking poetic momentum. Despite this, the unstable condition, the speaker’s internal struggle, receives dramatic personification which, if it doesn’t cause the reader to clearly prefer this condition, at least it causes him to direct maximum attention to it. The first two sections of the “Hulin” poem cycle attempt to describe the state of the modern individual in relation to its similarity and dissimilarity to the binding. The poem progresses from a paradoxical description of the binding of the father to a demonstration of the test of faith of modern existence, an existence of internal struggle by the arrogant, rebellious self. Despite its secularism, this modern existence is not without God. It articulates relationships of againstness, in which the individual stands alone and seeks against his God, without the mediation of institutional religion. Accordingly, the last part of the poem is a personal petition to God.

‫אֹודְ ך‬ ‫עֹור ְרּתָ נִי‬ ַ ‫ֲאׁשֶר עִם ָהנֵץ ַה ַחּמָה לְיֹום ֲע ָמלִי‬ .‫ְוׁשָלֹום ַּב ֲע ָצמַי‬ ‫ִמ ַּמי ִם זַ ִכּים ָטהַר ּגּופִי‬ .‫ּו ִמּטַל ּבֹקֶר‬ Your song of thanks With which you have awakened me at sunrise to my day of toil And peace in my bones. My body has been purified with clear water And morning dew. The first stanza parallels the morning Shaḥrit prayer and provides a unique variation. The three subjects of the opening of Shaḥrit are reworked. In order, the three subjects are: the purification commandment of hand-washing, thanking God for creating the body and its proper functioning, and thanking God for returning the soul from “death” – sleep. Shlonsky turns the order of the Shaḥrit blessings around. First, he gives thanks for awakening, and afterward for the wholeness of the body, and purification is last. The stanza of course adds two foreign elements to the original prayer and they are toil, “you have awakened me at sunrise to my day of toil,” and nature “My body has been purified with clear water/ And morning dew.” These two elements link the poem to its socialist, pioneering context, where physical labor and nature are central factors in the individual’s redemption. Similar to the first part of “Hulin,” in which the frame story of the binding is breached, here, too, the second stanza breaches the frame of the accepted prayers.

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As the poem progresses, the poet asks God to protect him from “the uselessness of the day and from wrath and hardship.” In the context of the second and third stanzas, “the uselessness of the day” is not related to being diverted from prayer in daily life, but from being diverted from productive activity. The last stanza is entirely devoted to various aspects of work: its success, the rest necessary in order to “re-enact” it the next day, its ultimate importance, etc. At its midpoint, “Hulin” mainly describes secularization as a difficult and nearly masochistic situation; however, in the third part, secularization is also represented as a condition which permits liberated and creative spiritual relations, in which the individual constructs his own prayer to God.

The human body as plant in the poems “Metom Aleph”: “B’eyn elohim” (Perfection 1: Without God) As a transformation of the binding story occurs at the beginning of “Hulin,” in order to represent the existence of the modern individual in a complex manner, so, too, in the poem “Metom,” which immediately follows it, a transformation occurs in the central images from the natural world which since the Middle Ages had served to describe the human condition.¹⁸ The poem, “Metom,”¹⁹ which gives the title to the entire collection, is divided into four equal parts. The first part, “B’eyn elohim” (Without God), begins with clear claims on the religious-traditional individual’s condition in the world. These claims are formulated through images of correspondence and parallelism between the human body and seasons of the year. In the first lines, the body’s functions (tendons) and its correspondence to the cosmos and natural rhythms are emphasized. As a result of this correspondence between the individual and his body and the days of the year, the individual is the center of creation.

‫שסָה גִידִ ים לִתְ קּופַת הַּדָ מִים‬ ְ .‫וָדָ ם עַל אֲדָ מֹות‬-‫ש ֹר‬ ָ ‫בְגּופֹו שֶל ָּב‬ ‫ּשנָה‬ ָ ‫ׁשסָה יָמִים לִתְ קּופַת ַה‬ ְ .‫ִ ּבגְ ִוּי ַת הָעֹולָם ְל ִמנְי ַן ַה ַחּמָה‬ ‫ּשנִים‬ ָ ‫ ַה‬-ַ‫וְעֹומֵד לֹו ָאדָ ם ְכּלּוח‬ ‫ְ ּבטַּבּור הָעֹולָם‬ 18 The purposeful functionality of the natural world served as an indication of God’s goodness and existence since the synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy with the Judeo-Christian faith in the Middle Ages. 19 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 2, 139–149.

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:‫ּו ַמּשִׁיר ַהּט ְָרפִים – ט ְַרף יֹום ּבְיֹומֹו‬ ‫ִמ ְב ֵּראׁשִית‬ .‫ ְו ֻכּלֵי‬-‫ ֵריׁש‬-‫עַד ּתָ ו‬ Three hundred and sixty-five tendons for the season of blood In the body of flesh and blood upon the earth. Three hundred and sixty-five days to the period of the year To the world’s carcass at the counting of the sun. Man stands like a calendar of the years At the navel of the world And sheds the leaves – plucked day in day out: From the beginning Until nineteen hundred and so on. The individual is compared to a plant-body which is at the same time “a calendar of the years.” “A calendar of the years” denotes meaningful time, not time that passes in vain or without purpose, and therefore, existence too has meaning. This “calendar of the years” sheds its leaves, which symbolize the days that have gone by since the first day of creation and they also indicate the significance of the passing time. According to the religious sense expressed in the poem, the different attributes of time, such as its beginning with creation,²⁰ its linear progression, its division into holy and secular – all of these have an objective existence given by God. These qualities are not dependent upon interpretation and the individual’s position. The metaphor of time as body, as an object in the world, is the demonstration of time’s objectivity (by virtue of its being an object, a body) in the religious vision of the world. Shlonsky uses a metaphor of physicality here and of rootedness in order to indicate time and even psychological existence as roots connected to the world’s navel. The poem continues with its division of objective time into holy and secular times:

‫ ַה ִּמנְי ָן ְליָמִים ׁשֶל ֻח ִלּין‬-‫ׁשְחֹורֹות הֵן סְפֹורֹות‬ .‫טֹוב‬-‫ׁשּבָת ּולְיֹום‬ ַ ‫ַואֲדֻ ּמֹות – ְל‬ .‫ּכְָך ָהי ָה ְל ָפנִים עַל ּכַּדּור הָעֹולָם‬ The counting of the amount into profane days is black And red – for Sabbath and holiday. Thus it was in the past on the planet of the world. 20 1900 was the year of Shlonsky’s birth. In the poem, Shlonsky is simultaneously the singular man, Avraham Shlonsky, and the generalized man.

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As previously stated, time itself and even its division into profane and holy does not depend upon the individual’s will or way of thinking. God created the world and man is the one who divided time into holy and profane, and therefore, this division is real, like objects and physical things existing in the world. As part of the same plan of creation and cosmic order, man, time, and the world are closely connected to each other and the division of time in the first stanza, “to the period of the year,” and in the second stanza into holy and secular, are similarly valid for human and world. The poem goes on to contrast between religious existence, in which time is objective, and secular existence where there is no division of time into holy and secular.

.‫ְועַּתָ ה – נִׁשְתַ ּּנּו ָהעִּתִ ים‬ ‫עַּתָ ה ֹלא ּתַ דְ לִיק ּאּמֵנּו ַה ְ ּכׁש ֵָרה‬ ‫שּבָת‬ ַ ‫ ַה‬-‫אֶת נֵרֹות‬ :‫)הֲתִ זְּכ ֹר‬ ‫י ָדַ י ִם עַל ְק ַלסְּתֵ ר ַה ַּפנִים‬-‫ִּגבְעֹולֵי‬ ‫ְכּמֹו אֹומְרֹות ְל ַהסְּתְ יר אֶת ִק ְמטֵי ַה ֻח ִלּין‬ (?‫שֶּבֹשְׁשּו הִּמֹוג עֲדַ י ִן‬ .‫עַּתָ ה הֹוי עַּתָ ה‬ And now – the times have changed. Now our righteous mother will not light Sabbath candles (Remember: Stem-like arms over her face As if to hide the wrinkles of the profane Which still tarried in dissolving?) Now alas now. In contrast to the religious way of life, secular existence is presented in a concrete manner: not “man” but “our righteous mother.” The mother does not fulfill the religious commandment of lighting Sabbath candles and saying the blessing over them. The poem continues with a memory from the past when the mother did bless the candles. The image of the mother’s hands compared to stems describes delicacy, spirituality, and softness. The stems are, of course, the forearms and not the hands. The narrow forearms which cannot hide the face contradict the spiritual softness of the hands that bless, which according to tradition hide the face so as not to enjoy the light of the candles before the blessing is said. “Stemlike arms” emphasizes the slenderness and delicacy and inability to hide “the wrinkles of the profane.”

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The meaning of the image becomes clearer through its contrast to the images of man in his religious existence, represented as the heavy, coarse, solid body, with its physical presence – a body whose internal parts are emphasized (flesh and blood, tendons, navel, carcass). The image which is associated with secularism, in other words, stem-like arms, represents delicacy, fragility, and insecurity. “Stem-like” arms even seem to be floating in the air, because they’re not connected to earth. The mother’s wrinkles create a visual parallel to the “stem-like arms.” Similar to the ambiguous, nearly mystical, symbolist images which describe the secular condition in “Ḥulin” (“The gate turns on its hinges,” “A bleating kid while the sun sets,” “The bull is bound to his feeding trough”), here too the image of the mother, with her delicate arms hiding her wrinkles, is more ambiguous and melancholy than the earthy description “three hundred and sixty-five tendons,” which indicates religious existence. The difference between the generalized, earthy, bodily description of religious existence and the particular description of “our righteous mother” inclines the reader to identify with the existence of the latter. The contiguity of these two images creates the reader’s attraction to secular existence with its ambiguous and tragic multiplicity of meanings. In the poem, the stems as arms is a kind of advance clue to an extensive metaphorical development of the individual as a plant in the lines thereafter. If, at the beginning of the poem, the individual and his life are likened to the yearly calendar, here, the basic conceptual metaphor²¹ is the individual as plant. However, the comparison to a plant continues with the comparison to the calendar, because both of them emphasize the meaningful divisions in an individual’s life. Just as in the calendar there is a division into secular days and holidays, a plant also has different organs which serve different purposes and find particular expression at certain times of year (such as trees losing their leaves in autumn, becoming laden with fruit in the summer, etc.). The religious individual’s existence and temporality are similar to the plant’s purposeful and natural divisions, whereas the secular individual’s existence lacks these divisions. Man is like a sick plant which is not suited temporally to its surroundings, and therefore cannot bear fruit. While Shlonsky employs the metaphor of the mother’s arms as stems in a modernist manner, a use which creates defamiliarization in the basic concep-

21 The linguist George Lakoff coined the concept ‘conceptual metaphor,’ which indicates a metaphor that forms the base of many specific metaphors. For example, the conceptual metaphor ‘theory is a building’ forms the base for expressions such as ‘It’s impossible to support this assumption,’ ‘The arguments are unstable,’ ‘The basis for the theory is solid,’ etc. The metaphor “Man is a plant’ forms the foundation for specific images such as ‘An old man is like a barren tree,’ ‘The young girl is blossoming,’ etc. See George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors we live by (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).

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tual metaphor comparing man to plant, immediately afterward in the poem, he goes back to using a metaphor of a man as a tree in a traditional manner. Secularism in this metaphor is compared to the absence of fruit, to existence in which fertility is poor or lacks meaning. In a religious existence, the meaning of fertility is ensured by the commandment “be fruitful and multiply,” whereas in secular existence this order is disrupted; the tree is full of leaves, but it doesn’t bear fruit. Fertility in secular existence lacks meaning exactly like a lack of fruitfulness. Secularism turns fertility into an unnecessary redundancy. In religious existence, fertility (birth, “the creation” of offspring) is one of the most important attributes of human existence, by its commonality to man and God, the creator of man. On the other hand, in secular existence there is no meaning in this fertility, because it does not rely upon a transcendent base. The next stanza suggests that secular time is apocalyptic, a time which has not yet come, and a time toward which we are headed, a time of spiritual tension when great change stands to take place.

‫הֲתֵ דְ עּו מַה יֶהֱמּו ֵ ּבּלֵילֹות‬ ?‫ הָעֹולָם‬-‫ֲע ַצ ֵבּי ַה ֶּט ֶלג ְַרף ְּבקָדְ ק ֹד‬ ‫ׁש ַמי ִם נְמּוכִים‬ ָ ‫מַה ּי ֶ ֶעׁשְנּו ּתַ חַת‬ ?‫ חֲרֹׁשֶת ְ ּכנֵרֹות ַהבְּדָ לָה‬-‫א ֲֻרּבֹות‬ !‫ׁש י ת‬ ִ ‫ּשׁ ִל י‬ ְ ‫זֶ ה ָק ְר ָב ה ְל ִק ָּצ ּה ַה ְ ּס ֻע ּדָ ה ַה‬ ‫ּו ְל ִחּנָם ּתִ לְק ֹ ְטנָה י ָדַ י ִם ח ֲֵרדֹות‬ .‫ּשּׁבָת‬ ַ ‫ׁש ְלחַן ַה‬ ֻ ‫ִירי ִם ִמ‬ ַ ‫ׁש‬ :‫שּוַע ֲענִיִּים‬ ׁ ַ ְ‫ּו ְל ִחּנָם נ‬ !‫ַאל ּתֵ צְאּו‬ !‫ הַּכֹו ָכבִים‬-‫שלָׁש‬ ׁ ְ ‫ַאל ּתֵ צְאּו עֹוד‬ ‫ַּגֹורלֹות‬ ָ ‫ה‬-‫ַהּמְבּוכָה ַהּגְדֹולָה ְ ּכבָר ּתִ ּשָׂא אֶת ּכֹוס‬ ‫ּותְ נַהֵם‬ – ‫ַה ַּמבְדִ ּיל‬ ‫ֻח ִלּין י ְדִ ידִ י‬ .‫ֻחלִין עַד מ ֹ ַח ָה ֶעצֶם ַה ְ ּק ַטּנָה ִ ּב ְקצַה ָה ֶא ְצּבָעֹות‬ Do you know what noise the telegraph’s nerves will make in the nights in the world’s vertex? What will we create under low skies factory chimneys like Havdalah candles? The end of the third meal is drawing near! In vain will anxious hands gather leftovers from the Sabbath table. In vain will we implore the poor: Don’t leave!

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Don’t leave until the three stars have appeared! The great confusion will have already born the cup of fates And will moan Separate – Profane my friend Profane to the marrow of the fingertips’ small bone. The stanza begins with images of telegraph wires as nerves which make “noise […] in the nights,” and factory chimneys as Havdalah candles. These images create an apocalyptic sense by transposing a sensation of lack of control and personifying objects.²² The line “The end of the third meal is drawing near!” refers to the meal before the melaveh malkha, which honors the departure of Sabbath with food and song, in the way that royalty is accompanied when departing a city. The approaching end of the meal suggests the end of religion. Nonetheless, the verse may even mean the third meal out of three consecutive meals, in which the first is the Passover seder in which Jews celebrate freedom and the giving of the Torah; the second meal is the last meal of Jesus in the New Testament, after which Jesus was summoned to be crucified, or, in other words, to sacrifice himself for the redemption of all humankind; the third meal in the poem is apparently the meal in which religion is completely abolished and secularism appears as the new gospel. The stanza continues and demonstrates the fear of this gospel. The speaker calls in desperation “In vain will we implore the poor:/ Don’t leave!/ Don’t leave until the three stars have appeared!” The next line emphasizes the contingency of secular existence in contrast to a vision of the world in which everything has a purpose as part of a greater scheme. The poem stresses that even the world’s most central things, such as the sun and the earth, become completely contingent.

!‫טָעּות! טָעּות‬ ‫ַרק טָעּות הִיא ַחּמָה‬ ‫ְנֹורה עַל ֶאלֶף ָקנֶי ָה‬ ָ ‫ִכּי ּתִ דְ לַק ַּכּמ‬ ‫ַרק טָעּות אֲדָ מָה‬ .‫ׁשלַח ְבַּא ִפּי אֶת קְט ֶֹרת הַּתְ נּובָה‬ ְ ִ‫ִכּי ת‬ A mistake! A mistake! A sun is only a mistake 22 Similar to the poetry of the Expressionists, such as Jakob van Hoddis’s famous poem ‘End of the World,’ in which objects such as a hat and trains go amok. See Harshav (ed.), Shira modernit, 233.

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because it will be lit like a lamp upon its thousand stalks Earth is only a mistake because it will infuse my nose with the incense of the crop. It might seem that seeming secular existence is much worse than an existence containing religious significance because secular existence combines both a lack of purpose in human life and in the cosmos where all things are contingent. However, the next stanza segues into a song of praise to the speaker-self who realizes his self-love precisely in this existence which lacks personal and cosmic meaning.

‫ׁשי ָם ּפָרֹכֶת‬ ְ ‫אורגִים ִמ ִּמ‬ ְ ‫ִכּי לֵילֹות ּפ ֹה‬ ‫ְל ַעּטֵף ּבָה ּגּופִי לִתְ ִפּלָה‬ !‫ַּתֹורה‬ ָ ‫ִכּי דָ מְתָ ה קֹומָתִ י ְל ֵספֶר ה‬ ‫אֵתַ ֵצּב‬ .‫ ַחּי ִים בזרועות אֲדָ מָה‬-‫ׁשנֵי ֲעצֵי‬ ְ ‫ו ְַרגְלַי ְ ּכ‬ !‫י ָדַ י ִם אַ ְגְ ִבּי ַּה – וְיּוׂשַם ַהּכֶתֶ ר‬ Because nights here weave a parokhet from their silk To wrap my body in prayer Because my stature resembled the Torah! I will stand And my legs are as two trees of life in earth’s arms. I will raise my arms – and the crown will be placed. The description turns secular existence into a narcissistic, sensuous version of religion. World without God is not only a world where the speaker seeks Him, but is revealed as a world of self-love, where the religious life centered on the love of God cannot find expression. The development or alteration of man’s existentialspiritual condition in the poem progresses in a non-overlapping circular manner (like a spiral). The same spiritual conditions recur, such as a desire for redemption and the arbitrary nature of existence, but they return to a higher state than previously held. As we look back, the poem begins with the individual as the center of the world “Man stands like a calendar of the years/ At the navel of the world.” Next comes the condition of the individual after secularization, in which his life has no purpose and he resembles a plant which has lost its ability to bear fruit. Ultimately, we return to a situation in which the individual is the center of the world, but this individual is not a generalized one. He is a specific one – the poet. In other words, we move from an objective view of humanity and its relationship to the cosmos to a radical, subjective view which sees the conscious-

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ness of the individual as establishing and responsible for reality as a whole. The poem progresses from representations of the individual as the center of objective creation, as the navel of the world, by representations of the individual’s life as purposeless and the entire cosmos as contingent where nothing is necessary through to the romantic construction²³ of reality by the specific individual’s consciousness. This construction of reality again supplies meaning to the cosmos in which “Because nights here weave a parokhet from their silk/ To wrap my body in prayer,” but this meaning is subjective. The poem concludes with a complaint about God’s absence after the speaker has already become the new center of creation.

‫ַאח הַּתְ לּו ִבּי ּבּוזּו לִי נְדִ יבִים ּונְבונִים‬ :‫ׁש ִלּי‬ ֶ ‫ַו ֲאנִי – ְב‬ ‫ִכּי ַרע לִי עַד ָמוֶת‬ ‫אֱֹלוהִים‬-‫ְ ּבאֵין‬ Oh make fun of me despise me wise and noble ones And as for me – for myself: Because I feel bad unto death Without God The brief, rhymed (in the Hebrew) wording undermines the message. The stanza is laconic as opposed to the rich images and elevated style of the previous stanza. The contrast between the simplicity of this stanza’s language and the previous stanza’s richness of language and narcissistic enjoyment make it difficult for the reader to believe that the speaker really feels bad to death without God. The contrast between the stanzas makes the poem’s speaker untrustworthy and indeed, the speaker will continue to lead the reader astray again and again regarding his attitude toward secular existence. There’s no way of knowing whether this existence is bad and contingent or whether it constitutes the spiritual fulfillment of the individual.

23 The establishment of reality by a specific subject, by one or another individual (in contrast to the establishment of reality by the general mind), began with the romantic philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and progressed from Friedrich Nietzsche to the phenomenological-existential school of Martin Heidegger and Edmond Husserl.

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Seeking God in “Metom Bet”: “Lahadom” (Perfection 2: Such things never happened) The first part of “Metom” begins with the general existential state of the religious individual and ends with a confession of the speaker’s bad situation without God. The second part of “Metom,” “Lahadom” (the first letters of lo hayu devarim me’olam – such things never happened), is similarly constructed. This section opens with a report about a savior and ultimately portrays despair due to redemption’s absence. The image of savior is designed as a parodical variation on the image of Jesus from the New Testament. We are first introduced to it by the speaker, who, like John the Baptist, announces the coming of Christ. The hero is poor, possesses nothing, and knows suffering, “impoverished and knowing bitterness,” but of course he is precisely the one who possesses the key to the word of God (in the Old Testament) or to human redemption (in the New Testament). The girdle of thorns mentioned in the poem creates a visual image of Jesus’s crown of thorns. The redeemer usually comes to save those who sin, but here, the sin is not a moral trespass or disobeying God, but rather, the sin is an absence of emotional enthusiasm, dullness – a lack of ability to laugh or cry; only “some bad rustling/ from morning to evening groans here,” meaning that existence does not attain the level of tears or laughter.²⁴

:‫ׁשמְעּו‬ ְ ִ‫ַהאִם ֹלא ּת‬ .‫ִמׁשְּתַ ְקׁשֵק ְ ּכבָר ַה ְצּרֹור‬ ‫ַה ַּמנְעּול נִחָר‬ .‫רֹוטֵן‬ :‫חֹורקִים‬ ְ ‫ּשׁע ִָרים‬ ְ ‫ַה‬ ?!‫מִי‬ !‫עֹוד ֹלא !עֹוד ֹלא‬ !‫ּשׁע ִָרים‬ ְ ‫ֲאנִי ֹלא ֶאפְּתַ ח אֶת ַה‬ !‫ֲאנִי עֹוד נָאֶה ּכ ֹה‬ !‫עֹוד ּדָ בָר לִי ֵאלֶיך אֲדֹנָי‬ 24 In “Ta’anot u’ma’anot,” Shlonsky writes that true art: ‘is an elevator,’ that raises human experience. Clownish? Because art is a deed of the clown and the child, the two remnants in the human world who still know how to laugh and to cry. The meeting of the child and the clown are congruent to the supreme shekhinah [divine spirit] – here is art! And not a sober wading about in ‘and so it was’ and a lowering of stature of what this revelation means.’ Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, p. 31 (emphases mine). In other words Shlonsky sees the ability to laugh and cry as a remnant of a human ability which had been worn away. Perhaps it is possible to see in the parodical passages in the poem when the speaker seeks God, the clownishness which is identical to ‘the supreme Shekhinah.’

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Will they not hear: The keys are already rattling. The lock rasps Grumbling. The gates are squeaking: Who?! Not yet! Not yet! I will not open the gates! I am so pleasant thus! I have something else to say to you God! The rattling keys, the rasping lock, and the squeaking gate symbolize the spiritual change indicating the new gospel, the third one. Shlonsky revitalizes the wornout metaphor of the gates of heaven and makes it concrete: the gates squeak, the hero carries a bunch of keys, and the lock grumbles. However, the gospel is not given, the narcissistic speaker, “I am so pleasant thus,” postpones it for one last conversation with God. The new gospel, the gospel of secularism according to the previous sections of the poem, is postponed until after a last monologue with God. The delay creates tension and heightens the importance of this gospel.

‫עַד ָאן ָּפנֶיך ּתַ סְתֵ ּר‬ ‫עַד ָאנָה תֶ ֱחׁשֶה‬ . ָ‫ׁש ַכחְּת‬ ָ ‫ְכּמֹו דַ ֵבּר אֶל הָָאדָ ם‬ :‫ַה ְצהִילָה נָא ְוצַו לֹו‬ !‫ְצחַק‬ :‫אֹו ַה ְסעֵר ְסבִיבֹו עַד י ִתְ ַּפּלָץ‬ !‫ְבּכֵה‬ .‫ְו ָצחַק לָך‬ .‫ּו ָבכָה לָך‬ .‫ׁשאִיג ּתְ ִהּלָיו מִן הַּדָ ם‬ ְ ‫ְו ִה‬ ‫הֲֹלא ָה ַפכְּתָ ָאז אֶת סְדֹום‬ ‫נָטִיתָ זְרֹועֲך עַל נִינְוֵה ָּבבֶל רֹומָא‬ ?‫ְו ָלּמָה ּתַ ח ְִריׁש עַּתָ ה‬ ‫י ַ ְס ֵּרנּו י ָּה‬ ‫הָּה ַּכּלֵה זַעַמְך ְבּתֵ בֵל ֻ ּכּלָּה‬ .‫ו ְַרק עַל ּתַ ח ֲִריׁש עֹוד‬ ‫ ָּפנִים‬-‫ו ְַרק ַאל ַהסְּתֵ ר‬ .‫ֵאלִי ֵאלִי‬

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How long will you hide your face How far will you be silent As if you’ve forgotten how to speak to man. Please rejoice and command him: Laugh! Or stir up things around him until he’s terrified: Cry! And he laughed for you. And he cried to you. And achieved his fame from the blood. Didn’t you destroy Sodom then Stretched forth your arm over Nineveh Babylonia Rome And why should you be silent now? Torment us God Alas extinguish your wrath upon the entire earth Only don’t be silent more. Only don’t hide your face My God my God. The speaker seeks God and complains about his absence, similar to many portions of Psalms. However, he does not seek Israel’s salvation, but he rather wants God to see himself and “do something.” The things the speaker requests from God are arbitrary and are intended to demonstrate presence (“rejoice,” “command,” “stir up,” “torment us,” “extinguish your wrath”). This presence takes the individual out from his spiritual emptiness and he will again cry and laugh. The conclusion is an allusion to Psalms 22:2, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me,/ And art far from my help at the words of my cry,” and to the last words of Jesus on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”²⁵ The speaker goes on with theatrical requests for the presence of God until the last lines of the poem, which ambiguously determine the secular gospel.

!ַ‫ ַה ִּגלְּבֹע‬-‫ׁשמָיו ּדַ ְבּׁשֹות‬ ָ ‫חֲת ְֹרנָה‬ !‫ יִז ְְרעֶאל ַה ַּמ ֲענִית לִיבּול‬-‫ַה ֲעמִיקּו יֹוגְבֵי‬ ‫ִחצְבּו לִי ִמּמְרֹומִים‬ ‫ִחפְרּו ִמ ַּמ ֲע ַמ ִקּים‬ .‫אֶת דְ ּבַר אֲדֹנָי‬ ‫אְַך אֹוי לִי‬ ‫ִכּי ִהּנֵה הּוא ּבָא‬ 25 The Gospel according to Mark, Chapter 15.

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:‫וְקֹולֹו ְמח ְַרחֵר עַל ְסבִיבַי ִּבצְחֹוק‬ !‫ַל ֲה דָ ם‬ ‫אֹוי לִי‬ ‫ִכּי ָענִיתִ י גַם ָאנִי‬ ‫אֹוי לִי‬ ‫ טֹוב‬-‫ִכּי דָ מִי ּבֹוכֶה ִבּי עַל יֹום‬ .‫ְועַל מְת ֹם‬ Strive for his skies humps of the Gilboa! Go deeper Jezreel farmers into the furrow’s yield! From the heavens hew for me Dig from the depths The word of my God. But woe is me Because here he comes And his voice bubbles up in laughter about my surroundings Such things never happened! Woe is me Because I too have answered Woe is me Because my blood cries within me for holiday And perfection. Thematically, the last sections of the poem continue the previous stanzas. The speaker again seeks God and God indeed arrives, however “and his voice bubbles up in laughter about my surroundings,” and his message is “Lahadom” –“Such things never happened.” Laughter and tears mean several things in this poem. To a large extent, the first use corresponds to what Shlonsky wrote in “Ta’anot u’ma’anot,”²⁶ in other words, tears and laughter denote an authentic existence which can only bring about true art (“[…]art is a deed of the clown and the child, the two remnants in the human world who still know how to laugh and to cry”). However, at the end of the poem, when God arrives “and his voice bubbles up in laughter about my surroundings,” the use of laughter is not connected to the absence of emotion in modern existence, but it is laughter that denotes a radical secularism since at least the time of Nietzsche.²⁷ Laughter is suited to reporting 26 Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 31. 27 Nietzsche frequently uses the terms laughter and gaiety (one of his books is even entitled, The Gay Science) as a dialectical contrast to Christianity, because if the Christian God, also like the

100 

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secularism, inasmuch as it is the opposite emotion to the severity with which religious-moral commandments are generally transmitted. The new gospel is “Such things never happened!” which maintains an absence of meaning in the human universe. However, the poem’s speaker does not experience liberating laughter. He indeed “answers” the call of this new gospel and agrees with it, “Woe is me/ Because I too have answered;” however, the last lines convey a mostly tragic attitude over the loss of faith. The speaker mourns the loss of the good day, meaning the holy days as well as the sense of the wholeness of perfection (in the psychological and not physical sense) that tradition provides.

The authentic consciousness of man’s marginal existence in “Metom Gimel”: “B’sha’ar ha’ashpat” (Perfection 3: At the garbage gate) The third section (“Metom Gimel”) of Metom, “B’sha’ar ha’ashpat” (at the garbage gate), opens with an authoritative speaker who turns to the individual in an abstract, generalized manner.

!‫ָאדָ ם‬-‫עֲמ ֹד ֶבּן‬ ‫ֵמאֵיזֶה ִא ְטלִיז ו ֵמאֵיזֶה זֶבַח‬ ‫ש ָמנִים זָר‬ ׁ ְ -‫ֵמאֵיזֶה ִמׁשְּתֵ ה‬ ‫ָח ַטפְּתָ ֶעצֶם ְמ ֻמ ָחי ָה‬ ‫ש ֹב ֹע אֱֹלהִים‬ ְ ‫ ּבֹו ִ ּב‬-‫ ֵחפֶץ‬-‫ אֵין‬-‫ׁשי ָר‬ ְ ‫ִ ּכ‬ ‫ש ֹ ְט ּב ָָרעָב ְלג ְָר ֶמּנָה‬ ְ ּ ֵ‫ זָוִית ת‬-‫ְואֶל ק ֶֶרן‬ Man, stand! From which butcher and which sacrifice From which foreign feast of oils You grabbed a marrowed bone Like a remainder no one wants after God has been sated And hungrily turn aside to a secluded corner to chew on it

Jewish God, speaks seriously and even angrily, the death of God (and of metaphysics) should be delivered with liberating laughter. In the introduction to The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche writes: “You should first learn the art of consolation in this life – you should learn to laugh my young friends, even if you wish to remain thoroughly pessimistic. From that, as laughing people, some day or other perhaps you will for once send all metaphysical consolation to the devil – and then away with metaphysics!” Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, The Gay Science, trans. Israel Eldad (Jerusalem: Schocken, 1969)

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 101

The opening manages to present man’s marginal existence in a world emptied of religious content through a series of images. However, instead of presenting images of absence as emptiness, the poem describes absence as marginality. Instead of rejection or the murder of God, we are witness to images which display God’s indifference to the fate of the individual, and the individual’s marginal and trivial existence in God’s world. In the first lines, the individual is compared to a dog nourishing himself with the leftovers from God’s feast. God does not place the doings of humans at the center of his affairs (as occurs in the Bible), but rather he is an indifferent master from whom man grabs (and doesn’t even receive) the remains of his meal. This perception makes man marginal and redefines the relationship between him and God. It is no longer a preferred relationship, but one of authority on the one hand, and misery on the other. Instead of hiding God by murdering or rejecting him, Shlonsky chooses to present him as an indifferent master. This image even has a certain advantage by illustrating the marginality of the individual, inasmuch as in a world where God is completely absent, the individual in any case becomes some kind of center if only “a center” of consciousness or experience; however, in a world in which God is represented as an indifferent master, the individual becomes marginal in an absolute manner. The empowered speaker goes on to criticize man, particularly the man rejoicing in his God, and characterizes him as grateful for the leftovers he grabs from the master. The individual is grateful and happy for his miserable existence. It is precisely his misery which causes him to feel so grateful that he cannot contain his joy. The poem continues with the expulsion of man from the banquet. This expulsion is a demonstration of the individual’s true experience or to put it more precisely – an image of authentic consciousness of this condition. In other words, instead of being a marginal figure and grateful in a religious manner for the little given by the world (God), authentic existence is the understanding of the true condition of the individual in the world as a miserable and trivial creature, expelled from the “banquet.” The second stanza is written from a common perspective of the speaker who afterward is revealed as a waiter who serves God, the angels, and the other gods. The waiters drive the individual away and don’t even allow him to grab the leftovers. After man is ejected from the celebratory banquet which proceeds in an aristocratic manner (the waiters serve the gods and “glittering stars like formal buttons”); the third stanza moves on to clear instruction by the authoritative speaker, who instructs man to live his miserable life as a howling dog.

!‫חֲז ֹר ְבּך הָָאדָ ם‬ ‫ׁש ַמנִּים‬ ְ ‫חֲמּודֹות ְל ִמׁשְתֵ ּה ַה ִּמ‬-‫ִכּי ֹלא ק ְָראֲך אֵל‬ ‫ּומַה ּתִ סְּתֹופֵף עֹוד‬

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?‫ׁשמָיו‬ ָ ‫ּומַה ְ ּב ַכ ְפָּך ּתִ ׂשְר ֹט ִמפְּתַ ן‬ ‫ֹלא יִפְּתְ חּו‬ .‫ׁש ְכּמֹותְ ך‬ ֶ ‫ֹלא יִפְּתְ חו הַּדֶ לֶת ְל‬ ‫ׁשּפַּתֹות‬ ְ ‫ׁשעַר ָה ַא‬ ַ ‫ּורבַץ ְ ּב‬ ְ ‫ לְך‬-ֶ‫הָּה לך‬ .‫ְויַּלֵל יַּלֵל יַּלֵל‬ Change your mind, man! Because I didn’t summon you to pleasures at the fatted banquet And what, will you still spend time And what, will your hand scratch the threshold of his heavens? They will not be opened The door will not be opened for the likes of you. Alas, be gone and lie about at the dung gate And howl howl howl. The entire poem emphasizes man’s peripheral and miserable position. His position and condition are not different in this section from the first section, despite the presence of God who was absent in the first part of the poem, “B’eyn elohim.” The individual is unimportant in the new existence and this can be represented, on one hand, as God’s nullification, and, on the other hand, as God’s indifference. The world is not designated for man; he is peripheral and neglected by creation. The third part of Metom, “B’sha’ar ha’ashpat,” uses images which illustrate the secular individual’s new spiritual state: the images of man as dog, God as master, the banquet whose waiters are apparently God’s angels, and, ultimately, the final expulsion of man from even his miserable spot gathering leftovers. This description is intended to represent the secular condition of the individual and to emphasize his inability to change it. At the end of the section, the speaker clearly states to man: “They will not be opened/ the door will not be opened for the likes of you.” In other words, it would be best for the individual to attain true consciousness of his “class” situation in the cosmos.

God’s insignificance and new redemption in “Metom Dalet”: “Metom” (Perfection 4: Perfection) Authentic class consciousness, at least according to the Marxist schema, is the beginning of future “redemption.” Indeed, after the speaker has instructed man to lie about outside the banquet at the dung gate like a howling dog, the fourth part describes this redemption. There is almost no need to mention that the redemption following upon the process of secularization will be different from

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traditional religious redemption. However, even if this redemption is different from a religious one, and different even from the socialist one, the question must be asked – how does any redemption coexist with the clear preference in the previous sections of the poem for an ambiguous, tragic, secular existence? As we have already seen, Shlonsky’s poems prefer a dynamic situation to an ultimate one, and this dynamic preference for spiritual search is the experiential basis for his poetics. Even the redemption represented in the fourth part of Metom is of doubtful validity, in order not to represent itself as something ultimate and complete.

‫ד‬ ‫מְת ֹם‬ ‫ַאך עֹוד י ְהֹוָה י ֵׁש‬ .‫וְהּוא ק ְָרַאני לָב ֹא‬ ‫יֹומָם י ְ ַחּזֵר ּכָמֹונִי עַל ְכ ַּר ִכּים‬ ‫ׁש ֲאנַנִּים‬ ַ ‫ְ ּכ ָענִי ַע ֹל ִפּתְ חֵי‬ ‫ׁש ָחקִים‬ ְ ‫ּו‬ .‫ ַהּזֶמֶר עַל גַּבֹו‬-‫ְכּתֵ בַת‬ !‫ ּדָ י‬:‫ָח ַפצְּתִ י זְע ֹק לֹו‬ .‫נֶכֶר‬-ַ‫ּכָמֹוך ּגַם ֲאנִי ּפ ֹה ָרׁש וִידּוע‬ ‫ דְ וָי ָלהֶם‬-‫ׁשוְא יְנַּגֵן י ָּה נִּגּונֵי‬ ָ ‫ַל‬ ‫ׁשמֶׁש‬ ֶ -‫ּו ְל ִחּנָם ּתַ ְצהִיב תֻ ִכּי‬ – ‫ּו ְבפִיך ְפּתָ ק‬ !?‫ְלמִי‬ Dalet (Four) Perfection But there is still a God And he called me to come. By day like me he will court big cities Like a pauper at the gates of the prosperous And heavens As with a hurdy-gurdy on his back. I wanted to shout to him: Enough! Like you I too am poor and know disaster Futilely God will play them melodies of anguish And in vain you will turn the sun parrot yellow And in your mouth a message – For whom?!

104 

 The Process of Secularization in the Collection Metom (Perfection)

Here God is called by his explicit biblical Tetragrammaton name in order to emphasize that this is the God of Israel, who, similar to the poet, is impoverished and courts openings. The fourth part of the poem is an accentuated contrast to the previous third section of the poem in which God is a master at a banquet. Now, he is no master, but rather, like the speaker himself, he is a pauper, a wanderer from city to city, playing his hurdy-gurdy (of course, an analogy to the poet himself who also plays his own hurdy-gurdy which is his poetry). In contrast to the previous section in which God was a rich master (with an alabaster floor and waiters wearing jackets with formal silver-plated buttons), here “class” solidarity exists of the poor and neglected, and there is even what appears to be a call to action, “I wanted to shout to him: Enough!/ Like you I too am poor and know disaster/ Futilely God will play them melodies of anguish.” However, the poem quickly destroys all hope of freedom and liberation for those who are marginal, in this case the poet and God. The poem does this by emphasizing that the state of meaninglessness is a cosmic change and does not depend upon action of one sort or another. The lines, “And in vain you will turn the sun parrot yellow/ And in your mouth a message –/ For whom?!” emphasize that the insignificance of the sun itself, compared to the parrot, something which repeats itself in a completely arbitrary manner, is not related to the individual’s social state in one or another class system, but rather to a world which has become absolutely meaningless, in a manner distinct from human deeds. The parrot’s message, in other words, the sun’s message, is not intended for anyone, even if it is arbitrary. The end of the stanza with the words “For whom?!” reinforces the sense that the message is not intended for a definite recipient. In this world, natural cosmic events lack meaning and indeed, they do not originate from the will of any sort of creator but happen arbitrarily. The second stanza continues with God’s marginal modern situation and suggests a future, spiritual confrontation:

‫הָּה מִי י ִדְ ּבֶּנּו יֹומֹו‬ ‫ׁשעָה ַאחַת זְר ֹק ִכפְרּוטָה אֶל ַה ְמנַּגֵן‬ ָ ‫ַרק‬ ...‫ְל ַמעַן ׁשְמ ֹע י ָּה‬ ‫ּכ ֹה ַרּבּו ּפ ֹה ַה ָח ְפזָה ְו ַהּמְהּומָה‬ ‫ּולְתַ ּנֹות ה ְַר ֵבּה י ֵׁש לָָאדָ ם‬ .‫ְו ָלאֵל‬ ‫א ַך ּתָ ב ֹא עֹוד‬ ‫ּשׁעָה ָהאִּיֹובִית‬ ָ ‫א ַך ּתָ ב ֹא עֹוד ַה‬ ‫עַד‬-‫עֲדֵ י‬-‫ְונִ ְצּבּו זֶה מּול זֶה י ְִריבֵי‬ ‫וִיתַ ּנּו זֶה ָלזֶה‬ .‫על הַּכ ֹל הַּכ ֹל הַּכ ֹל‬

God’s insignificance and new redemption in “Metom Dalet” 

 105

Woe who will contribute his daily Throw only one hour like a coin to the player For the sake of hearing God… The haste and noise have so increased here And man and God have many Things to recount. But it will still come But the hour of trial will still come And forever-and-always the rivals will face each other And will recount to each other Everything everything everything. The stanza continues the image of God as a beggar who plays his hurdy-gurdy in the big city, bustling with humanity, where people neither pay attention to him nor give him money. The speaker wonders who will give God a contribution, meaning who will worship him, believe in him, pray to him or try to hear his message in modern times, times of “haste and noise.” The use of “the hour of trial” in order to mark the crisis leading to redemption, is not an obvious use. On a simple level, “the hour of trial” is that hour in which man’s complete faith in God is tested. However, as we have seen in the previous lines, not only do these times hold no complete faith, but people are not prepared to stop for even a moment to “listen” to God’s hurdy-gurdy. Against the background of secularism, haste, noise, and lack of faith – what can be the meaning of the hour when the individual’s absolute faith is tested, a faith which seemingly does not exist at all? Essentially “the hour of trial” abstractly indicates a subversion of the fundamental order between man and God, particularly the test of the relationship between man’s existential suffering and the lack of existence of the good and beneficent God since “the hour of trial” tests and redefines the arrangement between man and God, the poem emphasizes “And man and God/ Have many things to recount.” There is also “And forever-and-always the rivals will face each other/ And will recount to each other/ Everything everything everything.” In other words, man and God have a “running account” and in the “hour of trial,” renewed negotiations will take place between them in which, at least according to the information given in the poem, God will require recognition of his existence and the keeping of ritual, whereas man will ask for the meaning of his suffering. The stanza continues with God’s neglected figure attempting to restore former glory:

‫רֹואֶה‬-‫יֹורד ְ ּבאֵין‬ ֵ ‫ע ֶֶרב‬-‫ְ ּכבָר ע ֶֶרב‬ ‫ׁש ַפּּתֹות‬ ְ ‫ׁשעַר ָה ַא‬ ַ ‫אֶל‬ ‫אֱֹלהִים‬

106 

 The Process of Secularization in the Collection Metom (Perfection)

:‫ּו ְמגַׁשְׁשֹות ִבּדְ חִילּו ֶא ְצּבְעֹותָ יו‬ .‫ֲטרּתֹו‬ ְ ‫ׁשּבְצֹות ע‬ ְ ‫חֵן ִמ ִּמ‬-‫ּפ ֹה נָׁשְרּו ַא ְבנֵי‬ .‫ּשׁעָה ָהאִּיֹובִית‬ ָ ‫וְתָ ב ֹא ּתָ ב ֹא ז ֹה ַה‬ ‫הֵן ּפ ֹה ְוׁשָם עֹוד ּפֹועֶה שֶה לתֻ ּמֹו‬ ‫ׁשֶהּוא‬-‫הֵן ּפ ֹה ְוׁשָם עֹוד ּבֹוכֶה מִי‬ !‫ ֵאלִי ! ֵאלִי‬: ‫ דַ עַת לֹוחֵׁש‬-‫ּו ִמ ְ ּבלִי‬ Already, without being seen, every evening God goes down To the Dung Gate And his fingers feel about in awe: Here precious stones have fallen from the settings of his crown. And the hour of trial is nigh. Yes, here and there a kid still bleats innocently Yes here and there someone still cries And unknowingly whispers: My God! My God! God, like a beggar, looks for “precious stones […] fallen from the settings of his crown at “the Dung Gate.” There is a religious meaning to the strong contrast between trash and precious stones, which originates mainly in the determination that “the last will be first” of the New Testament, which means that salvation and hope begin precisely amidst those who are weak: the lepers, the poor, the prostitutes, the children, etc. The precious stones, of course, are only symbolically precious. The poem details those “remnants of faith” which the precious stones represent: “…a lamb still bleats innocently,” “…someone still cries/ And unknowingly whispers: My God My God.” These marginal acts, these “remnants of faith” will redeem the world.

:‫ַו ֲאנִי יֹודֵ ַע ז ֹאת‬ ‫מֶה‬-‫מֶה‬-‫ ִעזִּים ַרְך הַּתֹוהֶה מֶה‬-‫ִּבזְכּות ְטלֵה‬ ‫ׁשמֶת ּתְ ִפּלַת טַל‬ ֶ ‫ ְמעַט נֹו‬-‫ִּבזְכּות אֲדָ מָה‬ ‫וִיקַר צִפ ֶֹרן ָהע ֲֵרלָה ֲעלֵי ֶרגֶל‬ ‫ ָּבזֶה‬-‫עֹוד ּתַ זְהִיב ָקמָה אֵי‬ ‫ּשׁכִינָה מֹוחָה דִ מְעֹות יֶלֶד‬ ְ ‫עֹוד נִזְּכֶה ל ְִראֹות י ַד ַה‬ .‫לֵיל‬-‫ׁשמֶׁש טַל ִמּשָׁדֹות דְ ּמּועֹות‬ ֶ ‫ַּכ‬ ‫ׁשע ֲֵרי ָה ַאׁשְּפֹות‬ ַ ‫ִיריכֶם‬ ֵ ‫ָאז סֹּבֹו סֹּבּו עַל צ‬ ‫ֻ ּכּלָנּו נַעֲב ֹר ּפ ֹה ָב ָּרעָב ּובִדְ וָי‬ ‫ּומִי יֹודֵ ַע‬ ‫אּולַי יַחְּפ ֹן עֹוד י ְהֹוָה מְלֹוא ָח ְפנַי ִם‬

Editorial secularization 

 107

‫ַא ְבנֵי ַהּמִּלּואִים‬ ‫ׁשּבְצֹות ֲעט ְַרּתֹו ְ ּכ ִמ ֶקּדֶ ם‬ ְ ‫ׁשלְמּו ִמ‬ ָ ‫ְו‬ ‫ְו ָהי ִינּו‬ .‫מְת ֹם‬ And I know this: Thanks to the gentle kid who wondering maa- maa- maa Thanks to a bit of earth breathing a prayer for dew And precious the uncircumcised toenail on a foot Still ripe grain will turn yellow somewhere Still we’ll see the hand of the divine spirit wipe away a child’s tears Like the sun to the dew from night-tearful fields. Then gates of rubbish turn turn on your hinges We will all pass here in hunger and anguish And who knows Perhaps God will yet take handfuls Stones of fullness And complete the settings of his crown as in ancient times And we were Perfection. The speaker claims that the deeds which apparently are not connected to the mainstream of faith and commandments are those which will open the gates of heaven. The perception that marginal and innocent deeds will open heaven’s gates is similar to Hasidic perception which emphasizes simple and authentic belief leading to redemption. The specific content of deeds and events, the “maamaa-maa” of the kid, the earth saturated by dew, the uncut toenail – all these are connected to untamed nature, innocent or wild, which is precisely what will bring about redemption.

Editorial secularization It is desirable to compare the representation of secularization in Metom with Shlonsky’s editorial writing. As we have seen, the poems in Metom simultaneously mourn the loss of tradition and present secular existence as a state of meaninglessness and emptiness, and paradoxically they affirm this condition as tragic, and therefore, worthy. It could be said that the poetry in the collection

108 

 Avne’i Bohu: Karkhi’el (Stones of Void: Kharkhi’el)

represents secularization mainly in a “negative” manner, lacking essence. Shlonsky’s attitude toward secularization in his editorial writing is different and practically the opposite of his attitude toward secularization in his poetry. In his article “Magen-avot magen banim” (The shield of the fathers the shield of the sons),²⁸ he compares Jewish culture, the collective “we,” to an old people’s ethnicity maintaining its tradition and relying passively only upon will. From his point of view, this image represents the condition of Jewish culture: Judaism, which jealously nurtured submissive admiration for the heritage of the fathers, the annulment of reality in the face of the bestowed Torah, turned its bearers into guardians without pay, into whose hands was placed a frozen wealth of concepts and principles, into heirs whose role was not to attain and acquire, but rather to lie down over cash dinars. […] As bearers of the great inheritance of teachings and commandments and thoughts we were compared to a person, whose whole tragedy is that he always walks about helplessly beneath God’s heavens and always must solve, conquer, discover, add value, have the universe at his feet, and we – what is the riddle which hasn’t been solved by the great solvers of blessed memory? […] We have fulfilled commandments. The circle is closed. Our ancestors closed it. – Our sages of blessed memory (oh, who like us has so frequently cited them? Isn’t our acclaimed style a crossword puzzle of “as it was said”?), ahead of us – a ready messiah (they’ve even prepared the future for us!), and in the middle – an inconsequential station, essentially superfluous, – the present.²⁹

In this passage, tradition is not represented as fullness, but as an “annulment of reality,” as an erasure and obliteration of the self, as a cancellation of the present for the sake of the past and the future. If in Metom, Shlonsky mourns the traditional world which is forever gone, indeed, here he presents this world as alive and strong, and as a world which has to be actively combated. If in Metom, the secular world is perceived as empty, cold, and meaningless which stands in contrast to the warmth of tradition, family, and meaning – here it is the opposite: the world of tradition is a dead world, a world in which there is no innovation, in which man’s true essence is trodden beneath the spiritual demands of the past and the future. Whoever seeks renewal, secularism, and living a modern life denotes “fullness” and building: Because heritage is not hard and fast. Its value also lies in withdrawal from it, in a ‘journey onward.’ Because we not only have come to the ‘land of our forefathers,’ – but also to ‘the land of the sons!’ Without that, there is no history. It is not by chance that Zionism, the legitimate daughter of Israel’s past and the daughter rebelling against it, – rebelling and cherishing together, – the line of conflict between it and its adversaries of various factions

28 Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 33–35. 29 Ibid., 34.

Editorial secularization 

 109

(from complete assimilation to religious and red [communist] assimilation) is in relation to the values of the past.³⁰

The Zionist enterprise (as secular nationalism) is a dialectical progression which not only is neither worse nor negative, but rebels while cherishing tradition. In the article, there is no sorrow over the loss of tradition, but instead, there is active combat against it. How can the difference be explained between Shlonsky’s representations of tradition in poetry to those in his journalistic writing? The collection Metom represents tradition positively: it is not something to be combatted, since it is something that has passed and will not return, whereas in the article “Magen avot magen banim,” the speaker presents himself as one who struggles with mighty traditional forces which he and those in his surroundings can only overcome with effort. This gap highlights the focus of Metom upon emptiness and the absence which comes with secularism. In other words, Metom does not focus on those aspects which express the dialectical sublation stemming from “rebellion” and “cherishing.” That is, a positive dialectic step which negates the past but preserves all its achievements, but precisely the ahistorical, tragic perception of the individual who has himself lost his personal tradition. These two different representations, in Shlonsky’s poetic creation and in his polemical articles, indicate the different roles of each in his work. In the articles, Shlonsky expresses a productive and constructive outlook, expressed in his life of discussion and polemics with the demands of the day, whereas in his poetry he goes beyond any ideological orientation to a tragic expression of the modern individual.

30 Ibid., 35.

Chapter Five Avne’i Bohu: Karkhi’el (Stones of Void: Kharkhi’el) – the Desire for Absence and Loss of Self Cosmopolitanism and universal rootlessness Avne’i Bohu (Stones of void) is considered one of the most extraordinary and influential books of poetry in Hebrew literature. Its unusualness is a result both of its style and its unique themes. This book of poetry is outstanding among books of the period as a description of an existence distant from that of Palestine. According to Hagorni-Green, Shlonsky’s main critic during this period, the book “ignores” its readers’ existence in Palestine: The intentional estrangement from the here and now is demonstrably extreme in this book. No Hebrew goat, no local experience. No pioneer or toil. No village or agriculture. Yes to the metropolis, foreignness, cafés, city streets, and streetwalkers. As if the project of national revival, its slogans, or its contemporary figures didn’t exist. ‘Cosmopolitanism’ or ‘rootlessness’ – in the language of those loyal to reality as it is. Estrangement, of course, also from the homeland in the geographic sense. From the landscape. Life’s breath of the poetry of the revival generation poets. From their way of perceiving the world. A sharp transition toward generalizations and abstractions.¹

The collection’s estrangement from the “here” (although certainly not from the “now,” inasmuch as the collection tries to give a poetic “situation report” of modern existence), the estrangement “from the homeland in the geographic sense” is not only a dialectical rebellion against the revival poets (with Bialik in the lead), but, even as Hagorni-Green suggests, it is a sign of cosmopolitanism and rootlessness. The contrast suggested by Hagorni-Green between the village, agriculture, toil, and pioneering spirit on the one hand, and urbanism – cafés, streets, and streetwalkers on the other hand, is not a stylistic contrast, but one of the central ideological contradictions of the period. Characteristics selected to describe urban existence represent the city through criticism of capitalism, as exemplified in the cafés which signify hedonism, or the prostitute who symbolizes the commercialization of human relationships. It would have been possible to represent the city as a place of productive and moral activity and Shlonsky had tried to do that in one of his articles.² However, the emphasis upon cafés, prosti-

1 Hagorni-Green, Shlonsky, 98. 2 Shlonsky, “Ale’i teref,” Torim, 17.11.33, 1.

Yaḥdav and Avne’i Bohu (Stones of void) 

 111

tutes, etc. reveals in the period’s discourse an affinity toward western capitalism at the expense of an affinity for the local.³

Yaḥdav and Avne’i Bohu (Stones of void) The severance from life in Palestine on the one hand and the radical adoption of the theme of the city in the West on the other hand caused concern about the reception of the collection. This concern was even expressed by a lead article under the auspices of the Yaḥdav (Together) group on the front page of Torim (Columns) in honor of the publication of the book of poetry, Avne’i Bohu. Along with the group’s excitement about Shlonsky’s book and its faith in it, Yaḥdav, which represented almost single-handedly international modernism in Palestine, was concerned over the relevance of poetry cut off from representing or promoting the national project. This lead article expresses the faith of the group’s members in Shlonsky’s poetry, but also the pressures and concerns felt for its being disregarded or from negative criticism: The day that Avraham Shlonsky’s book of poetry, Avne’i Bohu, appeared is one of the few harvest holidays of contemporary Hebrew literature. A period of ascent for all world literature – its beginning lays in books of great poetry, which are the root and canopy for the individual and the nation. An entitled generation lives on its poetry forthrightly and with candor, whereas our generation, in which events apparently shove aside the feet of poetry, also lives thanks to this poetry. Indeed, this too is a criterion for rarified poetry and the poet who builds a period of art: two inclinations run about in the generation’s desires – one accepts and the other rejects. The

3 The affinity for the West as opposed to a commitment to the local was already expressed in two traditions of Russian culture which influenced the discourse in Palestine. The polarity between westerners and slavophiles had already been imposed at the beginning of the nineteenth century and grew stronger throughout it. The founders of the slavophile movement, Ivan Kireevsky (1806–1856), Alexei Khomayakov (1804–1860), and Konstantin Aksakov (1817-1860), affirmed the Russian Orthodox tradition which, in their system expressed the true-internal-moral spirit of an undamaged Christianity. Similarly, these circles affirmed the structure of traditional Russian society which in their opinion exemplified social cooperation and relations between people through feelings of affection and love, responsibility and long-time commitment, and not through temporary material self-interest. This philosophy had an enormous influence on Russian literature until the Communist Revolution. In contrast to this tradition stood a tradition of allegiance to the West, particularly to France, expressed in Pushkin, but even more so in the Russian symbolists. The doctrines of the symbolists is described in Valitsky, Hamaḥloket haslavofilit [The slavophile controversy], 121–238, 394–459.

112 

 Avne’i Bohu: Karkhi’el (Stones of Void: Kharkhi’el)

heart is attracted to greatness, but its surprise deters the arms reaching out to the mightyvisioned poet’s wings. These signs have been given by Avraham Shlonsky and his poetry. The minister of the nation has graced us, raising and nurturing this many-branched poetic tree, creating splendor and value in the landscape of our lives; the field of our literature in the very rocky, revitalized Hebrew homeland; in this atmosphere of alienation, deliberate or not, from refined artistic values, – this great talent gives us back a living and refreshing spirit. A. Shlonsky’s poetry, counting its days of growth from Hedim, has been smelted into a mature crystal in Avne’i Bohu. It knows its strength, knows struggle with lurking dangers, and aspires to a renewed strength, undoubtedly concealed on its way to what follows. Certainly upon these will be based, sooner or later, Hebrew criticism. Whereas we, members of Yaḥdav: for whom Torim is the first expression of new intention and direction in Hebrew art – see in the publication of Avne’i Bohu, the book of poetry, a fortuitous opening to other literary activities, aspiring to add a new layer in the building of our city of books. And to Avraham Shlonsky, poet and friend, whose book of joyful poems opens with the matter of these journeys launched in this forum, the faithful blessing of friends. Yaḥdav⁴

The journal, Torim, which was formed six months before the publication of this announcement by Shlonsky and the Yaḥdav group,⁵ was the most apolitical of the period’s literary journals (in comparison to Gili’onot, Davar, and Mozna’im, for example). The journal expressed humanist, universal, and individualist values and sought to advance Hebrew culture in the country separately from Jewish or Zionist values.⁶ The announcement of the book’s publication blesses the poet and promotes his enterprise, including his attempt to cope with a public who wanted expression of political and social commitment. The declared object of the announcement or article – the celebratory proclamation of the collection’s publication with the purpose of promoting it – could have been accomplished in various ways. The way which was chosen can teach us a lot about the situation of the Yaḥdav group in the cultural field of that period and about expectations for the initial reception of Avne’i Bohu. Among a variety of possibilities for presenting the collection, such as emphasizing its extraordinary qualities or its uniqueness, promises of exciting the reader, its connection to canonic works or artistic styles, 4 See Torim, 22 December 1933, 1. 5 The first edition of Torim appeared 25 Sivan 5693, 22.3.1933 6 See Nurith Gertz, Sifrut v’idi’ologi’a b’eretz Yisra’el b’shnot hashloshim [Literature and ideology in the Land of Israel in the 1930s]. (Tel Aviv: Ha’universita ha’petuḥa, 1988), 80.

Yaḥdav and Avne’i Bohu (Stones of void) 

 113

the inspiration leading to its having been written, etc., the announcement has chosen to refer to the work in relation to its historical situation in general, and specifically to the situation of Hebrew literature. The first line of the call to the public chooses to present Avne’i Bohu in relation to the general state of Hebrew literature (“few harvest holidays”) at that time. This generalizing move continues in an overly radical manner in the second sentence: “A period of ascent for all world literature – its beginning is attached to books of great poetry, which is the root and canopy for the individual and the nation.” This sentence does not refer to Shlonsky’s poetry, but discusses wide historical generalizations. As much as it may appear flowery and abstract, it reveals the horizon of expectation (Erwartungshorizont) of Shlonsky’s potential audience for his poetry at that time. This sentence exposes the central ideological tension on this horizon of expectations, a tension between “art for art’s sake” and literature as a means for man or society’s political fulfillment. The first half of the sentence sees the value of great poetry as a catalyst for a great period in literature. Furthermore, in this part of the sentence poetry’s value is not internal; its importance is expressed as a catalyst for literature in general, meaning for genres which are not poetry, such as Pushkin’s poetry which opened the golden age for Russian literature in general. The second part of the sentence quickly demonstrates that the importance of poetry is not only in what it establishes or in the fact that it drives “a period of ascent” in literature, but in its being a “root and canopy for the individual and for the nation;” in other words, poetry has a nurturing and stabilizing functional role (“root”) and an uplifting and exalted one (“canopy”) for the individual and, of course, for the nation. Poetry has a clear civil role: to be the pride of the people and at the same time to be its spiritual nourishment as well. The sentence “whereas our generation, in which events apparently shove aside the feet of poetry,” not only reveals the ideological commitment of those days which threatens the relevance of Shlonsky’s poetry, but also the dramatic global events of the twentieth century, such as World War I and the Russian Revolution, and local current events, such as the Palestine Riots of 1929. Similiarly, the group particularly emphasizes how Shlonsky’s book, Avne’i Bohu, is a layer in cultural work and its construction. The use of the two metaphors in the publication of the book of poetry – “harvest holiday,” referring to agriculture on the one hand, and “a new layer in the building of our city of books” referring to the construction of houses on the other hand – is characteristic of the period imbued with Zionist fulfillment. The apparently ambiguous lines, “It knows its strength, knows struggle with lurking dangers, and aspires to a renewed strength which it undoubtedly has to use for what follows. Hebrew criticism will certainly ascertain these things sooner or later” receive, in light of the general defensiveness of the group, a meaning of preparedness for unsympathetic criticism. “The lurking

114 

 Avne’i Bohu: Karkhi’el (Stones of Void: Kharkhi’el)

dangers” apparently refers to the anticipated negative criticism of this collection and “sooner or later” shows an expectation that the criticism won’t necessarily ascertain the value of the collection “early on.” The announcement reveals a group under pressure to show the relevance of its cultural enterprise during a period of extreme political commitment and dramatic political undertakings. Despite the lines regarding the hesitation and attraction to the “sublime,” it can possibly be interpreted as hesitant regarding complexity, abstraction, and the urban nihilistic content of Shlonsky’s poetry. The next passage clearly states that it is a period of alienation, deliberate or not, “from refined artistic values,” in other words, alienation resulting from ideological commitment toward political relevance. We of course know about the pressure felt by the writers placed upon them by their audience for a civically and politically relevant literature, not only from the response of the Yaḥdav group or of Shlonsky to this pressure, but from many other articles in the periodicals of the day. Berl Katznelson, for example, wrote: “A poor, pauper people cannot free its chosen ones from its missions.”⁷ The response of the Yaḥdav group to this pressure does not only reflect the pressure itself, but also the strategy chosen to deal with it; they chose a strategy which attempted to present the group’s international, humanist-modernist cultural contribution as a basis for the Hebrew cultural enterprise. In summary, it may be said that this expanded announcement describes an artistic group under the pressure of the question of its relevance to the surrounding political undertaking in general, and specifically, of the poetry collection Avne’i Bohu; it defends itself by emphasizing the importance of this poetry to literature in general and to society in particular.

A national-social invitation This defensiveness and concern were not unfounded. Shlonsky’s poetry was indeed difficult and “not obvious.” His particularly rich poetic language made reading difficult. Shlonsky was well aware of the problems his poetry aroused in readers and he opposed and ridiculed his target audience’s demand for a literature expressing the common desires of the Zionists in Palestine: It has been years that the Hebrew poet has been asked to fulfill the national-social invitation: sing to us the songs of Zion! Rhyme your rhymes about the camel’s neck, the monarchy of the House of David, or the milk cow on the Gilboa. Add to this invitation certain conditions: sing simply, mentioning God’s name and kingship, by revelation, – and not by

7 Ibid., 25.

The mythic journey to the city as desire for absence 

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detached artistic hints. Only clearly and simply in an absolute of meaning and simplicity. We don’t want lofty symbols, we want Rachel your small daughter. When you maintain: indeed, this miraculous revolution, which has taken place in this small piece of land is at the root of elevation and amazement, at the deepest roots of the Israeli individual and public, and therefore, is it at all befitting and fair to clothe it in simplistic paucity? Indeed, matters are much more complex and of concern up to heaven, and therefore can their expression be only a basis for elevation (and that essentially is the only climate for all poetry)? When you maintain this argument, indeed, the answer is ready: ‘Estranged from the public!’⁸

At the beginning of the passage, Shlonsky ridicules and parodies the need of the majority of his readers for literature to be an instrument for their ideological world view, their values, and concrete experiences. A literature whose function is to arouse their national pride by means of agricultural values (“the milk cow”), parenthood (“your small daughter”) and the sense of continuity and connection with a heritage of political force and power (“the House of David”).⁹ Nevertheless, in this passage Shlonsky agrees and even responds to social demand, but disagrees with the conditions of this invitation. He doesn’t agree with the demand for simplicity, but maintains that doing justice with the “miraculous revolution” requires precisely an elevated, complex, and symbolist poetry. In this way, he tries to direct the “national-social” demand toward his very own international, modernist poetry. In fact, even with an elevated style, Shlonsky infrequently wrote about the characteristic subjects of Zionism despite the impression that might have been received by the critics which often dealt with those rare collections that indicated a clear historical and political connection.¹⁰ In Avne’i Bohu, Shlonsky was not prepared to fulfill this social invitation.

The mythic journey to the city as desire for absence Avne’i Bohu deals with the spiritual fate of the solitary individual, desirous for solitude and isolation, while at the same time experiencing feelings of anxiety, sadness, 8 The piece “Ta’anot u’ma’anot” was published the same year as Avne’i Bohu. See Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 30. 9 In the “national-social” invitation a kind of populism can be seen, against which Shlonsky positioned his poetics. While nationalism and socialism do not necessarily include reference to agriculture and parenthood, populism almost of necessity includes the former, and many times even the latter. Shlonsky’s objection to populism can be seen as part of the struggle for intellectual autonomy as opposed to the populistic demands of that time. See the struggle of the intellectuals in that period for cultural autonomy in Michael Keren, Ben Gurion and the Intellectuals: Power, Knowledge and Charisma. (Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1983). 10 For example in Dan Laor, “Shire’i Gilboa.”

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meaninglessness, depression and even madness due to that isolation. The first poem cycle in Avne’i Bohu, entitled “Masa” (Journey), almost chronologically reflects the poet’s “mythic” journey to the cities of Europe. The poet’s journey is primarily spiritual, and its meanings are primarily symbolic and not realistic. According to Reuven Shoham, the hero of Shlonsky’s poetry, similar to the hero of romances or allegories, spends his days in an eternal journey searching for the utopian or dystopian center. The journey itself is full of psychological and physical hardships and it ends in discovering the fundamental and cruel truth about the self. This pilgrimage is essentially a journey from mundane secularism to the eternal, absolute, good, and evil.¹¹ According to Shoham, utopian expression in Shlonsky’s poetry is realized in Gilboa,¹² whereas in “Karkhi’el,” the hero desires to attain the essence of dystopian experience.¹³ The dystopian experience of the city is a journey to “the center of the experience of the self,” and seemingly, this experience focuses upon negation and emptiness. The journey, the “pilgrimage” to the city, is comparable to the negation of self. The first two poems, “B’sirah” (In the boat) and “Haflagah” (The sailing) abstractly and symbolically express the poet’s desire to leave his homeland and “wind” his way. The third poem, “Maḥlakah shlishit” (Third class), is less general and more specific and describes the ship the poet sailed on. The poems “B’ma’agal” (In a circle), “Ani v’hu” (Me and him), and “Yisor” (The petrel), in their different ways, describe the experience of sailing on a ship, while “Kiryat Namal” (Port city), “Beit Netivot” (Terminal), “Metropolis,” and “Montparnasse” describe the ideas and abstract sensations relating to arriving at the port, traveling by train, arriving to the city, and to the Montparnasse quarter. This sequence of events corresponds with 19th century classical literature, which on the one hand presents the journey of the romantic youth to the city as symbolic of aspirations and hopes, while on the other hand, it presents the intangible anxieties over fate’s determination of the hero’s life. As has been previously mentioned, the first poem in the “Masa” cycle, “B’sirah,”¹⁴ notes the desire for the foreign as a kind of suicide. The speaker in the poem recognizes that this is his own “suicidal” wish:

‫ּירה ּוכְמֹו ְב ִמ ְסּפָרי ִם‬ ָ ‫נִּתֶ קֶת ַה ִס‬ .‫נִ ְקטַע ַה ְפּתִ יל ֵבּין ּתְ מֹול ּובֵין ָמחָר‬ :‫ ְל ַחּי ִים‬-‫ַּגֹורלֹות מֹוׁשִיט לִי ּכֹוס‬ ָ ‫ֶמ ְלצַר ה‬ 11 See Reuven Shoham, Poetry and Prophecy: The Image of the Poet as ‘Prophet,’ a Hero and an Artist in Modern Hebrew Poetry. (Boston: Leiden, Brill, 2003), 177. 12 Ibid., 178–184. 13 Ibid., 184. 14 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 11.

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′.‫יִלְּג ֹם נָא אֲדֹונִי ִמּיֶקֶב ַהּנֵכָר‬′ ‫הֲֹלא י ָדִ י – הַּז ֹאת! – ָמזְגָה ָאת ַה ֻקּ ַּבעַת‬ .‫ׁשּנָה לְמֹו פִי‬ ֶ ‫ְוהִיא גַם תַ ּּגִי‬ ‫לָדַ עַת‬-‫הַּת ֶֹרן מ ֵָרחֹוק ְכּר ֹאׁש נִ ְטּבַע‬ .‫ זֶה גּופִי‬:‫ נִדְ מֶה לִי‬.‫ׁשֹו ֵק ַע וְעֹולֶה‬ ...‫ אְַך ה ֶֶרף ִ ּכ ְמעַט ֶרגַע‬.‫ֲאנִי ֶאגְמַע‬ !‫עֹוד זִיז ֲע ַקּלָתֹון‬ !‫ֲחֹורנִּית‬ ַ ‫עֹוד זְנִיק א‬ .‫ ַה ֶהגֶה‬-ֹ ‫נָא ֲע ַק ְלקֵל ּדַ ְר ִכּי ּתֹופֵש‬ .‫יֹותֵ ר מִּדַ י הֵיׁש ְִרתָ ּ ַקּב ְַרנִיט‬ The boat is severed and as with scissors The fuse is cut between yesterday and tomorrow. The waiter of providence extends a toast to me: “Please drink sir from the winery of foreign lands.” Wasn’t it my hand – this one! – Which poured the cup And which also brings it to my mouth. From afar the mast is like a head drowned in madness Sinks and rises. It seems to me: this is my body. I’ll swallow. But not quite another moment… Another zigzagging bump! Another jump backwards! Please steersman, wind my way. Captain, you sail too straight. The metaphor which opens the collection consists of several layers which simultaneously indicate the fatefulness of the journey,¹⁵ and its symbol as life’s last disruption. The physical severance of boat from land expresses life’s division into two parts: the part before the journey and the one after it. The image of the cut fuse represents the sequence of time cut in two and emphasizes the absolute loss of “yesterday,” of the past. Even more important for us is the speaker’s attitude toward the event in the second stanza, “Wasn’t it my hand – this one! – Which 15 The poems in this cycle frequently deal with fate, as in the poem “B’ma’agal,” which ends with the lines “They will still be engraved with a chisel and nail/ All our large and small deeds,” ibid., 15, or in the poem “Yisor,” which ends with the lines “The hidden hand wove the thread of destiny,” ibid., 19.

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poured the cup.” The speaker wonders at his own choice of suicide. Whereas in the first stanza, fate is external and motivated by the “waiter of providence,” in the second stanza, fate is not external to the speaker, but it his own hand which brings the cup to his mouth. The “toast,” implying joy becomes “a cup of poison” in the speaker’s hands. In a delusional manner, the poet sees the mast rising and sinking as his own body. This image of the mast “like a head drowned in madness/ sinks and rises” is a sign of suicide. The defamiliarization of the body and the wonder at the hand which has poured the cup as well as the perception of the body as sinking and rising, suggest forces beyond the speaker’s will, forces symbolizing a suicidal desire and madness. The last two lines in the third stanza clearly indicate a suicidal path in the choice of twisting his own path, “Please steersman, wind my way./ Captain, you sail too straight.” The passage by ship is not only a loss for the speaker as represented in “Masa,” but also for the rest of the passengers. In “B’ma’agal,”¹⁶ the travel by sea is described as a kind of execution.

:ַ‫ׁשי ִט הּוא קָבּוע‬ ַ ‫ִמּי ָפֹו עַד ט ְִרּיֶסְט ַה‬ .‫ׁשּשָׁה יָמִים ַו ֲח ִמּשָׁה לֵילֹות‬ ִ ‫מֵע ֶֹרף עַד ח ְַרטֹום ְ ּב ַמ ְעּגַל ׁשָבּו ַע‬ .‫ִק ֵפּל עֹולָם ָמלֵא אֶת ּכָל ָה ֶעלְּבֹונֹות‬ ‫טֹורפֶת‬ ֶ ‫ְרּורים אֶת ָה ֲאוִיר‬ ִ ‫עַל ּכֵן ּכ ֹה ּתַ מ‬ .‫ִירנֹות ִכּתְ ִפּלַת וִּדּוי‬ ֶ ‫ֶאנְקַת ס‬ ‫ּכָל ֳאנִּי ָה ַּבּי ָם נִדְ מֵית ְ ּכ ַמע ֲֶרפֶת‬ .‫ַה ַּמ ְפלִיגָה אֶל חֹוף ּבָדּוי‬ From Jaffa to Trieste the sailing is routine: Six days and five nights. From home front to Khartoum a week in a circle An entire world collapsed all insults. Therefore, a cry of sirens, thus bitterness beats The air like a prayer of confession. Every ship at sea appears like a guillotine Sailing to a fictitious shore. The first stanza relays a feeling of the ship’s temporal and spatial closure “Six days and five nights/ From home front to Khartoum.” The ship’s small world is 16 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 15.

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a sort of silhouette of the entire world and contains within it “all insults.” The ship, which is a small and claustrophobic world, resounds as one entity with “a cry of sirens…like a prayer of confession.” It is perhaps possible to suppose that the forced inaction on the ship causes people to ponder their actions and thereby confess. This ship, in mid-sea, creates the opposite of Noah’s ark. Whereas Noah’s ark saved everything inside it from extinction and chaos, Shlonsky’s ship appears as a guillotine, leading its passengers to a fictitious shore, in other words, to an insubstantial reality. The next stanza describes the stay on the ship as a sensation of cosmic orphanhood.

‫ּכָל ֳאנִּי ָה ַּבּי ָם – ֵראׁשִית אֹו ְקצֵה עֹולָם הּוא‬ .‫ׁשלְדֵ י ּתְ ָרנִים – ְ ּכ ֶא ְצּבָעֹות ּבֹוהֹות‬ ִ ‫ּפ ֹה יְלָדִ ים יִבְּכּו יִבְּכּו ֹלא יְנֻחָמּו‬ .‫ְ ּכאִּלּו ִל ְבלִי ׁשּוב ָהלְכּו ָה ִאּמָהֹות‬ Every ship at sea – is the beginning or end of the world Skeletal masts – like unseeing fingers. Here children will cry and cry without comfort As if the mothers have gone not to return. The ship of the previous stanza signified the entirety of the world, and now it signifies its beginning or end and paradoxically creates a sensation of orphanhood, of the abandoned child’s misery, expressed by comfortless crying. The skeletons of the masts are like unseeing fingers, meaning that the masts do not only symbolize death and terror, but also the inaction and limit of the fingers which do nothing but stare.

.ַ‫ְואִיׁש אֶל ֲחבֵרֹו עֵינַי ִם ֹלא י ַתְ מִיּה‬ .‫דִ ּין‬-‫ָהע ֶֶרב עַל ר ֹאׁשָם צֹונֵ ַח ִ ּכגְזַר‬ ‫ ֲאׁשֶר נֹועַד – יֹופִי ַע‬:‫ְוהֵם יֹודְ עִים מְא ֹד‬ .‫אִם י ְַאחֵר ְואִם יַקְדִ ּים‬ And no one surprises his companion’s gaze. The evening drops upon their head like a judgment. And they well know: what is destined – will appear Whether sooner or later. The image of “The evening drops upon their head like a judgment,” links to the two images in the previous stanzas: “Every ship at sea appears like a guillotine, “Every ship at sea – is the beginning or end of the world/ Skeletal masts

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– like unseeing fingers.” Similarly, it presents the sailing not as a new beginning or hope, but as a sense of ending and departure with no return. Sailing to the metropolis is a death sentence.

The city as a literary pre-conception The loss and madness suggested by the opening poems receive heightened expression in the poems following them in the collection describing metropolitan experience. The urban situation and experience which are conveyed in the collection Karkhi’el are not the speaker’s direct experiences in the city, but the product of a priori conceptions. These conceptions not only find expression in the content of the poems, but also in their rich form consisting of structured stanzas and eloquent meter, indicating to the reader that before him is an “artificial” work of art and not a natural, transparent representation of urban experience. The complexity, wealth, and polish of this poetry do not contradict its themes of nothingness and absence, but rather contribute to those same themes. The same rhetorical, rich, and complex display, self-aware that it also signals to the reader its artificial nature, only reinforces the nihilism and sense of nothingness transmitted in the poems. It is precisely a rhetoric of simplicity (for example, realism) which indicates that objects themselves possess value, whereas the poems’ extreme style indicates that the experiences themselves are meaningless and only represent the desires or literary ideals of the speaker. In other words, on the one hand, the lyrical world in Avne’i Bohu seemingly consists of absence and nothingness, while on the other hand, it consists of those “literary” desires which an individual projects upon nothingness and absence. The speaker does not report “real” experiences in the city, but those which are appropriate to the literary ideals of urban poetry. The critic Reuven Shoham attributes Platonic and not Aristotelian mimesis to Shlonsky’s poetry, because his poetry does not imitate reality directly, but rather the ideals which that reality imitates.¹⁷ These a priori, literary ideals are already found in his poetic article entitled “Rimbaud – reyo shel Verlaine” (Rimbaud – Friend of Verlaine),¹⁸ which was written in 1930, several months before his voyage to the cities of Europe, the trip which formed the experiential basis for Avne’i Bohu. This article hints at the emotional and ideological foundation of the urban poetry in this collection, a 17 See Shoham, Poetry and Prophecy, 176–177. 18 Avraham Shlonsky, “Rimbaud – reyo shel Verlaine” [Rimbaud – friend of Verlaine], Khtuvim, March 1929, 3.

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foundation of negation of the self-expressed by a desire to experience the alienation and solitude of the big city. Shlonsky opens with an adaptation-translation of Rimbaud’s words:

,‫ יוצאי גליה‬,‫אבותי‬-‫מאבות‬ ‫ את‬,‫ירשתי את עיני התכולות‬ ‫ את‬,‫ את הכובד‬,‫קרקפתי הצרה‬ ‫ את חילול הקדשים‬.‫העכו”מיות‬ ,‫אף‬-‫ חרון‬:‫ואת שאר מומי בי‬ ‫ מעודי‬.‫ שקר ועצלות‬,‫חושיות‬ ‫ זרו לי חוק‬,‫לא הייתי נוצרי‬ ‫ – פרא אני והנני מתגאה‬,‫ומוסר‬ .‫ היושר שבי‬-‫ באי‬,‫בעריצותי‬ (‫)רמבו על עצמו‬ From my fathers’ fathers, natives of Gaul, I inherited my blue eyes, My narrow scalp, weightiness, idolatry. The desecration of holiness And the rest of my defects: indignation, sensuality, lying and indolence. I was never Christian, law and morality were strangers to me, – I am wild and I am proud of my tyranny, the dishonesty in me.¹⁹ (Rimbaud on himself) […] a brush of a bad artist thus described: angel face, a high and smooth forehead, gay blue eyes, chestnut hair, a slightly vertical nose, and sensual lips. Critics added: Rimbaud’s double-sidedness. The father – a man of the south: a chronic instability, capricious, hottempered, a thirst for knowledge and tempestuous wanderings. The mother – daughter of the north: tall with a lean torso, an iron temperament, and a chilly silence – “a bright light and intense cold.” From her – a ruddy face as if a freezing wind had just passed over it, long and flighty hands, a resolute will. Like the “penance of balance” in the son’s heritage – from him and from her. At the age of 17, he escaped them both. He went on foot through Belgium – there: to the city of acclamation and poetry, light in charm and sweat, to glorified Paris hinting from afar – like a falling star on autumnal nights. There, under the heavy bridges over the cold waters of the Seine, he wallowed nightly without a sou or eating his fill – only a moving, intent, 19 The original does not appear as lines and here, there is not only translation, but Shlonsky’s adaptation.

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clenched fist beneath his head. (In another year the poem “Le Bateau Ivre” [The drunken boat] would be completed) – until the autumn turned the boulevards yellow, and on another fall day his fate would summon Verlaine.

Shlonsky’s article, which opens with the translation-adaptation of “Sang Mauvais” (Bad blood), the second section of Une saison en enfer (A season in hell), continues with a poetical description of Rimbaud’s life, his relationship with Verlaine, and his leaving Verlaine for business in Africa, and ultimately his death. These lines exemplify the object of imitation and state of mind which caused Shlonsky to travel to Paris for the second time in 1930 in order to write Avne’i Bohu. Shlonsky sought to lose himself in the big city in which he experienced terror and solitude, its ugliness and beauty. The line which describes Paris – “there: to the city of acclamation and poetry, light in charm and sweat, to glorified Paris hinting from afar – like a falling star on autumnal nights” – is clearly similar to the lines describing Paris in Avne’i Bohu, such as: “city of illusory beauty” (“Metropolis”),²⁰ “city filling its thirst and overflowing” (“Lo” – No),²¹ “city of terror and splendor” (“Sha’ot srufot” – Wasted hours),²² “wanton city of filth” (“Azazel”).²³ The situation of Rimbaud the poet described as “under the heavy bridges over the cold waters of the Seine, he wallowed nightly without a sou or eating his fill – only a moving, intent, clenched fist beneath his head” is the poetic state which Shlonsky sought in Paris. The city entices the poet to absence. It is the city which on the one hand, creates desire for it, where bohemian life becomes realized, while on the other hand, it is the place where the poet becomes alienated from the audience he needs and where he becomes connected to feelings of helplessness, madness, solitude, and death, the feelings to which he imparts structure by the rich, stylized means of his poetry.

Chaos, departure and orphanhood in “Kiryat Namal” (Port city), the encounter with the city and the prostitute in “Montparnasse” The urban experience, which aroused feelings of helplessness, solitude, and death, as we have said, already shows its signs in the entry to the port city in

20 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 23. 21 Ibid., 41. 22 Ibid., 83. 23 Ibid., 98.

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the poem “Kiryat Namal” (Port city).²⁴ The arrival at the port is described by images indicating a sense of being an orphan, alienation, and death, such as a skeleton, gallows, the child (symbolizing helplessness), the grating sound (the siren’s whine), etc. The morning in the port does not indicate optimistic dawn light; rather, it indicates the speaker’s dispirited psychological state, denoted by a murky mixture of darkness and light. The port is not only characterized by a mixture of dark and light, but also by a mixture of land and sea, people and possessions. The speaker disembarks from the ship to the absolute chaos of the port; however, this is not a lively chaos, but a chaos which paradoxically signifies death. The poem quickly passes from unhealthy chaos, suggested by the murky light, to night’s emptiness and solitude. The atmosphere at night is one of suspicion and fear. The electricity poles are compared to “the pupils of secret police” and people who moved about by day are only booty to be divided between two thieves, the land and the sea, which rule over people and relate to them as something to be divided as they see fit. God can’t do anything; he only “listens mutely and painfully.” In the poem’s last stanza, the speaker finally meets the figure of the skeleton, anticipated since the first stanza. The door opens, symbolizing the entrance to the city, and the passenger is greeted by a skeleton. The speaker is compared to an orphaned child, for whom the port city is a “step-mother.” This sense of orphanhood and of departure will grow into madness and insanity in the encounter with the city Paris itself. The encounter with the city begins with enthusiasm for its bustling atmosphere, but changes to melancholy resulting from the meaningless encounter with the city’s empty commercialism. The poem “Montparnasse,”²⁵ for example, presents the city as bustling, noisy, and commercial, but this activity is empty and meaningless. The encounter with the city ultimately leaves a sensation of purposelessness and spiritual emptiness. The poem’s first two stanzas position the city as simultaneously mysterious, attractive, and commercial; it is a place that has everything, where even the individual and what is most precious to him can be bought and sold. However, precisely the city’s commercial bustle contradicts the stagnation of time. Apparently, meaningful time cannot arise under conditions of activity, commerce, and noise. Shlonsky imagines the purposeless activity in the city as a door revolving without a hinge (what door can turn without a hinge), in other words, a floating door which neither encloses a specific space nor leads to another space, a door which moves without purpose. This image parallels human existence which not only lacks purpose, but even lacks spatial orientation. It is not clear how the individual moves, from which space to which space, 24 Ibid., 20. 25 Ibid., 25-26.

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nor why – a compressed and poetic trait of the spatial disorientation of modern existence. As has previously been said, paradoxically, despite the tumult, time does not move:

‫ּשֹטָן‬ ָ ‫ ְ ּכח ֶֶרב ַה‬.‫ְו ַהּמָחֹוג ַא ְכזָר‬ .‫הּוא ְל ַה ְכעִיס זֹוחֵל ַּב ֲע ַצלְּתַ י ִם‬ :‫ּשׁ ְלחָנֹות ּבֹוכֶה מּוקְיֹון ָקטָן‬ ֻ ‫ּובֵין ַה‬ .‫הּיֹום ֶאמְּכ ֹר אֶת ַה ְּמ ִצלְּתַ י ִם‬ The clock hand is cruel. Like the devil’s sword It angers and lazily crawls And a little clown cries between the tables Today I’ll sell my cymbals. Shlonsky creates a vision in which time and space are separate. Not only do the activity and noise in space have no influence on time which slowly advances, but its advance is cut off from space and the sounds within it. When the clock indicates its time to chime has arrived, no sound is heard:

!‫ ָעׂשָר‬-‫תרי‬-‫מָחֹוג עַל ֲחבֵרֹו ִטפֵס ּו‬ .ַ‫ ִצלְצּול ּפֹוהֵק הַּלֹוח‬-‫ּו ְבאֵין‬ .‫ש ֹר‬ ָ ‫ׁשנֵי ְרגָעִים ָּב‬ ְ – ‫ִהּנֵה ַה ּז ֹאת‬ .ַ‫ׁשנֵי ֶמטֶר רּוח‬ ְ – ‫ִהּנֵה ַה הּוא‬ The hand climbed over its companion and it is twelve! And with no-chime the calendar yawns. Here’s this – two moments of flesh. Here’s that – two meters of spirit. The meeting between the hands at twelve o’clock signifies contact between “that,” apparently the poet, who is “two meters of spirit,” and “this,” perhaps the city in its typical image as a prostitute, characterized by “two moments of flesh.” The meeting is sterile and doesn’t produce a “chime.” The meeting of the clock hands is the climax of the poem, inasmuch as the next stanza begins with the words “and afterward,” an expression indicating that the previous stanza was a climax, after which it only remains to conclude:

‫ׁשמַל‬ ְ ‫וְַאחַר ּכָך עֵת יֶאֶס ֹף ַח‬ ‫ֵמעַל ַהּמ ִִרצָפֹות זְהָבֹו ַהּשּׂום ּב ֶָרפֶׁש‬

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‫נָמָל‬-‫ָּכ ֳאנִּיֹות אֶל אֵין‬ .‫ַארּנָק ֵריקָן ַּבּנֶפֶׁש‬ ְ ‫ ֵבּיתָ ם‬-‫ּש ֹאו אֶל ֹלא‬ ְ ִ‫י‬ And afterward time will gather electricity Over the tiles his gold placed in the mire Like ships to no-port To no-house they will carry a wallet empty of a soul. Electricity symbolizes the energy scattered after the sexual meeting between “two moments of flesh” and “two meters of spirit,” and now it is as if he is gathering his limbs from their low point and rising up; however, gathering his forces and rising up lead to conduct lacking a purpose and to an interior sense of emptiness, expressed by the comparison to the ships without a port, and walking to “nohouse.” The image “a wallet empty of a soul” combines the real wallet, empty after the encounter with the prostitute, with the image of internal emptiness. The last stanza also focuses on the emptiness “of after” the meeting (the party), when this time the image is of the end of a banquet or a public auction. The end of the poem arrives at an apparent insight into the experience of the poem itself – the experience of noise, commerce, meaninglessness, and emptiness expressed in a concentrated manner by the words “foreign land.” The insight is visually indicated by the flickering of the words “foreign land” like a light in the dark in the real situation of a train traveling at night and suddenly arriving at the station where there is a lit sign. The encounter of the poet with the city, an alluring and commercial object (and therefore in the background is the metaphor of the city as prostitute), leaves the poet with feelings of purposelessness, disappointment, and sadness. Disappointment with the city is abstractly expressed in the following poem, “B’taltela” (Shaken about).²⁶ The poem reveals the longedfor city as a familiar place, in other words, there is no real “otherness,” and the quest for “another” place, the third through fifth stanzas, ends in failure; the “other” place is shown as not ideal. The longed-for city is ultimately a cheat. The individual remains a slave even in the longed-for place. The city, with its bustling and commerce, is essentially a familiar place in the final analysis. “Small worldball./ The luck of sadness.” However, it is precisely in this small world revolving on one axis where the sensations of alienation and solitude exist. Paradoxically, the sensation of familiarity combines with a militant foreignness between peoples, and a projection of an individual’s nightmares upon his companion. The lines “only nation against nation will lift up foreignness according to the sword/ and man against man – the terrors of their nights” are the opposite of Isaiah’s 26 Ibid., Volume 3, 27.

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vision in Chapter 2, Verse 4: “And He shall judge between the nations/ And shall decide for many peoples;/ And they shall beat their swords into plowshares,/ And their spears into pruning-hooks;/ Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,/ Neither shall they learn war any more.”

The city as prostitute and the negation of conscience in “Lo” (No) In the poem “Lo” (No)²⁷, Shlonsky at length represents the encounter of the poetspeaker with the prostitute, a metonym for the city, and the results of this encounter which negate the speaker’s moral self. This meeting is briefly described earlier in the poem “Al Hasneh” (About the thorn bush), in which the poet meets a prostitute and rejects her. In both poems, the prostitute is a metonym for the whole city and symbolizes the city as a place where even the most intimate thing, the body, can be sold. This encounter expresses the changes occurring in the poet as a result of his encounter with the city. The encounter with temptation, with the commercial city, creates in him an internal emptiness and negation of the self. The poet’s encounter with the prostitute in “Lo” is presented as a meeting between his idealism, representing freedom and the sexual act as an expression of choice out of love, and the realistic whore aware that ideals are meaningless and hypocritical in light of suffering and hunger. This meeting reveals the poet as two-faced, whose adhered to ideals are empty and meaningless and the meeting represents his hypocrisy – all this only in front of himself. The first three stanzas construct the silence of the city after midnight, disturbed by the voice of the prostitute:

‫שׁת‬ ֶ ‫ֲחֹורי חֲצֹות ק ְִרי ָה ָרוָה גֹו ֶל‬ ֵ ‫אֶל א‬ ‫שׁר ק ַָרׁש ּדָ מָּה‬ ֶ ‫ּו ְכנֵתַ ח זְ ָעקָה ֲא‬ ‫ַּבעֲרּוצֵי ה ְָרחֹוב רֹו ְבצָה ּומִתְ ַּפ ֶּלׁשֶת‬ .‫הַדְ ּ ָממָה‬ Past midnight a city filling its thirst and overflowing And as a piece of a cry whose blood has frozen In the channels of the street the silence Loiters and wallows.

27 Ibid.,41.

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The city’s silence is compared to something frozen, unnatural, an artificial end. The complex phrase “as a piece of a cry whose blood has frozen” revitalizes the worn out image, “a blood-curdling cry.” Paradoxically, the image of clotted or frozen blood serves the silence rather than the cry. The oxymoron of crying silence arouses tension and disquiet, and structures the silence as something which is going to be disturbed by, further on in the poem, the prostitute calling: “He’ll go with me.” The response of the poet to her call is dissociative, meaning it does not express a complete, integral personality. His senses don’t cooperate, and confusion arises:

!‫מ ְַרי ָה! מ ְַרי ָה‬: ‫ִל ִבּי ִהּגִי ַּה אֹור ָעלֶי ָה‬ :‫ּופִי ָרגַם אֹותָ ּה ִ ּבׁשְּתַ י ִם אֹותִ ּיֹות‬ !′‫ֹלא‬′ ‫ּו ֵמ ִא ְבחַת ֶח ְלקַת הַָא ְס ַּפ ְקל ְַרי ָה‬ ‫ִה ִבּיט ֵאלַי ְק ַלסְּתֵ ר ָּפנִים ַעקְמּומִּיֹות‬ My heart shed light upon her: Maria! Maria! And my mouth stoned her with two letters: “No!” And from the glinting piece of the mirror A twisted portrait looked at me. In this confused state, the heart that “shed light” is expressed in the cry “Maria! Maria!” (in the figures of St. Mary and Mary Magdalene); however, this call remains mute and the mouth (a realization of the Hebrew idiom, “his mouth and his heart are not equal”) loudly calls “No.” The prostitute calls the speaker to cast his eyes down and see life as it is, not from the poet’s idealistic position. She makes an analogy between herself and “foreign workers” who are prepared to work “dirt cheap.” The analogy is complex and seems inaccurate at first glance, inasmuch as the whore who, in her intolerable existential position, is prepared to sell sex for money and therefore, “lowers” the value of sex which is supposed to be bought by love. She is comparable to the foreign workers, who, due to their poverty are prepared to receive low wages and thereby they “lower” or negate the achievements of the socialist struggle for a proper wage in exchange for work. The whore tries to show the speaker the hypocrisy of his idealistic view of her and the foreign workers. Just as she is forced to sell herself, in other words to provide sex without love, the foreign workers sell themselves without a just wage. The encounter ends, the prostitute leaves, the sun rises and the city “awakens.” This transition not only heightens in a mythical, nearly pagan manner the nighttime encounter by means of nature’s voicing of the heroes’ events, but at the same

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time, compares the city to a face scratched by the light, and figuratively, the poet’s face, shamed by the prostitute’s rebuke. However, the important result of the aforementioned encounter is the speaker’s new “insight” into himself which negates his idealism as well as his sense of self-worth and identity. The poem represents this insight through the poet’s observation in the mirror. The encounter with the mirror is a classic image for an encounter with the conscience. The poet seeks to experience himself as cruel because of his rejection of the whore, and thereby to negate himself as a positive figure. The encounter with the whore, which represents selling the most precious thing for money, destroys the speaker’s moral image. He leaves her as a man without values, but possessing masochistic desire. In other words, even after the meeting with the prostitute which negates his moral image, the poet continues to desire that same negating and nullifying object, the prostitute.

Lost time: separating from childhood and preparing for death in “B’ḥashmalit” (By tram) The poem “B’ḥashmalit” (By tram),²⁸ describes the encounter with the city as one in which the self reckons with its own loss. The loss in this poem is not a sudden loss of idealism, as presented in “Lo,” but it is rather a loss of the time of childhood and youth which have gone by, not to return. The experience of traveling by tram at night in a strange city becomes one of observation or vision of life passing like in a film. Travel by train leads to a sort of mystical vision of the speaker’s childhood. The years of his life are compared to trees concealing his childhood, which suddenly “bow down” and reveal not the holiness of the Torah behind the “parokhet”, but an island, a sort of lost paradise, where the speaker as a child is joined with God and nature, until it is impossible to separate them; in other words, they are in perfect harmony.

!‫ס ֹב ָּפנַס ַה ֶ ּקסֶם! אֶל ָהאִי ַהמ ְִריָאה‬′ . ְ‫אַּתְ ֹלא ֶה ֱא ַמנְּת‬. ‫אֵם !ֹלא ֶה ֱא ַמנְתְ ּ לִי‬ ′...ֵ‫ ּבְנך‬:‫ְו ַע ְכׁשָיו ַה ִבּיטִי‬ ‫ִפּתְ א ֹם ה ִֵרי ַע‬ :ַ‫קֹול נֶהָג יָגֵע‬ Tout le monde descend!

28 Ibid., 60–62.

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“Turn the magic lantern! Take off to the isle! Mother! You didn’t believe me. You didn’t believe. And now look: Your son…” Suddenly the weary Driver’s voice shouted: Everyone off! The speaker begins with boasting or by displaying something (apparently his mature state) to his mother, but the driver’s voice calls in French to get off the tram and it “awakens” him. The driver’s call to get off the tram brings the speaker back to reality where he is a foreigner traveling on a tram at night, and it “grounds” his narcissistic vision in which he is simultaneously joined to God and nature, making his mother proud. The next stanza repeats the first stanza, with a variation. This time, the night streets through which the speaker passes are a tunnel and not the tram and we return to a condition of urban alienation and solitude. There is a parallel between the two stanzas which describe returning home. The first stanza which describes the trip by tram parallels the fifth stanza, which describes walking through the streets. In both stanzas, a sense of strangeness in the city combines with a flashback from the past. What is interesting about the parallel is the change which takes place following these two stanzas, in the second and sixth stanzas. In the second stanza, the flashback is influenced by the trip by tram and as has previously been said, the speaker’s condition in the tram is inanimate and passive, although outside everything is moving “backward” and accordingly, remembrance is backward. Meanwhile, in the sixth stanza, the description of time is influenced by the speaker’s altered condition. The speaker is no more a passive rider on the train, and the sights do not pass backward, but he is marching through the streets to his home. Thus, time moves forward. Just as the speaker progresses toward his home, the sights also progress. Until the fifth stanza, the sights moved backward; beginning with the sixth stanza, the sights move forward from childhood to the present situation. He again sinks into visions which take him back to the island which is like a wondrous city or a lily. The speaker exalts himself by comparing himself to Joseph; initially as a “dreamer,” “for your child is a naïve dreamer,” and afterward by means of “he had a coat of many colors,” and in parallel to Joseph’s dream of the sheaves which foretells his future status. The speaker is described as possessing a vision of man (in the abstract) as a holy object. The word “man” (adam in Hebrew – the Hebrew letters “aleph” “dalet” “mem”). The vision of the three letters of the word adam inflames the speaker’s eyes. The poem goes on to equate importance and tangibility to the word man. The letters of this word are mainly described by their form whereby there is both attention drawn and defamiliarization in the form of the word for man, which has become holy and which connects

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between man’s various stages and God. Further on in the poem, idealistic Joseph is sacrificed, which symbolizes the speaker’s loss of childhood and youth. The vision which begins in the tram ends in the poem’s last stanza with the metaphorical death of the speaker’s two previous life stages, childhood and youth. The child and the youth “have been slaughtered,” exchanged with no return for the adult who will remain like this until his death. The integration of “night – like a tunnel,” “night – the grave’s crypt” turns the journey by tram to a journey of life after death. The driver’s voice in the car becomes a voice announcing the death of all humans, and therefore even that of the speaker. In this poem, also, the experience in the city leads to feelings of the negation of self. This time, in the train carriage at night, the speaker parts from the idealism and dreams of childhood and as an adult, he prepares for death.

Dismantling the self and its negation in the Karkhi’el poems In his encounter with the city, the speaker not only loses his childhood and youth, as well as innocence, dreaminess, and idealism, but he also loses his sanity. The encounter results in hallucinations, delusions, an inability to separate internal from external, and an absence of bodily control. The desire to visit and experience the city constitutes a desire to lose the coherent self and nullify it through urban forces stronger than the self which cause hallucinations and dissociation.²⁹ Similar to expressionistic poetry and to the poetry of Rimbaud, the body, senses, and their relation to the world deviate from daily experience or the norm and contribute to a sensation of disintegration and loss of the experienced self.³⁰ It is as if Shlonsky epitomizes a catalogue of a variety of mental disturbances: 1. A confusion of senses which takes place when one sensation, such as light, is felt like the sense of touch in the poem “Taḥav” (Moss) in the poem cycle “Ḥatsot” (Midnight)”

‫ּו ִמ ָּפנָס – י ַד אֹור לֹו ֶקקֶת‬ ‫ׁשנִּתְ ק ַָרח‬ ֶ ‫ּגופִי ְ ּכעֵץ‬

29 Dissociation is a process in which thoughts and ideas are severed from consciousness, behave in an independent manner and allow for thoughts and feelings to be detached from the object. 30 In contrast to analyses which stress the poet’s wandering nature, his being an “intellectual nomad” who conducts ambivalent relationships with the masses, I explicitly argue for “the desire for absence,” in other words the poet’s self-destructive drive in relation to his environment.

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And from a street lamp – a hand of light licks My body like a tree grown bald.³¹ 2. Dissociation between sound and appearance, for example when the clock which is supposed to chime, fails to in the poem “Montparnasse:”

!‫ש ֹר‬ ָ ‫ ָע‬-‫ תְ ֵרי‬-‫מָחֹוג עַל ֲחבֵרֹו ִטפֵס ּו‬ .ַ‫ ִצלְצּול ּפֹוהֵק הַּלּוח‬-‫ּו ְבאֵין‬ The hand climbed over its companion and it is twelve! And with no-chime the calendar yawns.³² 3. An auditory hallucination in which the speaker hears “private” music while others hear different music in the poem “Pegisha” (Meeting).

‫ַה ַּליְלָה ְ ּכחָתּול ּכּוׁשִי‬ ‫ֵמטִיל ׁשְחֹורֹו עַל ַּג ֵבּי ֹלבֶן‬ ‫ּומִתְ י ַ ֵ ּפ ַח ח ֲִריׁשִי‬ .‫נִּגּון ָה ֵאבֶל ְל ֶבטְהֹובֶן‬ ‫ֲאבָל זּוגֹות ׁשֹו ְמעִים ּבֹו גַ’ז‬ ‫ּו ְכמִתְ נַ ְ ּקמִים ( ְ ּבמִי?) י ְִרק ֹדּו‬ ‫ְו ֶה ָעׁשָן ִמ ִפּיהֶם גָּז‬ .‫ש ֹיחִים ְבּהֹּדּו‬ ִ ‫ִ ּכפְתַ לְּתֻ ּלֵי‬ The night like a black cat Releases his black upon whiteness And weeps silently The dirge of Beethoven. But couples hear jazz in it And in vengeance (who against?) they’ll dance And the smoke from their mouth slips away Like twisting bushes in India.³³

31 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 53. 32 Ibid., 25. 33 Ibid.,56.

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4. Visual hallucinations in the poem “Aleh la’anah yarak” (He expectorated a wormwood leaf):

.‫[ּפָרֹכִּיֹות ָעׁשָן ְו ַלהַג עַם ֹלעֵז‬...] .‫קֹורנֶת דְ ּמּות ׁשֶל ַסבְּתָ ה‬ ֶ ‫ׁשכְרּות‬ ִ ‫ֵמע ְַר ִפּלֵי‬ […] smoke screens and chatter in a foreign tongue. From the fog of drunkenness my grandmother’s figure glows.³⁴ 5. Body parts are not under the speaker’s control in the poem “Hayad ha’iveret” (The blind hand):

‫ׁשמֶת‬ ֶ ‫ ָּככָה רֹו‬-‫ַהּי ָד ָה ִעּו ֶֶרת סְתָ ם‬ .‫עַל ֹלבֶן ַה ּנְי ָר ִמ ְפלָצֹות‬ The blind hand draws for no reason Monsters on paper’s whiteness.³⁵ Or in the poem “Aleh la’anah yarak”:

‫ֲאנִי י ֵָרא הַּיֹום אֶת ֶרׁשַע הַדְ ּ ָממָה‬ ‫אֶת ׁשְּתֵ י עֵינַי ְבּתְ חְּתִ ּיֹות ַה ֵּמצַח‬ ‫ש ֹר ֶא ְצּבָעֹות – ְ ּכזַ ְלזַּלֵי אֵימָה‬ ֶ ‫ְו ֶע‬ .‫ׁש ּנִ ְבהֲלּו מ ֵֶרצַח‬ ֶ ‫ִלׁשְּתֵ י י ָדַ י‬ Today I fear the evil of silence My two eyes upon my brow And ten fingers – like tendrils of terror To my two hands which were frightened of murder.³⁶ The speaker experiences the city as a dismantling and loss of self. The boundaries of the self have been breached and external objects are included as part of the experienced self. This experienced self undergoes a dismantling of the body and its sensations, confusion of the senses, hallucinations, dissociation, and lack of control over various body parts. These phenomena increase throughout the entire collection. The height of the speaker’s madness is in the two poems 34 Ibid., 65. 35 Ibid., 59. 36 Ibid., 63.

Karkhi’el editorialized 

 133

which describe his persecutory delusions. In “Al ḥeta” (For the sin),³⁷ the speaker is described as pursued by a threatening and accusatory entity (a kind of superego) which rebukes him. This entity is a mixture of beggar and prophet, and as the poem continues, it is revealed as an externalization of the speaker’s guilt feelings about life without a home. The feeling of guilt regarding the weak and needy in the poem “Lo,” intensifies to become a feeling of being persecuted by those same homeless people. In the poem “Arve’i Krakh” (City evenings),³⁸ the paranoia becomes more severe. The speaker feels pursued by a figure representing the homeless and he even hears voices desirous to kill him. The lines “Voices voices – like knives from a razor./ Lie in wait at every glance from every window and gateway,” describe a paranoid, auditory hallucination in a synesthesia of several senses. The voice (which belongs to hearing) is compared to touch (sharp knives) and finally connected with sight (the glance). Madness and sensory confusion, as aforementioned, are part of the opening declaration of the collection Karkhi’el in the poem “B’sirah,” (In the boat), in which the speaker wants to lose himself and doesn’t acknowledge separation between himself and the ship. It is possible to interpret the speaker’s internal chaos as a reflection of the chaos of the city itself. Just as objects have no permanence or inherent internal value, being traded and interchangeable, thus the speaker’s senses are interchangeable and his body parts replace external objects. The romantic, coherent self, which stands against the world, exchanges itself for an internally confused and disintegrating self which is inseparable from the world. The nullified self, constituting an authentic reflection of the spirit of the time, is the self of the speaker in the Karkhi’el poems.

Karkhi’el editorialized Shlonsky sought to describe his journey to the cities of Europe, particularly Paris, also in a different manner. In an article published in Torim, November 17, 1933, Shlonsky tries to add another side to his literary description of Paris in Avne’i Bohu: Paris is not only a duality of pleasure, alienation, and decadence, but it is also a place of work. Shlonsky, of course, takes pains to demonstrate the Parisian myth in a poetic manner, but immediately follows by negating it, as the opening of the article shows:

37 Ibid., 79–82. 38 Ibid., 89–95.

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a. Onward, onward, onward – …Paris the date: “Second time.” I loved the blessed and cursed habitation of Karkhi’el, here on the banks of the Seine, always prepared to gather to his step-children’s arms, – if it is permitted to renew this concept on the basis of step-father, etc. – every mad leaf on the tree of life. And this time I particularly loved it. Go up to anyone and ask: what is Paris? And he’ll certainly tell you: the city of charm and abandon, a holiday of kisses and thieves, the outer gate, where the brilliance and squealing of years even before Spenglerism cast its melody of Lamentations in the heart of man, crying for no reason over the eclipse of the sun of the West which is not sinking even with the occasional capsizing of its ships, this agreed-upon opinion was widespread in Europe’s cleverest and most splendid metropolis. What did people know of Paris aside from graceful women of love and salon apaches in the latest style painting? For the world traveler it holds a touristy relation – in ecstatic dust he will cover himself each time he leaves for a place which is not his, and always as if he has discovered the idea for us, because a man in his habitations, in all his habitations – is a laborer. In hiding, in the underground, unseen, not overt, even – and perhaps primarily – in his climb to the top floor of his culture. Does the tourist have ears to hear the beat of those working with the spiritual and material hammer? Isn’t that the way they also see us, in the Hebrew homeland, tourists and guests? Untrue, the folk saying is completely untrue, that the guest of the moment sees every defect. Wanderers focus their emotional Kodak only upon the celebratory, upon the precious ornaments, – whereas the ornaments of wisdom and deed which don’t have the sheen of pleasure or vain splendor, those the momentary guest will not see, and they’ll be felt only by the resident, only by the citizen, who has a part and right and obligation in that concealed hive of his people, where the sons of the land work diligently at making their cultural honey.³⁹

As has previously been stated, Shlonsky also expresses in his article the classic representation of Paris in the nineteenth century. The city is full of erotic desire and desire to possess “the city of charm and abandon, a holiday of kisses and thieves,” a place of refuge for a great mixture of marginal people who haven’t found themselves somewhere else. Fitting with the array of nineteenth century beliefs, Shlonsky even believes in the advance of the liberal West, appearing here in the image of Paris and he is not prepared to see the West as declining, “crying for no reason over the eclipse of the sun of the West which is not sinking even with the occasional capsizing of its ships.” In the article, Shlonsky tries to revise the image of Paris in the eyes of his reader. Not another sin city, but a working city. In my humble opinion, there is here a bit of an attempt to please his readers who were ideologues of the work ethic; however, they were not indifferent to Paris as the city of “charm and abandon” with “graceful women of love” and “salons…of the latest … painting.” For those readers, as for Shlonsky himself, the discovery that people work in Paris and not 39 Appeared in Torim, November 17, 1933, page 2. Part of the article also appears in Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 166–167.

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only perfume themselves with food, love, and corruption, is perhaps a comforting discovery which creates an affinity between Paris and Palestine, where the important things, in both locations, are work and creativity, and not pleasure. Shlonsky wants to find working Paris, but only finds the spiritual work there: I also struggled with being a guest and I wanted to earn the right to hear Paris’s true, human voice – not in cafés, but between the walls of some closed house, in which a man lives who lives his citizenship and fights for his idea, for his physical and moral existence. And I earned this! In one of the closed gatherings I heard these words: ‘Don’t evade the truth slyly and don’t be afraid of it, but go toward it with a spirit spotless of sin, constantly examining itself, prepared at any moment always to relate to itself with criticism, to always feel unrest, which is the foundation for every initiative in science and creativity, the sign and the standard of all heroism, the heroism of truth, the cruelty of criticism, honoring the past and suspecting it, believing and rejecting and moving onward, onward, onward – is this the one way to human culture?’ Honoring the past and suspecting it! The words are so close and precious to me. Belief and heresy and moving onward, onward, onward. How one and constant is the thought for the man of his generation and habitation. Didn’t I hear – once upon a time, somewhere – this command? Didn’t I also raise it from my heart like a voice calling to live and not to die? This time it was one section from a speech of the director of the Collège Français on the institution’s jubilee. They are passages of heroism of a viewpoint which drives toward creativity. Few ears at that party heard those words between the walls of the house of doctrine at the same time that ‘dome’ and ‘rotunda’ and ‘casino’ and ‘Place Concorde’ were humming from tourist and spiritual migrant sheep, among those who have resided for years within Paris and have only seen the external commotion of the ‘declining West’ in the city of kisses and thieves, charm and abandon.⁴⁰

Shlonsky attempts to question the ideological binary dichotomies which were popular in that period, such as the dichotomy of the city as an unproductive place based on avarice, idleness, and luxury in contrast to the village or in the Zionist case, the kibbutz or moshav, where work, moral purity, and justice reign. It was of particular importance for him to represent the people of the city as workers and spiritual work as real work. That is to say, that in “decadent” Paris as well, people work and work of the spirit is real work. Shlonsky tries to show indirectly that the existence of an individual who does work of the spirit in the city is a productive existence. It seems that he didn’t find the simple laborer, and not even Paris’s “true, human voice – … between the walls of some closed house,” but the words of the director of the Collège Français at a public event of the institution’s jubilee ceremony. It seems that Shlonsky hadn’t succeeded or didn’t want to connect 40 Appeared in Torim, November 17, 1933, page 2. Part of the article also appears in Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 176–177.

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 Avne’i Bohu: Karkhi’el (Stones of Void: Kharkhi’el)

with proletarian Paris, for example. Indeed, even the words put forward before, “Untrue, the folk saying is completely untrue, that the guest of the moment sees every defect,” perhaps somewhat indicate the duality of Shlonsky’s ethos toward work. In the context of the article, the “defect” is work. Why use the word “defect” in a context which tries to show in a negative light the tourist who is incapable of seeing the “true, human voice” of Paris, that is, “the beat of those working with the spiritual and material hammer,” but only the “precious ornaments?” As in other writings, Shlonsky reveals a double standard toward his readers’ central values. We have already seen how in the poem “Ḥulin,”⁴¹ Shlonsky represents parenthood and agricultural labor only in order to express the rootless young man’s spiritual condition in an attractive and dramatic manner. Perhaps it is possible to see in the article’s opening this attempt to please his readers by turning to their values. The attempt to create the impression of connecting to working France was perhaps important against the backdrop of general opposition by the Yishuv (Jewish pre-state population of Israel) to travel in general and to “corrupt” Paris in particular. Likewise, it may be that Shlonsky is attempting to “atone” for his representation of Paris in the collection Avne’i Bohu, which did not include any reference to labor or to the community in Palestine. However, even this attempt to present the authentic working Paris has failed. Indeed, as Shlonsky indicates, the voice of the Collège Français is the voice of Shlonsky himself, who wrote remarkably similar things in a similar vein in his articles.⁴²

41 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 2, 136–138. 42 Words in a similar spirit can be found in his writings, “Ta’anot u’ma’anot,” “Individualistn mesukhan,” [Dangerous individualist], “Dor bli donquishotim” in Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 28, 36, 41 (respectively).

Chapter Six “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a” (Songs of Fear Squared): The Desire for the Uncanny or Absence as the Uncanny Shire’i Hamapolet v’Hapiyus (Songs of collapse and reconciliation)¹ which was published in 1938,² similar to Avne’i Bohu: Karkhi’el describes the foreigner’s experience in the modern metropolis. Similar to the poems in “Karkhi’el,” the collection primarily represents the foreigner’s experience in a European city, and thus symbolizes man’s alienation from his time and environment. Nevertheless, there are different emphases in the two collections. Whereas Avne’i Bohu: Karkhi’el deals mainly with madness, Shire’i Hamapolet v’Hapiyus, and in particular the poem cycle “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a” (Songs of fear squared),³ deal with terror. These differences originate in the emphasis on different cities – in Avne’i Bohu: Karkhi’el most of the poems are about Paris, whereas in the cycle “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a” the focus is on Prague. The collections were written in different periods: “Karkhi’el” describes the experience of the early 1930s, while “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a” describes the end of the 1930s and portrays a general fear related to pre-war tension as well as fear of Nazism itself.⁴ The collection describes two principal fears: fear of destruction and a lack of freedom which man brings upon himself through civilization and technology, and a general fear of death; both fears have in common man’s sense of limitation. 1 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 191–288. 2 On April 15 of that same year, the journal Torim began to appear again. 3 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 197–228. 4 For example in the poem “B’nimnum rakhavot” [Napping trains] when the speaker suddenly notices the swastika: ‫ַּבחַּלֹון‬ .‫יְעָרֹות יְעָרֹות יְעָרֹות‬ ‫ִמ ּנֶגֶד‬ .‫ַּכ ַּפי ִם ׁשְלּובֹות עַל ַהּכ ֶֶרס‬ ‫מִּדֶ גֶל ִּב ְכפָר אֶת עֵינַי ְמנַּקְרֹות‬ .‫ ַה ֶק ֶּרס‬-‫ַארּבַע ִצּפ ְָרנֵי ְצלָב‬ ְ In the window Forests forests forests Opposite Hands crossed over a paunch. From a flag in the village my eyes are pierced By four nails of the swastika. From Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 216.

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 “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a” (Songs of Fear Squared)

The speaker in this collection does not try to evade the experiences of terror and fear nor does he try to repress them, but seeks them out and is even drawn to them. This desire to experience the mythological fear of the violent golem imbedded in western civilization and the fear of death rouse him to travel abroad that expresses his desire for absence. Two quotes are presented at the beginning of “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a,” one from the Mishnah, “there is nothing square from the six days of creation,” and the second is from Tolstoy “and terror does not leave me: – white red square.” Further on, we will interpret the meaning of the first saying, but the second quote, belonging to Tolstoy, can be interpreted as adopting the Russian author’s attitude toward death. As is known, Tolstoy was obsessively preoccupied with death and was frightened and terrified by it. This preoccupation influenced his works as well as his life. He described this fear in detail in his novels, for example, in Anna Karenina (where Levin, one of the central characters, copes with the death of his brother and his fear of death) or in his essays, such as in the essay “A Confession,” in which the author himself explains why the fact of death and fear of it have caused him to become a believing Christian, or in his short stories, such as “The Death of Ivan Illich,” in which the reader undergoes an accurate and realistic experience of death and dying. The opening quote of “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a” shapes the terror of death in the image of the square, in other words, in the image of a limiting shape. This shape will serve Shlonsky throughout the collection in demonstrating the limitations of existence, i.e. the limits which define life.

Fear and alienation from technique The square serves Shlonsky not only in demonstrating the limitations of existence, but also as an expression of the way the modern individual has limited himself by the things he has created. The world of the modern individual, essentially of his own making, bears a square nature. Humans live and work in squares in rooms or factories, they move through rectangular doorways, travel in cars and trains, ride up and down in elevators, etc. More abstractly, the square is an unpleasant form, possessing four “piercing” corners, nor is it characterized by a cyclical or circular sense of life and death. The square signifies finiteness as the coffin, grave, and monument. A. B. Yoffe summarizes Shlonsky’s words, as they were written in Torim, about the importance of the square and the connection between Avne’i Bohu and Shire’i Hamapolet v’Hapiyus: A. Shlonsky discovered the links connecting Shire’i hamapolet v’Hapiyus to his previous book, Avne’i Bohu, in which the world had its skin stripped away, as if x-rays had penetrated

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it, and the eye had broken through to ‘the point of chaos,’ frightening as a nightmare, which aroused all the senses to rebellion, to demand reality, to be consoled by the world’s being. This being was revealed as a new horror. Instead of nakedness, the pillory was revealed, in which man gave his world, the square was revealed, “ which is not from the six days of creation,” which is also reality and also a symbol of the curse of man’s creations in his life in all its discoveries, from private life to the generality of societies and regimes – the sight of the square cities, the square recruitments, these sights and their consequences, with all their inherent associations, in contrast to the ancient and paternal roundness of the world. The senses, which called for a rebellion against abstraction on the one hand, and against the new trappings of sin and oppression of the world on the other hand, they are the ones who have demanded “a new creation,” the childhood of man and the world, “the kid’s wool,” pure and curly. In Shire’i Hamapolet v’Hapiyus, the kid returns sooty and scorched by fire, but innocent and believing as in the beginning, after a long and uncanny journey in the provinces of chaos and tyranny of square forms of Satan.⁵

This condensed and complex declaration clarifies Shlonsky’s intentions and the way he chose to present Shire’i Hamapolet v’Hapiyus. The declaration begins in the interpretation regarding the previous collection, Avne’i Bohu. According to what has been argued, in the collection Avne’i Bohu, the world has been “stripped away” “as if x-rays had penetrated it,” but, nevertheless, strangely, what has been revealed at the foundation of things at “the point of chaos” is a nightmare. The human experience of the nightmare in Avne’i Bohu leads to the speaker’s demand for objective, historical reality, “to consolation in the world’s being,” which is expressed in the collection Shire’i Hamapolet v’Hapiyus. This new reality is revealed as life’s mechanization “of man’s creations in his life in all its discoveries, from private life to the generality of societies and regimes – the sight of the square cities, the square recruitments.” There is an attempt here to describe the transition from Avne’i Bohu as a transition from poetry dealing with the individual’s mental anguish to a poetry dealing with objective conditions of time, distinguished by their “squareness.” As has previously been mentioned, the representation of the essence of “modern times” as a square is very significant and relies upon the square’s connotation as man’s alien creation. However, the square is not only an indicator of man’s alienation from his environment, but also a means of perceiving reality. “Squareness” as an artistic style seeks to see the essence of things from several simultaneous perspectives implying an “objective” perspective. Shlonsky’s attempt to represent the essence of things by presenting their squareness is similar to Cubism. Shlonsky seeks to represent reality (the city, death, etc.) from several perspectives through dismantled and analytic form. Also dark colors, the browns and blacks which typify Cubist paintings, reflect the dark feelings conveyed by 5 Yoffe, Shlonsky, 192.

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 “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a” (Songs of Fear Squared)

the poems. These colors describe a “dismantled world,” lacking meaning, while simultaneously delineated and limited by time and space. The delineation of time and space is a product of modern existence. The “square” delineation of modern existence also explains the first quote at the beginning of the collection, “there is nothing square from the six days of creation.” This saying emphasizes man’s act in creating the square (in other words, the square was not created by God in the six days of creation), in contrast to “the ancient and paternal roundness of the world” and “the kid’s wool,” pure and curly, which were indeed created by God. The integration of both these quotes together indicates a poetry which identifies the terror of death as part of “square” modern existence, as a product of modernity.

Desire and the journey to terror The poem cycle, “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a”⁶ opens with these two quotes:

.‫ׁשׁשֶת יְמֵי ְב ֵּראׁשִית‬ ֵ ‫אֵין מ ְֻרּבָע ִמ‬ ‫ג‬″‫ירושלמי נדרים פ‬ :‫ְו ָהאֵימָה אֵינָּה מ ְַרּפָה ִמ ֶּמנִּי‬ ‫ְל ָבנָה‬ ‫אֲדֻ ּמָה‬ ‫מ ְֻר ַּבעַת‬ ‫ טולסטוי‬.‫ נ‬.‫ל‬ ‫מָבֹוא‬ !‫ּדַ ְרכֵי אֱנֹוׁש רֹומְזֹות ּבָרּור ַה ָּמוְתָ ה‬ .‫ יָמִים – ְ ּכ ֶעׁשֶן ַרּכָבֹות‬-‫ּתִ מְרֹות‬ ָ‫ּכֵן ָעיַפְּת‬-‫ׂש ְכלִי ַהּגֵא! ַאתָ ּה גַם‬ ִ .‫ּכֵן ָעיַפְּתָ ְלקַּוֹות‬-‫אַּתָ ה גַם‬ (‫זִמ ְָרה נֹודֶ דֶ ת‬-‫ָה ֳאנִּי ָה (ּתֵ בַת‬ ‫ּפֹוזֶמֶת ׁשּוב אֶת זֶמֶר ִכּּסּופָּה‬ ‫ּבֹו ַהּנֵכָר נֶח ְָרז עִם הַּמֹולֶדֶ ת‬ .‫חֲרּוז ָלבָן ְ ּכ ֶקצֶף הַּסּופָה‬

6 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 197.

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There is nothing square from the six days of creation. Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim, 80:3 And terror does not leave me: White Red Square. L. N. Tolstoy Introduction Man’s roads clearly indicate deathward! Pillars of days – like smoke from trains. My haughty brain! You too have grown tired You too have grown tired of hoping. The ship (a wandering music box) Again sings softly its longed-for song In which a foreign land rhymes with homeland A white rhyme like the storm’s foam. The cycle opens with “Tamror” (Road signs): “Man’s roads clearly indicate deathward!” and despite the word “indicate,” which softens and contrasts the word “clearly” which precedes it, the exclamation point following “deathward!” leaves no room for doubt that death is the main subject of the poem and the other motifs only serve to assist this principal motif. The poem compares the progression from life to death to a journey by ship or train, two images which are woven throughout the poem and strengthen its unity. Life’s duration is thus compared to a journey, and therefore, respectively, the homeland, the speaker’s point of departure, attains significance as life’s starting point. The journey is compared to life’s progression, whereas death is the journey’s end in a foreign land. This common metaphor, which contains two semantic or conceptual realms (the realm of life and the realm of the journey), is joined with the third realm of the poem (or art), which overlaps the other two, thereby creating a partial congruence of the three realms: life, the journey, and the poem.⁷ This congruence allows the ship to be simultaneously a means of transport and a music box, and further on to compare the end of the boat’s song to death. The second line undergoes a defamiliarizing variation of the expression “pillars of smoke”: “Pillars of day – like smoke from trains.” The days themselves frolic in the wind like the smoke from the “journey of life” train. It is as if we see the train smoke fading backward. The image of the 7 About the overlap of several simultaneous semantic fields, see Harshav, Sadeh v’misgeret.

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 “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a” (Songs of Fear Squared)

train is broken up by the speaker’s statement, “My haughty brain! You too have grown tired/ You too have grown tired of hoping.” The haughty intelligence which has grown tired of hoping perhaps symbolizes the speaker as more mature, as an individual whose hopes have become moderated or disappointed. The second stanza opens with the image of a ship symbolizing not only life’s journey, but also poetry. The location from where the ship arrives and from where life begins is the homeland in both its senses: country of origin, and the time and place of one’s birth. The location to which the ship is sailing is a foreign place which also symbolizes death. As has been previously stated, the ship which simultaneously constitutes a music box, playing a song “in which a foreign land rhymes with homeland,” in other words, life (the homeland) rhymes with death (a foreign land), even though this rhyme isn’t a true rhyme (they do not rhyme in Hebrew) nor do the words end with the same sound; therefore, it is a “white rhyme.” The poem’s rhymes – an analogy to the journey of life – are “not to be rhymed” just like the wild sea (“the storm’s foam”). The third stanza attempts to portray the same motif of the ship’s “song of life.”

(!‫ְוכָל ִמּלָה (עַד אֵין ְל ִה ָּוׁשֵע‬ .‫נ ְִרּדָ ף ַלּשְׁכֹול‬-‫ּבֹו ְמ ֻבּטֵאת ְ ּכׁשֵם‬ ‫ׁש ַע‬ ֵ ‫ּומְנּוסָתְ ך – ּגַם הִיא ִריצַת ּפֹו‬ .‫ְלֹׁשֵם ִטׁשְטּוׁש ִע ְקּבֹות ַרגְלָיו ּבַחֹול‬ ‫לְָאן ּתָ נּוס? ְבּכו ָכבָיו הָאֹפֶל‬ .‫ קֹוצִים אֶת ַה ְ ּספִינָה עֹוטֵר‬-‫ִ ּכ ְבזֵר‬ ‫ֶאחָד ַהּשְׁחֹור מֵאֹפֶק ְועַד אֹפֶק‬ ‫א ַך לִי נִדְ מֶה ִכּי ׁשָם ָאפֵל יֹותֵ ר‬ And every word (until one cannot be saved!) Expresses a synonym for mourning. And your flight – is the flight of a criminal too To erase his footprints in the sand. Where will you flee to? In its stars of blackness Like a bouquet of thorns decorating the ship. It is the same blackness from horizon to horizon But it seems to me it is darker there. The song of life/ journey is mourning. In contrast to the second stanza which maintains that the ship’s song is a combination of homeland and foreign land (in other words, life and death), the third stanza presents the same song as a song only of death “And every word (until one cannot be saved!)/ Expresses a

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synonym for mourning” (perhaps because the direction of the ship, which can be assumed from the stanzas, is toward the foreign land/death). The hysterical flight compared to the flight of a criminal may be a flight from death, an attempt to evade it by forgetting about it by journeys and other powerful experiences or in the context of the ship sailing to a foreign land/death. This flight may express a repressed aspiration toward death. The erasure of the sand is an expansion of the image of the criminal who attempts to hide his footprints, but it is also similar in form to “pillars of days” which dissipate in the air and indicate a past which will not return. The fourth stanza signifies the journey of life and the ship as one toward a certain death, a death which cannot be fled from. In his question “Where will you flee to?” the poem’s speaker gives presence to death’s certainty. The stars decorating the ship like in a bouquet of thorns is an allusion to the New Testament and the crown of thorns placed on the head of Jesus, king of the Jews; the ship, like Jesus, is destined for “crucifixion.” The black horizon of the ship which is “darker” on one side is a compressed image which can be interpreted in several ways. According to the progression of the ship’s journey from homeland to foreign land and from life to death, it is clear that the foreign land and death are darker; however, life and the homeland are to be seen as dark (although less so). It may be possible then to interpret the ship’s black horizon as life’s boundary. Life bursts forth from the black nothingness (before birth) and ends in black nothingness (after death). The phrase “But it seems to me it is darker there,” shows that the blackness of death is blacker and darker than the prenatal blackness.⁸ In the fifth stanza, the arrival of the ship into port is not a sign of optimism, but rather, it is one of panic:

‫ּכֵן ּבְבֹוא עִם ּבֹקֶר ַהּנָ ָמלָה‬-‫עַל‬ ‫ׁשהִתְ נַּגֵן עַד ּת ֹם‬ ֶ ‫ְספִינָה ִ ּכ ְכלִי‬ ‫ ָמ ְעלָה‬-‫ ׁשֶל‬-‫ָה ֲאנָׁשִים עַל ַהּסִּפון‬ .‫ש ּנִ ְבהֲלּו ִפּתְ א ֹם‬ ׁ ֶ ‫ְכּתִ ינֹוקֹות‬ Therefore arriving into port with morning The ship is like an instrument that has played until the last The people on the upper deck Are like infants who have suddenly panicked.

8 The image of the black horizon which is found at life’s two extremities illustrates the familiar sensation that even though each edge is symmetrical, we regret more the time “we will lose” after our death than the time before birth.

144 

 “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a” (Songs of Fear Squared)

The end of the journey, a metaphor for death, arrives suddenly for the childish man without having been anticipated, accepted, or made peace with: “…like infants who have suddenly panicked.” Despite this, the speaker’s lack of childishness, in other words, his anticipation of death fills his life not with surprise, but with constant terror penetrating every snippet of his life/song. The metaphor of the ship’s journey as life’s journey and the end of the journey as death perhaps allows for interpretation of the two following stanzas as simultaneously describing the passage from ship to train, as well as symbolically, a funeral in which the caskets are lowered to the grave with crying or wailing voices in the background.

‫וְעֹוד ְמעַט ַסּבָל ֹלעֵז יַגְ ִבּי ַּה‬ ‫ׁשְּתֵ י ִמזְוָדֹות אֶל צֹהַר מ ְֻרּבָע‬ ‫ּש ֹדֹות י ְִראּו אֵיְך ּב ָָרקִי ַע‬ ָ ‫ְו ַה‬ .‫ׁשמֶת א ֲֻרּבָה‬ ֶ ‫ ְפ ִּרידָ ה רֹו‬-‫ִמכְּתַ ב‬ ‫ְוׁשַּכּולָה ּתִ ְהי ֶה ּומִתְ י ַ ַּפחַת‬ .‫ש ֹדֹות תִ ּׁשְרֹקֶת ַה ַּקּטָר‬ ָ ‫עַל ְ ּפנֵי‬ ‫ְוזֶה י ִ ְהי ֶה גִּלּוי ִראׁשֹון ַל ַּפחַד‬ .‫ ּכך י ְִרּד ֹף ְכּקֹול ׁשֹופָר‬-‫ׁשֶַאחַר‬ And soon a foreign porter will lift Two suitcases through the square window And the fields will see in the heavens how A smokestack writes a farewell letter. And bereaved and weeping Skims over the fields the engine’s whistle And this will be the first revelation of the fear That afterward oppresses like a shofar’s sound. Lifting the suitcases through the “square window” suggests coffins elevated before placing them in the grave; as mentioned previously, the square symbolizes man’s limitations and death. The smoke (similar to the ship’s smoke), rising again skyward and signifying the individual’s death, is this time the train’s smokestack, with its smoke curling like the handwriting of “a farewell letter.” Similar to the ship’s arrival which, instead of signifying a new beginning, signified sudden fear, the engine’s whistle, which usually signifies enthusiastic, galloping forward, becomes “the first revelation of fear/ That afterward oppresses like a shofar’s sound.” In other words the train’s whistle takes on religious meaning (perhaps

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the gravity of Yom Kippur, repentance for sin and preparation for judgment). That blast becomes une idée fixe in all of the poem’s stanzas.

‫ּכָך‬-‫שֶַאחַר‬ ‫ה ֶֶרף‬-‫ַּב ֲחזָרֹות אֵין‬ .‫ ַהּשִׁיר‬-‫הּוא י ִּדָ חֵק אֶל ָכּל ּבָּתֵ י‬ ‫ּשׁהִדְ ִבּיק ָהע ֶֶרב‬ ֶ ‫ְוזֶה ֵהחֵל ִמ‬ .‫אֶת ַה ַּמּסָע ּבַּתְ חּום ֵבּין עִיר ְלעִיר‬ ‫ש ָׁרה‬ ָ ‫ֵבּין עִיר ְלעִיר ְ ּבה ְֶריֹונֶי ָה‬ ‫ א ַך לְָאן‬...‫ָהאֲדָ מָה ׁשִיר ז ֶַרע‬ ‫ ַה ְ ּכפ ָָרה‬:‫ש ֹדֹות‬ ָ -‫ׁשבִילֵי‬ ְ ‫לְָאן ָאצִים‬ ?‫ּשׂטָן‬ ָ ‫אֹו מִן ַה ְ ּכפָר אֶל ֹל ַע ַה‬ That afterward Incessantly repeating It will force its way into all the poem’s stanzas. And this began when evening caught up to The journey in the zone between cities. Between cities, the earth sings Pregnantly a song of seed … but where to Where do the fields’ paths hurry to: to the country Or from the country to the devil’s maw? The speaker’s specific journey, which passes from the outlying farmlands of southern France to Paris, arouses in him the tragic and historical process of agricultural migration from country to city. Although the city is compared to “the devil’s maw,” something predatory and demonic, the fields’ paths race toward it. Through the speaker’s consciousness of the city as “the devil’s maw,” and through the personification the poem attributes to the paths which “hurry” to the city, the speaker compares his desire to hurry to the city as a desire to be devoured by the city, a desire for absence and self-destruction.

‫ְואִם א ְֶרצֶה אֹו ֹלא א ְֶרצֶה – נִזְּכ ְַרנִי‬ (!‫נָכֹון‬-‫) ֲאנִי הַּיֹום יֹודֵ ַע אֶל‬ ‫ִכּי ּכְָך ֻהּצַת הַּדֶ מַע ַהּו ְֶרה ְַרנִי‬ .‫שׁר חָדְ לּו ִלטְח ֹן‬ ֶ ‫עַל ַה ְּטחָנֹות ֲא‬ And whether I want to or not – I remembered (Today I know with certainty!)

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 “Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a” (Songs of Fear Squared)

Because thus the Verhaevenian tears were kindled For the mills which have ceased to grind. The stanza represents the identification with and pain for an agricultural way of life which has ceased to exist. It does this through recalling the Belgian poet, Emile Verhaeven, who in his poems and plays described the decline and injustice which modernization had caused the farmers.⁹ The departure for the city left the country lifeless: “Mills which have ceased to grind,” and symbolizes the passage from the country to the city as a passage from life to death. Society which is organized around profit (while negating other values) is compared in the next stanza to “idolatrous fire,” meaning to an “unbelievable” destructive fire. The “idolatrous fire,” in other words, the desire for life (in its material sense), leads death to a passage from day to night. With evening’s arrival (in the train traveling to the city) the speaker is reminded of Tolstoy’s words, square terror in the face of death. The train arrives in the city, man’s most significant creation, where square terror becomes all the more real. This terror is specifically described in the series of poems which refer to Prague, chosen for its mysterious atmosphere.

Mystery and gothic fear of man’s creation in “Re’aḥ kokhavim atikim” (Scent of ancient stars) The poems “Re’aḥ kokhavim atikim” (Scent of ancient stars)¹⁰ and “Hayofi hamesukan” (Dangerous beauty)¹¹ describe Prague as a setting that is gothic and arouses terror and fear. Home-like sensations are replaced by uncanny ones. An account of the city’s past is given, a past which combines Christian Gothicism and Jewish mysticism: old churches and narrow stone alleyways on the one hand, and on the other hand, Jewish schools of study, yeshiva students, and Hebrew books. Terror integrated with coping with the past is directly expressed in the beginning of “Re’aḥ kokhavim atikim” (the second and third stanzas) with the poem’s clear and prominent allusions to several classical works of horror originating in Prague.

.‫שעַר‬ ּׁ ַ ‫ ו ְֵרי ַח ְקלָף ַּב‬.‫ַעקְמּומִּיּות ִס ְמטָה‬ .‫ ּכ ֹתֶ ל מ ְֻרּפָט‬.‫ּגְזֹוזְרֹות ְבּסֹוד הָעֹבֶׁש‬ 9 For example, in the play Les Aubes [The clouds], and in the prose poems Les Villages Illusoires [The illusory villages] which are devoted to this motif 10 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 208–210. 11 Ibid., 211–213.

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‫ ַה ְ ּספ ִָרים ׁשֶל ַסּבָא זַ”ל ַה ּנַעַר‬-‫ְ ּב ֵעקֶד‬ .‫ָרָאה צִּיּור ּתָ מִים ׁשֶל עִיר הַּק ֹדֶ ׁש ְצפָת‬ A twisting alley. And the scent of parchment at the gate. Originating in the secret of the mildew. A worn-out wall. In grandfather’s library, may he rest in peace, the boy Saw a naïve drawing of Safed the holy city. Prague is compared to old parchment or old paper, and therefore the stone wall could be worn-out, and the gate could have the odor of parchment. The parchment or paper may be an illustrated page in an old book, in which the boy once saw a drawing of Safed which reminds him of Prague. However, the drawing’s naïveté, its domesticity, which stems from its belonging to the speaker’s grandfather, deceives: “The books have decayed, and like sheets were rolled up.” The boy is mistaken; Prague is not an innocent, spiritual place, but a place which is uncanny and terrifying. Hillel Barzel interprets this as an attempt to create the uncanny in the Freudian sense, particularly in the sense of the uncanny expressed in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story “The Sandman.”¹² The threat, literally, “what is not home,” – “the uncanny”– (un-heim-lich) has as its source a sensation combining strangeness and terror. However, in the Freudian interpretation and in its implementation in literature and culture, this concept signifies the sensations accompanying the transition from a familiar, homelike feeling to a threatening unfamiliarity. The poem at times moves from the familiar and the domestic (the picture in grandfather’s book) and becomes strange and threatening (“Boy, you are mistaken/ here lives Doctor Faustus”). However, Doctor Faustus, the Golem, and the Sandman (the Prague student) weren’t chosen only because of the uncanny atmosphere they create, but because of the source for that sense of terror. These three works represent terror as man’s own creation. Faust made a deal with the devil because of his dissatisfaction with his scientific knowledge as well as his desire to rule the world, a deal which is an allegory for the twentieth century seeking benefits in technology, while releasing uncontrollable destructive forces. Rabbi Judah Loew, known as the Maharal of Prague, sought to protect the Jewish ghetto during a period of anti-semitism and using incantations brought the clay golem to life, which lost all control and began to sow fear and commit murder. The sandman in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story is the lawyer Coppelius who performs experiments in alchemy which lead to the death of the hero’s father. The lawyer kidnaps Olympia (the hero’s new love), a mechanical doll and another symbol of man’s technological hubris. 12 Barzel, Shirat eretz Yisrael, 163–164.

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That being the case, Shlonsky chose the same types of terror which had man’s work of creation as their source. In the collection, the poet seeks to present terror resulting from the modern regimen of the individual, from his being stuck inside “a square.” He seeks to present “the sight of the square cities, the square recruitments, these sights and their consequences.” In the Prague poems, Shlonsky interprets the stored violence and terror of those times in romantic categories of the golem who rises up against his creator. Within the collection, Doctor Faustus, the Golem, and the Sandman constitute a myth of the past which at the same time erupts and becomes a symbol for the technological present. Man’s creation, whether it is a question of the social order expressed by armies or whether a question of the conditions of physical existence, such as urban life, is not only alienated from man (as in the Marxist outlook), but rather, it is a demonic force which opposes him. In other words, human creation not only alienates man from his environment, but also becomes a destructive, mythic force combating its creator, man. However, the poem does not discuss terror only from the present technocratic and violent perspective, but in Freudian terms as well of the return of the repressed.¹³ The image of the Golem allows congruity between the frightening and threatening in Jewish tradition which in Prague had a continuous existence beginning in the thirteenth century. An interior voice commands the speaker to experience what remains of the tradition. The speaker’s encounter with the past occurs by means of a sense which is not typical of poetry (and thus deviant and “modernist”) – smell. The speaker is commanded to go and experience the past until “a dormant memory flickers and is aroused!” The poem compares the experience of the past (in which there was a sentence for murder) to stepping on fallen leaves which refuse to be obliterated and therefore have a sweet/noxious scent of fermentation. The “remains” from the old world are sweet and beautiful like autumn leaves, but they also suggest rotting. The variations on the use of the structure of David’s lamentation over Saul and Jonathan “They were swifter than eagles/ They were stronger than lions,” which becomes “They were lesser than blowing / They were heavier than stones,” create an analogy between Prague’s heroes of faith and the Bible’s war heroes. The speaker confronts the past and that generation which adhered to heritage. That generation sends him to the street of the alchemists which got its name from the alchemists, who tried to turn simple metals into gold and worked under Rudolph II, the Hapsburg emperor. The speaker contrasts the “childhood” of life in Prague in the period of magic and mystery to the sober period of maturity or old age. The street of alchemists no 13 For analysis of the uncanny in terms of the return of the repressed, see Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny,” in Sigmund Freud (standard edition), trans. and ed. By James Strachey, Vol. XVII (1917–1919). (London: Hogarth Press, 1975), 233–238.

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longer shows Prague’s childhood; only the stars and the Charles Bridge still have the presence of past magic.

The golem and the chimeras: Past versus present terror in “Hayofi hamesukan” (Dangerous beauty) The poem, “Hayofi hamesukan” (Dangerous beauty) which follows “Re’aḥ kokhavim atikim,” (Scent of ancient stars) also attempts to dwell upon the meaning of the past, but this time the past is not something to contact because of an inward imperative, but rather, it is a demonic force which bursts into the present. This poem also takes the magic, mystery, and terror of historical Prague into account, this time by way of the author’s personal meeting with a paintersculptor who lives in Prague. The poem opens with a detailed description of the sights and sensations which accompany the visit:

.‫ זֹו קַדְ מּותָ ה ׁשֶל עִיר‬.‫שׁלׁש‬ ָ ‫הּוא גָר ִ ּבפ ְָרג‬ .‫ׁשנַי ִם‬ ְ ‫וְָאנֹכִי – ְבּרֹבַע‬ .‫שֹעִיר‬ ָ ‫ ֵריחָם‬.‫ּדֹורֹות – ּכָתְ לֵי אֵזֹוב‬ .‫ּבֵינַי ִם‬-‫הּוא ֵרי ַח ׁשֶל יְמֵי‬ .‫ּפ ֹה הַדְ ּ ָממָה ְצמִיגָה ו ְִרׁשְרּוׁשִית‬ .‫ׁשטִיחֵי דְ ָרגֹות ּבֹו ְלעִים קֹולֹות ַה ַּצעַד‬ ְ ‫ׁשׁשֶת ֶא ְצּבַע לְהֹוׁשִיט‬ ֶ ‫ַהּי ָד חֹו‬ .‫ּו ַב ַּכפְּתֹור ָלגַעַת‬ He lives in Prague District Three. That’s the beginning of the city. And me – in District Two. Generations – mildewed walls. Their odor is hairy. It’s a smell of the middle ages. Here the silence is viscous and murmuring. Carpeting on the stairs swallows footsteps. The hand fears extending a finger To touch the button. The speaker in the poem apparently lives in a newer quarter of the city and arrives at Prague’s old quarter. Similar to the poem “Re’aḥ kokhavim atikim,” the images make an extensive use of senses which are unconventional in poetry, principally the sense of smell and touch. The use of these senses doesn’t only arise from Shlonsky’s modernism, that is, from his attempt to create defamiliarization by

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means of an unconventional grasp of reality, but it is also used to create an effect of terror and fear. In a brief description of visible objects, the reader is brought into a dark, uncontrolled, and unknown darkness, in which he makes an effort to create a picture of the world through the senses of smell, touch, and hearing. However, even the description obtained by these senses is not clear and sharp, but rather, it is intentionally synesthetic and vague. The walls in the district are described as having a hairy odor, the silence – “viscous and murmuring.” A hairy odor and a viscous, murmuring silence convey sensations of something organic, thick, and vague, and thereby contribute to feelings of a lack of control and an uncertainty of the speaker’s experience. The poem creates a contrast between the district described without the sense of sight (the smell of the district’s walls, the silence at the entrance to the house which is unheard, the hand that wants to stroke the moss, etc.) and the apartment itself, described using the sense of sight (the large guest room, the library, sculptures and paintings). The house itself, despite its visual description, creates a frightening and depressing atmosphere. The library at the entrance to the home is compared to an ancient orifice and therefore the act of entering the home is compared to being swallowed.

‫ֲהזֶה הַחּוט ֵבּין ֲעסִיסֵי סִיוָן‬ ?‫ּודְ בַש ּדֹורֹות ּדָ חּוס עַד רֹגַע‬ ‫ָהעַּתִ יקֹות נָׁשְמּו קַדְ רּות זִיוָן‬ :‫וְהּוא דִ ֵבּר עַל נֹגַּה‬ Is this the thread between Sivan’s nectar And honey of generations compressed into quiet? The antiquities breathed the gloom of their radiance And he spoke of Venus: The house, filled with books, sculptures, and paintings, manages to guard and compress all that culture, that “honey of generations,” as we shall see in the next stanza, in a manner which creates a paradoxical effect of strained quiet. The line, “The antiquities breathed the gloom of their radiance,” creates an oxymoron in which the light coming from the antiquities is gloomy, and the image is conveyed of something which is both dark and shining. The speaker wonders on the contrast between his host, described as gracious and educated (as indicated by the library and the paintings), a warm father to his children (indicated by his showing the carving of his daughter “simply as a father”), someone with the ability for spiritual observation (indicated by his speaking about life “which is in miniature an infinite investigation in the blinking of an eye […]”) and the house, infused with a depressing atmosphere. Again, similar to the poem “Re’aḥ kokhavim atikim,” in

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which the sight of the books in the grandfather’s library transforms into threatening Prague (“But the books have decayed, and like sheets were rolled up/ Roads and fates. Boy, you are mistaken:/ here lives Doctor Faustus. Here the Golem ran about.”), although in this poem, the ancient books have allowed the speaker to experience the Golem’s uncanny Prague. The speaker continues to feel terror in the image of the chimera, which he likens mistakenly to the Golem. The speaker asks about the Golem and is answered that the same “scarecrow” image he saw on the Charles Bridge (in other words, the owner of the images) is not the Golem, but the chimeras.

?‫חִימֶרֹות הֵן – וְכ ֹה הֹוזֹות‬: ‫ֲאנִי‬ !‫ ְפ ָּרג הִיא‬:‫וְהּוא ַמ ְס ִבּיר לִי‬ !‫ י ֵׁש יֹפִי ְמ ֻסּכָן ָּבעִיר הַּז ֹאת‬:‫ֲאנִי‬ !‫ ט ְָרגִי‬:‫הּוא מְתַ ֵקּן לִי‬ Me: Chimeras are – and so are they hallucinations? And he explains to me: It is Prague! Me: There is a dangerous beauty in this city! He corrects me: Tragic! The dialogue between the speaker and his host can assume different interpretations. Essentially, what is the difference between dangerous beauty and tragic beauty? According to Hillel Barzel, the difference develops from the different perspectives of the speaker and the host. The speaker essentially asks how obsolete, unreal creatures can continue to appear. The painter-sculptor defines Prague’s special character through the use of the chimera, that is, a union of the defined and permanent (the chimera has three fixed parts: a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a snake’s tail) with something eruptive (the chimera breathes fire from its mouth). According to the poet, the chimera does not arouse terror, but tragedy, in other words pity and fear.¹⁴ Barzel’s interpretation of the combined meaning of the chimera (defined and permanent versus eruptive) is related to his general analysis of the poem as concerned with numbers. However, the interpretation of the differences between the guest and the host in terms of their perception of the chimera is relevant to this book and requires interpretation. Barzel interprets the difference between dangerous beauty and tragic beauty as a difference between a combination of the uncanny and the beautiful and a combination which is uncanny and arouses

14 See Barzel, Shirat eretz Yisrael, 165.

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pity.¹⁵ This difference indicates the speakers’ different perspectives. For the painter-sculptor, who apparently is already accustomed to chimeras, they appear tragic and reflect a classical past which will not return, a decline. For the guest, the foreigner in Prague, the chimeras are threatening. However, on a deeper level, these differences indicate the speakers’ differing historical perspectives. The painter-sculptor, who maintains that “life which is in miniature an infinite investigation in the blinking of an eye […],” possesses a classical-romantic perspective toward the threatening past. For him, this past is gone forever. In contrast, the modern speaker connects the uncanny to contemporary historical conditions. The past and the future are linked. The uncanny creatures of the past, chimeras and the Golem, are an allegory of the present threat for man which is the creation of his own two hands.

The natural and the artificial in “Tsḥok hasharav b’Paris” (The laugh of the heat wave in Paris) and in “B’ya’ar shel krakh” (In an urban forest) The poem which expresses more than any other the threat in man’s handiwork is “Tsḥok hasharav b’Paris” (The laugh of the heat wave in Paris),¹⁶ in which the city becomes estranged from man. Shlonsky chose Paris and not Prague because Paris is the most stereotypical and important example of urban planning, the most engineered city.¹⁷ This precise planning, perceived as subjugating nature and man, is the principal subject of the poem. The poem’s opening image is a satanic personification of the pavement enjoying human suffering during the heat wave. The heat wave serves the poem in two ways. On the one hand, it creates defamiliarization to the worn-out representations of the big city’s alienating nature, generally represented by a cold winter which in a conventional manner also symbolizes human coldness. On the other hand, the heat wave itself is a natural, eruptive, and hot entity (that is, it symbolizes disorder) which stands in contrast to the engineered city. Despite the contrast between them, the heat wave and the city cooperate against the human being. The city is happy about the heat wave, meaning that it is happy that it’s difficult and hot for people, that 15 In other words, the painter expresses Aristotle’s classical perception regarding tragedy’s motivating emotions. 16 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 223–224. 17 In 1853 Napoleon III instructed Baron Hausmann to make Paris a modern city. As a result of this order, Hausmann destroyed most of the old city and turned Paris into a city with wide boulevards and public gardens.

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they breathe heavily “like elephants,” that is, like creatures for whom it is particularly difficult due to the constriction of their steps, led forcibly by the city’s planning to walk along certain pathways only. The planning of the streets, the “geometrical forest,” deals with lack of spontaneity, and therefore death (“skeletal squares of streets”). The third stanza opens with the lines: “Trees captives of asphalt/ combed treetops,” which are lines that indicate the domestication and castration of nature. Only “the black man,” who, in the discourse of the period signifies untamed nature, manages “to celebrate” in the city which is limiting and oppressive. In the fifth stanza, the speaker himself is compared to something natural and spontaneous sentenced to be tamed like an animal in the zoo. The speaker compares himself to a leopard, which, hallucinating, sees the limiting square burst like a cage.

:ַ‫הַּמ ֹ ַח ַה ְמ ֻחּמָם רֹואֶה אֶת ה ִָרּבּוע‬ !‫מַה נִּתְ ַע ְקּמּו ַקּוָיו‬ .‫שּבַר‬ ְ ִ‫עֹוד ֶרגַע ְונ‬ ‫הַּמ ֹ ַח‬ ‫ְ ּכנָמֵר ִמ ִכּּסּופִים ּפָרּו ַע‬ .‫ׁש ַּל ֵבּיבָר‬ ֶ ‫ּכֹופֵף מֹוטֹות ַה ְכּלּוב‬ The heated brain sees the square: How crooked are its lines! Another moment and it breaks. The brain Like a leopard wild from longing Bends the bars of the cage in the menagerie. The speaker distinguishes himself as “the heated brain,” meaning as a natural object, a possessor of uncontrolled drives. This eruption of urges stands in contrast to the city’s artificial captivity, and therefore the brain in his fantasy bends the bars of the cage in the zoo like a wild leopard. The theme of the domestication of nature as reflecting the domestication of man is comprehensively described in the poem “B’ya’ar shel krakh” (In an urban forest),¹⁸ which describes one of Paris’s gardens. The city garden which “was made by hand,” is compared to a living room or a guest room, a symbol of etiquette and social hypocrisy. Similar to the previous poem, here, too, the zoo is a symbol of the domestication of nature. The poem mentions in an abundance of detail nature’s artificiality in those gardens. The “mane” of the trimmed tree. That 18 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 225–226.

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mane is compared to the phylactery, not only because it “glued” to the head, but because, according to halakha, the phylactery must be completely square and have four “chambers.” The phylactery is not only square in its external shape, but dividers divide it into four separate “chambers,” containing four different parchments, upon which four Torah texts are written. The phylactery itself is a symbol of the domestication of nature because it is made from an animal skin, processed under great pressure and dyed black. The parchment within is wrapped in the hairs of a cow tail and sewn with animal sinew fragmented into many threads. In the poem, even the wind is not happy caressing the lawn, which is also overlygroomed. The artificiality, discipline, and domestication of nature¹⁹ cause the speaker to examine if he is still alive. However, the speaker in these poems is far from adopting simple dichotomies of artificiality as representative of evil and lifelessness versus “natural” nature as representative of vitality and fullness. The entire world aspires to negation, including nature. In the poem, “Etz b’ya’ar Boulogne” (A tree in the Bois de Boulogne),²⁰ the speaker escapes from the city and its defenders to a real forest; however, the escape to nature does not lead to pastoral serenity. It appears that nature does not express harmony in contrast to the city’s oppressive artificiality. The speaker, similar to the prophet Jonah, tries to escape from Nineveh (the city) to Tarshish (nature), that is, to escape from declaring “the evil gospel” of the city, and ultimately arrives at the same “gospel” in nature. Nature apparently is the opposite of the city – “every murmur in it soothes/ and entreats: Be fruitful and multiply!” However, as the poem continues, the speaker compares his desire to grow as a Darwinist war or a Nietzschean desire for power: “How much evil how much evil/ in this desire for growth.” Nature’s violent desire for rapid and great growth expresses not only a forceful selfishness, but rather, a self-negation and death wish. The waste in nature, the surfeit, the rapidity with which nature replicates and “burns” itself out, according to Shlonsky, express its lust for death. Nature is expressed precisely by its unnecessary sacrifice,²¹ and thereby it aspires for absence. The concluding poem of “Shire’i hapaḥad ha’rabu’a,” which can be read as one work, reverses the message of the

19 Descriptions of nature as domesticated and even frozen are characteristic of symbolism, at least since Mallarmé. See Anna Balakian, The Symbolist Movement: A Critical Appraisal. (New York: Random House, 1967), 103–105. 20 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 227–228. 21 It is interesting to note that this theme also appears in the thinkers of that period, and a philosopher and author such as George Bataille places nature’s destructive waste and sacrifice as a cornerstone of his thought. See George Bataille, Theory of Religion. (New York: Zone Books, 1998), 43–64.

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entire poem cycle.²² It is not true that only the city and artificiality are expressions of evil, in contrast to innocent nature which expresses the good. The city and artificiality express nature’s “unnatural growth”²³ and it is no wonder that Shlonsky has chosen to characterize the metropolis as prey. The entire world, and everything artificial and natural in it, has become strange and threatening to the individual. The metropolis is the continuation of nature’s central qualities, “the hurried vitality” and “oppression.” Man has become totally estranged from both his urban and natural worlds. The poem cycle “Shire’i hapaḥad ha’rabu’a” begins with the same outlook which guided Shlonsky’s poetry in the poem cycle “Avne’i Bohu: Karkhiel,” in other words, the analogy between the individual’s experience in a foreign land and man’s fate in modern times. The speaker’s estrangement (in foreign cities, etc.) is symbolic of man’s estrangement which has reached a state in which he does not recognize the environment which has undergone dehumanization, and which is perceived as increasingly foreign. The collection ends with an understanding that there is no return from this situation; even nature itself (the Bois de Boulogne) has become alien.

22 This reading of the entire cycle is done by an analogy to one “reversed” poem, that is, a poem whose end changes the reading of the entire poem. For the concept, see Menachem Perry, Hamivneh hasemanti shel shire’i Bialik: truma l’te’oria shel pitu’aḥ mashma’uyot b’retsef hatext hasifruti [The semantic structure of Bialik’s poems: a contribution to the theory of the development of meanings in the continuity of the literary text]. (Tel Aviv: Mifalim Universita’im, 1976). 23 For this theory which sees urban, consumer society as expressing unnatural growth in nature, see Hannah Arendt, “A Consumer’s Society,” in The Human Condition. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).

Chapter Seven Absence as Transformational Narcissism in Avnei Gvil: Tsamrot b’sufah (Rough Stones: Treetops in the Storm) The modernist as an old man in “He’adir hagave” (Glorifying the dying) In the collection Avne’i Gvil (Rough stones), which was published in 1960, the poet does not seek negation and absence in madness or the mechanization of modern life as in Avne’i Tohu, or in an existence without religion and tradition as in Metom, and he also does not express negation of the world and affirmation of emptiness and nothingness as in Stam. Furthermore, there is no attempt to balance between feelings of reconciliation and pronouncing judgment on the Holocaust as in the collections Al Mil’et (Inlaid with jewels) and Misefer Hayoreh (From the book of the first rain).¹ In this collection, the speaker deals with his insecurity, weakening, and irrelevance in a symbolic and indirect manner. The desire for absence in this collection is expressed by a wish to reveal the weakness of the modern persona and the emptiness behind this charismatic persona. The collection seeks to shed the intensified persona and uncover a vulnerable or childish self, a rookie poet, the dreariness of an old man or a “mute” speaker, emptied of words and lacking a message. Indeed, Shlonsky’s situation was the background for this critical examination of the modernist persona. Zach’s famous attack on Alterman demonstrated Shlonsky’s secondary status to Alterman, while both had been replaced by the younger generation of poets. Positions and prizes received by Shlonsky, such as his membership on the Language Committee in 1945 and the Bialik Prize in 1960, had given him an essential place in the establishment and not as its opponent. As previously mentioned, between the two world wars Shlonsky introduced a modernist revolution in Hebrew literature and believed that there was a need to 1 During World War II and the Holocaust, Shlonsky sought to move from a description of modern life’s difficulties (in essence, and not dependent upon certain events) to poems of reconciliation, in other words to poems expressing satisfaction and gratefulness toward life and sensory experiences. At least the first half of the poems in Al Mil’et, written in 1947, express the themes and spirit of Shire’i Hamapolet v’Hapiyus. It seems that like the large group of urban poems, beginning with “B’Tel Aviv” in Lekh Lekha and through the middle of the collection Shire’i Hamapolet v’Hapiyus, the poet wanted to also create a group of nature poems, expressing reconciliation and the joy of existence.

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shake up and “educate” the public and literary institution until it “accepted” modern poetry. Shlonsky’s adherence to modernist poetry wore out after World War II and the Holocaust² and at the height of the Cold War he was less certain about the modernist enterprise.³ The loss of the modernist, warrior persona, who seeks to express negative experiences (such as loss of religion, urban alienation, and the loss of God), brought into being a persona who experiences absence and the vacuum created after the revolutionary stage; a persona who takes stock of his modernist youth. This experience is expressed by a rhetoric which moves from “compensatory” positions of the aged poet’s narcissistic self as a lofty and tragic figure to positions expressing a rare acceptance of life’s insignificance and prosaic diminution. On this continuum, the collection’s opening poem, “He’adir hagave” (Glorifying the dying),⁴ represents the first position, the old poet as an intensified and tragic figure.

‫ּשׁ ֶ ּלכֶת‬ ַ ‫ַאדִ ּיר ַהּיַעַר ַּב‬ ‫ְואֵין ִמׁשְעֹול ְואֵין ִמׁשְעֹול‬ ‫ְו ַהּמ ְֶרחָק ּגֹוזֵר ָל ֶלכֶת‬ .‫ּו ֵמחָדָ ׁש לַתְ חִיל ִלׁשְאֹול‬ ָ‫אֶל מִי דָ מִיתָ ִכּי דַ ּלֹות‬ ‫הָיּו צ ֹאנֶיך ְלבָרֹות‬ ָ‫ּוכְמֹו ָהע ֶֶרב ַהחִּלֹות‬ ?‫צ ֵָרף ִמ ִלּים ֵמ ֲהבָרֹות‬ The glorious autumn forest There is no path and no pass And the distance decrees to go on And begin to ask again. Who did you resemble whose inadequacy Your sheep eaten And like the evening starting out Compounded words from syllables?

2 In an article ‘Oy, l’avod! Oy l’avod!’ [Oy, to work! Oy, to work!], published in 1943 in Ha’aretz, Shlonsky tries to arouse himself to work after the first news of the fate of the Jews in Europe. See Shlonsky, Yalkut Eshel, 230–231. 3 As we shall see in the poem “Mar’eh dori” [My generation’s appearance], the poet gives poetic expression to the Cold War as a time of a draw. “It is a time of a draw and moving here and there,” Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 5, 11. 4 Ibid., ibid, 7–8.

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The poet himself as an old man is glorious in the autumn. The falling leaves cover the roads, that is, the certainty of going in a certain direction or to a certain goal. Using the metaphor of life as a road, the road covered with falling leaves symbolizes a situation of disorientation and lack of direction in life. The poet has become inadequate in the face of “your sheep,” symbolizing his spiritual assets, having been consumed, and as a rookie-poet he first compounds “words from syllables.” Paradoxically, the poet who begins to compound words from syllables is compared to a rich man, jailed in a basement where only his voice is heard. The speaker’s linguistic wealth cannot be expressed in this world which imprisons him – a world in which the poetic norms of linguistic wealth and metaphoric language have changed into variations of a few words in a lean language.⁵ Therefore, he can be a “rich” poet like the “moneyed,” possessor of dinars, while also being the “rookie”: “And like the evening starting out/ Compounded words from syllables?” The poet’s linguistic wealth lacking an attentive audience is compared to a figure which, despite its great wealth, is dying of hunger in a cellar. This image, already set up in the second stanza (“Who did you resemble”), is based upon a story heard by the poet from his mother and which he internalized. The story is both threatening and “educational” at the same time. The rich figure in the cellar symbolizes selfishness which hoards everything for itself and therefore rots in its isolation. The awareness of this story at this stage of life marks the speaker as someone who cannot bestow his poetry upon others, and therefore finds himself in an egotistical situation of guarding his treasures for himself. The last stanza indicates both security and insecurity. The poet is still “the glorious autumn forest,” although a new connection has been added, “rough stones,” indicating softness and lack of processing, in other words, “the poet’s desire to preserve the square stone as an evident mold, but to change its qualities into conveying stability and security.”⁶

The child looks at the old man in “Mul hare’i” (Opposite the mirror) The poem “Mul hare’i” (Opposite the mirror), the second poem in the poem cycle “Ad mot hatsameret” (To the canopy pole), begins similarly to “He’adir hagave,” 5 For the interpretation which perceives this collection as principally dealing with the poetic norms of the poetry of the statehood generation (Zach and Amichai), see the chapter “’Ish binayim:’ ben Bialik l’Alterman” [‘Middle man:’ between Bialik and Alterman], in Hagorni-Green, Shlonsky, 137–143. 6 “’Ish binayim:’ ben Bialik l’Alterman,” ibid., ibid., 141.

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with images of a lofty and tragic speaker.⁷ “Mul hare’i” also moves from the general to the personal and specific, but this time the personal is not a story of a mother, but of a childish, interior self that looks at the old poet:

‫גֵאֶה ְוׁשָפּוי ּו ְכנָפָיו אֲסּופֹות‬ !‫חֹורׁש ּתֹו ָעפָה – ְועַד נֹגַּה‬ ֵ ‫ׁש ָחמְדָ ה ּכֹו ָכבִים ּבַּסּופֹות‬ ֶ ‫ֻח ְצּפָתִ י‬ .‫ַמלְכּותִ י ְבֹּלא ּתֹגָא‬ Proud and restrained with its wings gathered Daringly plows – and to Venus! My insolence that coveted stars in storms My monarchy without grief. The image of the poet as a bird with gathered wings refers to Baudelaire’s poem “The Albatross,” in which a large albatross is captured and tortured by sailors. The albatross symbolizes the figure of the poet who “is grounded” and cannot express his poetic soul in a world full of brutal coarseness. The speaker presents himself in the first stanza as someone who in the past aspired to greatness. In the second stanza, he refers to himself as a victim of his success, inasmuch as success is a problem for someone who has built his persona upon being an oppositionist and drawing his charisma from struggling actively and overcoming difficulties:

‫מִי ֲחבָׁשך ֲעט ָָרה ַא ְכז ִָרית‬ – ‫ְו ִה ְכ ִבּיד ֵפּרֹותַ י ִך עַד מֹוט ַה ַּצּמ ֶֶרת‬ ‫ׁשעִם ּכָל א ְֶר ֶא ַּלי ִך ׂש ִָרית‬ ֶ ְ‫אַּת‬ .‫וְָא ַהבְּתְ מְצּוקַי ִך ִכּי הֵם הַּתִ ְפא ֶֶרת‬ Who placed a cruel crown upon you And weighed your fruits to the canopy’s pole – You who with all your angels have overcome And have loved your hardships because they are the glory. The cruel crown refers to the figure of the king, and as we shall see – to the poet’s old age, with white hair encircling his head like a crown. The image of a cruel crown suggests Jesus’s crown of thorns, also symbolizing ridicule of his pretension to rule and free the Jews from political slavery, as well as the physical suffering of the thorns piercing flesh. Here, the crown is “cruel” because it signifies the 7 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 5, 12.

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poet’s success. The fruits which appear in the following line and which symbolize the poet’s success “bend” with their weight the poet’s “height” which is compared to a tree canopy. The line “And have loved your hardships because they are your glory,” refers to the poet’s past when the speaker had been established through the prism of active suffering and struggle. The next stanza continues to detail how suffering “your hardships” was taken from the poet by his successes:

‫ִכּי הֵם ִכּּסּו ַפי ִך ִכּי הֵם ִרּנּונֵך‬ .‫ִפּּתּוך ַה ְכּתָ ִרים – ְו ִא ִוּית ַה ַּג ֶחלֶת‬ – ‫ׁשּבָה אֲרֹונך‬ ְ ִ‫נִ ְ ּצחְו א ְֶר ֶא ִלּים ְונ‬ .‫ּכָתָ ר ָלבָן עַל ר ֹאׁשֹו ׁשֶל ַהּיֶלֶד‬ For they are your yearning for they are your song The spectrum of the crowns – and the coal’s desire. The angels have triumphed and your ark captured – A white crown on the child’s head. The first line refers to “your hardships” from the previous stanza, which permits yearnings and even the poem itself (“your song”). The second line refers to the legend of three-year old Moses who took the crown from Pharaoh’s head and placed it on his own head. Pharaoh’s councilors who looked upon this gravely maintained that the child should be killed, but according to the advice of one of those present it was decided to examine whether this was done flippantly or whether it signaled an aspiration to rule. Moses had to choose between a bowl of gold and a bowl of red-hot coals. Moses reached out his hand to the gold but the angel Gabriel pushed his hand toward the coals. The choice of the coals marks Shlonsky as someone whose deeds are directed by God’s hand, and as someone who sought, like Moses, to be a leader. The line “The angels have triumphed and your ark captured” refers to the line “The angels overpowered the mortals and the holy ark has been captured” (Ketuboth 104:2), a phrase which generally is used in eulogies for spiritual leaders who have died. The last stanza refers to the alienation the speaker feels toward his old age:

‫יָלֶד צֹופֶה ִבּי – נָכ ְִרי ְונִדְ הָם‬ .‫מְׁשּובָה ְמ ַה ֵסּס ָּבעֵינַי ִם‬-‫ּגֵץ‬ .‫ש ֹיבַת ַאב ְָרהָם‬ ֵ ‫ַּפחַד י ִ ְצחָק מּול‬ .‫ֲעצֵי ֲעקֵדָ ה עַל ּכְתֵ ַפי ִם‬ A child looks at me – foreign and amazed A mischievous spark hesitant in his eyes.

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Isaac’s fear opposite Abraham’s old age. Kindling of sacrifice on shoulders. The child sees with amazement how the speaker has become an old man. That child looks in the mirror, where the body and face of the old man whose fate is mortality are reflected. The poet is both the aging Abraham and the frightened Isaac. Shlonsky, whose earlier poems describe a narcissistic love of his body, looks at what Lacanian psychoanalysis calls an image of the fragmented body, that is, the failure to see the ideal, physical self as whole and unified. Thus, the fear of old age is “Isaac’s fear opposite Abraham’s old age.” The old body constitutes that which Julia Kristeva terms “abject,” in other words, the thing that threatens, usually a corpse, whose observation threatens the division between subject and object, the self and the other.⁸ It may be said that at the dangerous moment of the child’s observation of the aging body, there arises a defense mechanism in copying. The child’s frightened regard staring at the old body and face is copied to the mythic representation of the story of the binding. The use of the story of the binding transfers the internal fear and tension from the speaker’s personality (the old poet and the child) to two mythic figures (Isaac and Abraham), distant in time from the speaker’s being; this use heightens the fear and it undergoes mythization.

A draw in “Mareh dori” (My generation’s appearance) and “Ha’erev hamet” (The dead evening) The uncertainty as to personal identity receives an inclusive historical expression in the poem “Mareh dori” (My generation’s appearance),⁹ the first poem in the cycle “Ad mot hatsameret.” The poem tries to characterize Shlonsky’s modernist and revolutionary generation of the 1930s, who combined social and cultural revolutions, from the temporal distance of the 1950s, years of uncertainty and insecurity for the modernist enterprise. Because of this combination, the doubts regarding the success of the socialist revolution are translated into uncertainty about the cultural revolution.

:‫יָמִין‬-‫דֹורי – מ ְַראֶה ׁשֶל קֵץ‬ ִ ‫מ ְַראֵה‬ .‫ֵמסִית ִלכְּפֹור ּגֹוזֵר ְל ַה ֲאמִין‬ 8 See Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Trans. Leon S Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 2, 10. 9 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 5, 11.

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– ‫וָכ ֹה‬-‫ּכ ֹה‬-ַ‫ׁשעָה ׁשֶל ּתֵ יקּו הִיא וְנּוע‬ ָ !‫ַאל יְוַּתֵ ר ַהּיַעַר עַל ּכ ֹחֹו‬ My generation’s appearance – a view of apocalypse: Incites to heresy decrees to believe. It is a time of standoff and movement here and there – The forest will not give up its power! The first stanza represents the generation as a generation of emancipation characterized by feelings and deeds of both heresy and messianism. The modern era in which the poet lives decrees heresy regarding religion, but coerces belief in the great ideologies of the twentieth century. The “time of standoff” suggests the Cold War in which the forces of socialism and communism (of the former Soviet Union and parts of the Third World) stood at a draw with the capitalism of the United States and its allies. The description of the time of stalemate is not only a description of the historical situation, because the poet could have just as easily opened the poem with a demand for commitment and a new enlistment to social-humanist values. “A time of standoff,” therefore, is also a metaphor of the poet’s situation, in which force is not needed for new conquests but to defend what exists. An interpretation may be suggested for “a time of standoff” as a displacement from the area of general history to “a standoff” between his modernism and the new poetry of Zach and Amichai. The self is also compensated by this displacement, inasmuch as Shlonsky’s socialism and modernist poetry (the “Russian” poetry) are in a defensive position in the face of capitalism and Anglo-American poetry, which are the ones that ultimately represent progressive forces. The fourth line, “The forest will not give up its power!” calls on an ideological level to strengthen progressive forces and on a personal level to carry on in the same modernist stance, rebellious and combative. The forest in general symbolizes the forces of progress and specifically, it symbolizes the speaker who is identified with the forest in the poem “He’adir hagave.” The poem continues in its attempt to strengthen the modernist persona who now finds himself in “autumn”:

‫ּברק ַל ְסּתָ ו! ְ ּכ ַלהַב ַה ֲחנִית‬ ָ .‫עַל ַצּמָרֹות י ַ ְבלִי ַח ְל ַה ְקנִיט‬ ‫ זָהָב‬-‫ׁש ְלּכֹות‬ ַ ‫ַּפחְּדֹו מָתֹוק ּו ְלחֵן‬ .‫ַאל יִּפָתֶ ה ַהּלֵב ְלמַּדּוחָיו‬ Glow to the autumn! Like the spear’s blade On the treetops will teasingly flicker.

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Its fear is sweet and falling gold to grace Don’t let the heart be tempted by its delusions. The autumn signifies the present which threatens the proud forest like “the spear’s blade” (that is, the tree tops), and metaphorically, it symbolizes the alterations of time which threaten the speaker and his generation. The speaker calls to his generation not to be tempted by the “sweet” fear and grace of the autumn gold, which may signify western capitalism, dying (“falling” leaves) capitalism (“gold”).¹⁰ The speaker wants to encourage himself so that his heart will not be tempted into delusions. The image “glow to the autumn” has multiple meanings and may even signify the speaker himself, who, in his old age (“autumn”) is still strong. The uncertainty of those times is also expressed in the first stanza of the poem “Ha’erev hamet” (The dead evening),¹¹ which doubts poetry’s modernist enterprise:

.‫ׁשּלַּתֵ מַּה‬ ֶ ‫ ִפּתְ א ֹמֹו‬.‫ׁשבְרֹונֹו ׁשֶל וַּדַ אי‬ ִ !‫ׁש ֶה ְחטִיא‬ ֶ ‫אִם הַדֶ ֶרך י ְָרטָה – הִיא ַּכחֵץ‬ ‫ַַאר ֶפּה גַם ֵמ ֵהּמָה‬ ְ ‫ה‬... – ‫נִּגּונַי נִּגּונַי‬ ?‫ש ֹ ְמחָתִ י‬ ִ ‫ׁש ִע ּנְבֵי ח ְֶרּדָ תִ י הֵם וְֹלא‬ ֶ The breaking of certainty. The suddenness of amazement. If the road has diverged – it is like an arrow that has missed! My Niguns my Niguns – … shall I also release from them Which is the fruit of my anxiety and not my joy? The lack of certainty and hesitance regarding the speaker’s life and choices assume a mixed image of a “road” which is also an “arrow.” The speaker maintains that the arrow is off target, in other words, that modernism did not achieve its goal. The poet mourns his music – his poems – and wonders if he should also abandon them, since they are the product of anxiety and not of joy.

10 For images of the west in “eclipse,” see Shlonsky, “Ale’i teref,” which appeared in Torim, November 17, 1933. 11 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 5, 25.

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Silence and absence in “Dusi’aḥ al ovdan hamilim” (A dialogue about the loss of words) and “Tshuvato shel hashotek” (The response of the silent one) Perhaps the greatest failure and disappointment of the modernist project was its lack of popularity with a wide audience. A movement which imagined that its union with revolutionary movements would make it a central part of the wider culture, became in the 1960s, a movement that was institutionalized and appealed to a narrow elite. Feelings about a lack of audience and purpose are expressed in the poems “Dusi’aḥ al ovdan hamilim” (A dialogue about the loss of words)¹² and “Tshuvato shel hashotek” (The response of the silent one),¹³ which are the sixth and seventh sections of the poem cycle “Shire’i hamerutsah hara’ah” (Poems of the bad flight),¹⁴ and these poems may be read as one unit dealing with the possibility of poetic communication in the poet’s current state.

‫ש ֹי ַח עַל ָאבְּדַ ן ַהּמִי ִלּים‬ ִ ‫ ּדּו‬.‫ז‬ .‫וְָאז ׁשַָאל ׁשֹואֵל‬ .‫וְָאז ֵהׁשִיב ֵמׁשִיב‬ .ַ‫ׁשמַע אֶת הַּדּוׂשִיח‬ ָ ‫ְו ַהּשֹׁו ֵמ ַע ֹלא‬ 7. A dialogue on the loss of words And then the questioner questions. And then the responder responds. And the listener doesn’t hear the dialogue. The first stanza marks the conversation of the questioner and responder as an interior conversation (“the listener doesn’t hear the dialogue”). There is a charismatic figure in this interior conversation who is secure in his poetic mission (and therefore also makes many claims, worded in elevated language), and facing that figure is another figure, a diminished one, who represents the speaker’s doubts and responds (in the poem’s last stanza) with a few words: “my little word” and “perhaps.” In the second stanza, the first figure seeks to goad the speaker into creating by appealing to the courage demanded by creation; despite this, the figure of the speaker does not take the bait, meaning he is not goaded into 12 Ibid., ibid., 39. 13 Ibid., ibid., 40. 14 Ibid., ibid., 32–43.

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showing bravery, but instead admits that he has lost this bravery. The second and third stanzas describe this figure who is both a goad and a moralist:

‫– ֲהכִי נִ ְב ַהלְּתָ מִן ַהי ְכֹלֶת ּו ַב ַּצעַר‬ ‫ׁש ֵּל ּנִ ְמלָט מִן ַה ְּג ָלמִים ְוהַּצּורֹות‬ ֶ – ‫ׁשעַר‬ ַ -‫ׁשעַר‬ ַ ‫ ַּבי ִת‬-‫אַּתָ ה ׁשֹותֵ ק עֹוד – ַּבי ִת‬ ?‫אֶת ּכָל ע ֵָרי ַהּנֶפֶׁש ַהנְּצּורֹות‬ .‫ש ֵכנִי וְָארּוצָה‬ ׁ ְ ‫ ָמ‬:‫חֲזֹור ּוק ְָרא‬ !‫ ל ֵך ְב ַּרח חֹוזֶה‬:‫– חֲזֹור ּוזְכֹור‬ ‫ ִלנְּבֹוט הַחּוצָה‬:‫חֲזֹור וְדַ ע‬ ...‫הֹורס ַהזֶ ַּרע‬ ֵ :‫)וָאֹמַר‬ .)′.‫זֶה סֹוד ַהּשִׂי ַח זֶה אֶל זֶה‬′ – Were you alarmed by ability and sorrow Of the one who flees from forms and shapes Are you still silent – house by house gate by gate – All the besieged cities of the soul? Come back and call: shelter me and I will run hither. Come back and remember: seer go flee! Come back and know: to sprout forth Destroys the seed... (And I will say: “This is the secret of conversing with one another”). The line “seer go flee” directly refers to the prophet Amos, and of course to Bialik’s poem “Ḥozeh lekh braḥ” (O thou seer go flee thee away).¹⁵ The prophet Amos took it upon himself to prophesy without having wanted it, and after he prophesized harshly against the monarchy, the priest Amaziah asked him to leave the country with the words, “O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread and prophesy there” (Amos 7:12). The context in the biblical situation depicts the prophet’s absence of hesitation, and even after he was exiled, he continued to prophesize apocalypse. However, the poem of course refers more “locally” to Bialik’s poem “Ḥozeh lekh braḥ,” in which the speaker continues to prophesize, similar to Amos, but, in contrast to the prophet, he is unsure whether his words (compared to a hammer) have any resonance: “A hammer’s anvil is 15 Bialik, Kol shire’i, 209.

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not found in its place,/ My hatchet comes with rotting wood.”¹⁶ Shlonsky’s poem which also deals with uncertainty regarding his poetry’s audience, thus creates an explicit analogy between his situation at the end of the 1950s and Bialik’s situation in 1910 when he wrote his poem. For both poets these periods (each one in his own period) mark a despondency and lack of confidence communicating with the audience.¹⁷ Furthermore, perhaps on a more hidden level, this comparison may also describe Shlonsky’s wish to see himself as Bialik, not only from the perspective of his importance to Hebrew poetry, but also as a poet who is in temporary retreat and whose works, like Bialik’s, will have great resonance in the future. In any event, this analogy is based primarily upon the desire for introspection. Similar to Bialik in his time, the speaker chooses to withdraw into his private world during a period in which his words seem to have no resonance. However, beyond the binary contrasts between introspection and prophetic demand, contrasts which in any case establish an empowered subject,¹⁸ the poem expresses doubts regarding the empowered subject and the charismatic prophetic stance. The prophet’s charisma absorbed harsh criticism from the poets of the 1950s and seemed irrelevant. As is known, the new poetry emphasized an ordinary, diminished speaker, a speaker who clearly opposed the empowered, charismatic, and prophetic speaker.¹⁹ The poem’s speaker seemingly adopts these new poetic norms:

? ָ‫ׁש ַכלְּת‬ ָ ‫ – ּומַה‬:‫ׂשָח ַהּשֹׁואֵל‬ .‫ – ִמּלָי‬:‫ׂשָח ַה ֵּמׁשִיב‬

16 Ibid., 209. 17 For Bialik in this period, see Dan Miron “L’lo mareh mekomot: hakdama ‘temima’ l’shirat Bialik” [With no footnotes: an ‘innocent’ introduction to Bialik’s poetry] in Ḥadashot me’azor hakotev, 510–515. 18 An empowered subject is created by analogy to charismatic religious figures who sometimes isolate themselves (for example, Jesus in the desert), and sometimes require an audience. 19 The stance of the contemporary generation in Hebrew poetry (Dory Manor and his generation) characterizes the ‘new’ poetry of Zach’s generation which it rebels against principally by means of the diminished and authentic speaker: ‘We can begin to characterize this ideal type approximately in this manner: the poet’s voice is very autobiographical, very focused: frequently we seemingly cling to the poet with a home video camera on our shoulders, following his daily moves. This process is explicitly ‘ordinary,’ that is, of a day of inconsequentialities: attention insistently clings to objects of little value, which become a metonymy of the poetic self […] his ironic, almost bitter voice, his fundamental stance toward the world is one of realistically recognized helplessness. This is the voice of someone who was young and finds himself facing middle age, the only good quality which he is prepared to still recognize in himself is his uncompromising self-honesty.’ See Reviel Netz, “Poshte’i hamadim: al shirat he’ḥaruz heḥadash” [Taking off the uniform: the new rhyming poetry], Ho!, June 2005, 116–140.

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? ָ‫ – ֲהכִי נִ ְב ַהלְּת‬:‫ׂשָח ַהּשֹׁואֵל‬ .‫ׂשָח ַה ֵּמׁשִיב אּולַי‬ The questioner says: – and what have you mourned? The responder says: – My words. The questioner says: – what alarmed you most? The responder says perhaps. The last stanza presents the silent, minor-key speaker who accepts his characterization as judged by the authoritative goading figure of lacking courage.²⁰ The laconic responses (“my words,” “perhaps”) situates the speaker as someone whose language is simple, apparently authentic, testifying to a speaker who is weakened, because on the one hand the speaker is mourning the words and on the other hand because he is alarmed to assume the poet’s romantic, prophetic stance. In the poem, “Tshuvato shel hashotek” the figures change places. This time, the one who seeks to be silent is the one who expresses what he has to say in a long speech.

‫ ּתְ ׁשּובָתֹו ׁשֶל ַהּשֹׁותֵ ק‬.‫ח‬ ‫ֲאנִי ׁשֹותֵ ק‬ ‫שאֵין לִי מַה לֹומַר‬ ׁ ֶ ‫ַאך ֹלא ִמּשּׁום‬ ‫ִכּי אִם‬ .‫ׁשאֵין ַאתָ ּה יֹודֵ ַע ְל ַה ְקׁשִיב‬ ֶ ‫ִמּשּׁום‬ ‫ּו ְכׁשֶּתִ ְר ֵאנִי מְדַ ֵבּר‬ ‫ ִכּי ְמצָאתִ יו‬, ‫ַאל ּתְ דַ ּמֶה‬ .ַ‫אֶת ׁשֶָאזְנַי ִם לֹו ִלׁשְמֹוע‬ ‫ׁשּי ֵׁש לִי מַה לֹומַר‬ ֶ ‫ׁשוְא‬ ָ -‫זֶה ַרק מִּנֹחַם‬ .‫ּו ִמ ִ ּכׁשְלֹון הּכ ֹ ַח ְל ַהח ְִריׁש‬ 8. The response of the silent one I am silent 20 As we shall see in the next poem in the collection, “Tshuvato shel hashotek” [The response of the silent one], the low-key figure rebels against the demand to write a poem and thus responds to the accusations made against him.

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But not because I don’t have anything to say But because You don’t know how to listen. And when you see me speak Don’t imagine, that I’ve found him Who has ears to listen. It’s only a vain comfort that I have something to say And from failure of the strength to be silent. The first three stanzas indicate in explicit language the speaker’s feeling that he has no audience. However, the speaker himself is not a certain and unambiguous figure, facing an unworthy and insensitive listener, rather he is someone divided and he essentially consists of two “speakers”: one who says “I am silent/ But not because I don’t have anything to say/ But because you don’t know how to listen,” that is, he is a speaker who is secure in the content of what he has to say, but rejects his audience’s ability to absorb it, and on the other hand the speaker as he is expressed in the third stanza when he maintains, “It’s only a vain comfort that I have something to say/ And from failure of the strength to be silent,” that is, the feeling that the speaker has something to say is a comforting, baseless illusion. The speaker has to overcome himself and show restraint requiring silence, but he is not capable of doing so. In the next stanza, he seeks to be as silent as a stone.

‫ש ֹ ִכּי ֵלנִי‬ ְ ֵ ‫ׁשּי‬ ֶ ‫אּולַי ַא ְפּגִי ַע ּבֹו‬ ‫ׁשְתִ יקַת ָה ֶאבֶן עַל ַה ְ ּבאֵר‬ ?‫ְו ַה ְּג ַמ ִלּים ָסבִיב לָּה‬ ‫א ַך‬ ′ –‫ ַה ְּג ַמ ִלּים אֵינָם ּבֹוכִים‬′ ‫ ַהּמִדְ ּבָרֹות‬-‫ָאמַר ֲחכַם‬ ′‫שׁר ‘ ֻ ּכּלָנּו ְקצָת סּוסִים‬ ּ ָ ‫ׁש‬ ֶ ‫ְוזֵכֶר ַה ַּפיְטָן‬ .‫ָעלָה אֶל מּול נֹופִי‬ ‫אּולַי ָאחּוד לֹו גַם ֲאנִי‬ ‫ ֶו ֱאלִי ֶעזֶר‬-‫ֵמא ֶֶרץ ַאב ְָרהָם‬ ‫אֶת ֶרמֶז ַה ְּג ַמ ִלּים ְו ַה ְ ּב ִכּי ָה‬ :‫לֵאמֹור‬ ′...‫ ֻ ּכּלָנּו ְקצָת ְּג ַמ ִלּים‬′

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Perhaps I’ll plead with him to teach me The silence of the stone on the well And the camels surrounding it? But “The camels don’t weep” – Said a desert wise man And the memory of the poet who said “We are all a little bit horses” Arose before my view. Perhaps I too will present him with a riddle From the land of Abraham and Eliezer The trace of camels and weeping Saying: “We are all a little bit camels …” Why does the speaker remember the saying “We are all a little bit horses,” which depicts man as domesticated, open to exploitation and beatings?²¹ What is the meaning of replacing the horse with a camel and its relation to the well and the silent stone? This could be seen as an adaptation to the Israeli climate, but it may be that the intention is to compare the speaker to the camel, an animal that stores its source of existence inside itself (water) just as the poet stores his linguistic wealth within himself. The mention of the saying “We are all a little bit horses,” and its modification to “We are all a little bit camels” thus signifies literary activity as unremunerated labor, as a kind of slavery. The connotation to slavery is reinforced in light of the clear reference to Eliezer, Abraham’s slave.²² The land is the land of “Abraham and Eliezer,” that is, the slavery of the latter is characteristic of the land no less than the religious faith of the former. However, the speaker rebels against the existence of the unending, uncompensated travail and longs for and goads himself into silence. Literary activity is compared to going to “the endlessness of sand/ the endlessness of the heat wave,” in other words, to 21 This theme repeats itself in Russian literature. For example, Raskolnikov in one of his dreams in Crime and Punishment tries to prevent a horse being brutally beaten to death with an iron rod. 22 It is not coincidental that the camels are “from the land of Abraham and Eliezer,” that is, they refer directly to the story of the slave Eliezer who was asked to bring Isaac a wife from Haran. In this story in which the camels are “heroes”, it is written: “And the servant took ten camels, of the camels of his master, and departed; having all goodly things of his master’s in his hand; and he arose, and went to Aram-naharaim, unto the city of Nahor: And he made the camels to kneel down without the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time that women go out to draw water,” Genesis 24:10

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write poetry is to engage in solitary work (in the desert) which leads to frustration and dissatisfaction. The speaker even admits that the literary walk-endeavor has no end and is always Sisyphean (and my confidence to jest and shed tears/ because the end too is sand/ and heat wave/ and thirst). The silence becomes a basic human right, the right to rest. The speaker attempts to nullify his existence, to resemble his (non-existent) audience. He will become wise by learning from absence, from emptiness, which is clearly and precisely defined as “un-seeing” and “un-hearing.” Silence signifies the absence of desire for poetic creation; however, it also constitutes a rhetoric of fatigue with life and aspiration for the rest of death, thereby expressing a wish or “desire for absence” in a will to the rest of an absence of creation and life.

Tragic emptiness and unease in “Ne’um ploni al shkhunato” (Said John Doe of his neighborhood) The poem “Ne’umm ploni al shkhunato” (Said John Doe of his neighborhood),²³ which is the fifth part in the cycle “Shire’i hamerutzah hara’ah,” is one of the poems in the collection which stands out and draws the most attention, mainly because its language is prosaic and simple and it represents biographical events – a rare combination in Shlonsky’s poetry. The poem’s interpretation relates to it as a parody, or alternatively as an internalization of the poetic norms of the new poetry of Zach and Amichai. In a summary of writings about the poem, HagorniGreen writes: “It’s possible to add and demonstrate from within the book how the former rebel was as if dragged to the border between a parody of different manifestations of contemporary poetry and an attempt to use its tools and materials in order to express his own poetic creed, and by doing so also to put out careful feelers of adaptation to the changing times, not without warnings so as not to be tempted to take the easy route.”²⁴ In contradiction to Green’s argument, it is possible to argue that Shlonsky’s poem does not create a liberating effect as is customary in parody, but instead a feeling of unease. The speaker in this poem, different from Shlonsky’s previous speakers, does not possess an empowered attitude, but expresses a minor, prosaic attitude toward the world and himself. The poem opens with a dry report about the speaker’s house:

23 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 5, 37. 24 Hagorni-Green, Shlonsky, 141.

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‫ קֹומֹות‬5 ‫ְגּורי הּוא ֶבּן‬ ַ ‫ מ‬-‫ֵבּית‬ ‫ׁש ְ ּכנֶגֶד‬ ֶ ‫ְוכָל חַּלֹונֹותָ יו מְפ ֹ ָהקִים אֶל‬ .‫ִ ּכ ְפנֵי ַה ּנִ ָּצבִים אֶל מּול ְראִי‬ My building has 5 floors And all its windows yawn at those opposite Like faces standing in front of a mirror. The poem’s title and its first stanza suspend the speaker’s identity, because the minor and factual tone is foreign to the great majority of Shlonsky’s poems. At this stage, we don’t know if it is the same empowered, romantic speaker-poet typical of most of Shlonsky’s poems or whether this is a new speaker. The speaker characterizes himself in a prosaic manner as someone who lives in a five-story residence. The number five, represented by the numeral, attracts attention and mentions the number of floors in a matter-of-fact and insignificant manner. It is not only as Hillel Barzel maintains that “the numbers placed amid the words of the poem add a cool “color,” a mechanistic color to a forlorn tale,”²⁵ but the number demonstrates that the authentic truth is seemingly only informative. The reader doesn’t learn or experience anything worthwhile from this number. The poem’s beginning can be seen as meaning that the requirement of the new poetry for a true and authentic reportage of the speaker’s reality leads to the prosaic, to non-poetic facts which don’t provide anything. The second and third lines, “And all its windows yawn at those opposite/ Like faces standing in front of a mirror,” metaphorically present the speaker as bored with himself, an exceptional representation in Shlonsky’s poetry which usually presents the speaker at the center of dramatic, emotional happenings.²⁶ The second stanza also opens with a factual recounting of the seventy bus lines in the speaker’s city which are suffocating and smelly and travel to the city center where it’s also possible to die of boredom exactly like in the speaker’s neighborhood. The expression “heart of the metropolis,” in the line “They travel to the heart of the metropolis,” is unusual in its poetic register. Why “the heart of the metropolis” and not, for example, the city center (the poem does use the word “my city” at the beginning of the stanza)? This use can be understood as a parody of the mythic heightening of the city itself, which is shattered in the following line by the speaker’s judgment which views “the heart of the metropolis,” a location no less 25 See Barzel, Shirat Eretz Yisrael, 215–216. 26 If in the poem, “Lo,” which appears in the collection Avne’i Bohu, the negative observation in the mirror is the climax of a crisis of conscience, indeed, here, the observation of the windows facing the speaker’s window represents boredom. See Chapter Six which discusses Avne’i Bohu.

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boring than his neighborhood. The poem continues and describes the neighborhood which contains all of the human saga, the fact that there are births and deaths in this neighborhood, “babies who amazingly spin a flying saucer/ and 3 cinemas.” The neighborhood which includes all of human history (“everything between birth and death”) doesn’t arouse curiosity or interest. The poem skips over the events between birth and death. This elision indicates that even though all the events occurring in the neighborhood exist in “the metropolises of the world,” they are not interesting. Three movie theaters are employed by the speaker (aside from the mention of one more dry fact) to return to the theme of the boredom of his home. The last stanza constitutes both a continuation of the poem and a deviation from it:

– ‫ קֹומֹות‬5 ‫ְגּורי הּוא ֶבּן‬ ַ ‫ מ‬-‫ֵבּית‬ ‫ׁש ְ ּכנֶגֶד‬ ְ ‫ׁש ָּק ְפצָה מִן ַהחַּלֹון‬ ֶ ‫זֹו‬ .‫ ִבּ ְלבַד‬3 -ְ‫נִסְּתַ ְ ּפקָה ּב‬ My building has 5 floors – The one who jumped from the opposite window Was satisfied with only 3. This is a very dramatic stanza, reporting the woman who jumped from her building. The apparent allusion is to Lucia Laykin, Shlonsky’s belovèd and first wife, who committed suicide by jumping from the third floor balcony in an apartment at 12 Dov Hoz St. in 1953.²⁷ The line “The one who jumped from the opposite window/ Was satisfied with only 3,” is ambiguous and unexplained. What is the meaning of this satisfaction with three floors? Without any connection to the various interpretations of this suicide in the poem, the end of the poem reverses the meaning of the entire poem.²⁸ The five-story building, a completely prosaic fact at the beginning of the poem, suddenly takes on meaning. The boredom which appears throughout the poem is charged with a threatening, depressing, and tragic sentiment. The end of the poem manages to reverse the prosaic nature of the poem into a sense of tragedy without its tragic nature becoming exalted. Suicide doesn’t require exaltation, and therefore it also doesn’t require the highest floor (the fifth floor), but is satisfied with the third floor. On the one hand, suicide deviates totally from the 27 Despite this dramatic and tragic event, Shlonsky does not refer to Lucia Laykin in his poetry at all (except for this explicit poem), and descriptions can be found in Ya’akov Shabtai’s Zikhron Devarim [Past continuous]. For more about Lucia Laykin, see Avraham Hagorni-Green, Shlonsky, 48–49. 28 For the “reversing” poem, in other words the poem in which the end changes the entire reading of the poem, see Perry, Hamivneh hasemanti.

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 173

prosaic world (and therefore surprise is created at the poem’s conclusion), while on the other hand it is part of that world; it is part of that boring neighborhood, where “in it there are all the births and deaths/ and everything between birth and death.”

Reconciliation and acceptance in “Kokhve’i Shabbat” (Sabbath stars) In contrast to the collection Avne’i Gvil: Tsamrot b’sufah (Rough stones: Treetops in the storm), the collection Avne’i Gvil: Kokhve’i Shabbat (Rough stones: Sabbath stars), seeks to present a speaker who aspires to reconciliation and acceptance. Whereas the image “treetops in the storm” describes the poet’s disturbed and unstable condition, compared to a treetop, the image “Sabbath stars” describes serenity and satisfaction. Sabbath, which signifies rest after much activity (God’s rest projected on the poet), is a time for rest and satisfied reflection. The collections can be contrasted by the poems dedicated to the two women in Shlonsky’s life. The poem “Ne’um ploni al shkhunato,” which describes Shlonsky’s first wife’s suicide, represents an integration of the tragic and ennui, whereas the poem, “B’ovrekh” (In your past),²⁹ which opens the second part of the collection, Avne’i Gvil: Kokhve’i Shabbat, presents a lyrical-romantic poem dedicated to his second wife. The poem, “B’alil” (Clearly),³⁰ which initially compares the speaker to a stream which has deviated from its course, concludes by returning to its course, its stream, the sea. The fate of the poem’s speaker can be contrasted to that in the poem “Tshuvato shel hashotek” from Tsamrot b’sufah, in which the speaker is sentenced to wander in an endless desert. The poem “B’alil” begins with a description of the stream’s deviation from its course and concludes with the mystical union of the stream with the sea. The mystical union with the sea contradicts the solitary fate of the speaker in the first part (Tsamrot b’sufah) of Avne’i Gvil. In three poems appearing in the middle of Kokhve’i Shabbat, the poet thanks God for a series of situations which express satisfaction with his state and deeds. The poem, “Tefilah al habedut” (Prayer for fiction),³¹ for example, ends with the following lines:

‫זָה ִ ּבטְחֹונָּה ִכּי נֵס ַּכ דִ ּ י ן הּוא‬ ‫ְוי ֵׁש ַמּמָׁש ּב ִָרי ּפָׁשּוט‬ ‫ַּב ַּלהֲדָ ם ֲאׁשֶר ּבָדִ ינּו‬ !‫יֹותֵ ר ִמ ְ ּבכָל ַה ַמּמָׁשּות‬ 29 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 5, 61. 30 Ibid., 69. 31 Ibid., 76.

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It is her certainty that it is a decreed miracle And there is a clear simple reality In things we fabricated that never were More than in all certainty. The speaker thanks God for the poet’s ability to create fictitious worlds, worlds that in spite of “never having been,” in other words, expressing “such things never happened,” are more real than reality. In the poem “Tefilah al sod hasi’aḥ” (Prayer about the secret of the discourse),³² the speaker wants God to teach him the spontaneity of laughter and crying and preserving a “young heart.” In the poem “Adir barukh” (Blessed might),³³ the speaker is thankful for all those small, mundane, productive deeds. The speaker wants God to teach him “to be precise in the small things,” just as God is precise in small things when he brings crops to earth. The last line of the poem, “Bless the toil of those who perform the small commandments!” represents a position in which the small, mundane deeds are those which earn a blessing, and by analogy – perhaps a request for a blessing of the daily literary act, such as writing, translation, editing, etc., that absorbed Shlonsky during the 1950s and thereafter (in contrast to his having been a leader of the modernist revolution in the 1930s and 1940s).

Closeness and distance to the poet’s youthful narcissism The poem “Meshugota’i” (My mistakes),³⁴ in Kokhve’i Shabbat, summarizes Shlonsky’s reconciled attitude toward himself and his past. In this poem, the speaker, the mature poet Shlonsky, takes an amused stock of himself in relation to the young Shlonsky. This poem takes stock of the young poet’s attitude toward the world. The young poet’s attitude toward the world was an empowered narcissistic one, in which the speaker was not only part of the world, but its creator, and the whole world was meant for him like in a play. This relation of the self to the world was expressed in his early poems, such as in the poem “Anokhi” (Me),³⁵ which appears in the collection Gilboa. The poet sees himself there as a world conqueror and his giant body is seen as a rare instrument of nature. In the poem “Meshugota’i,” the poet relates to these sentiments from a critical, but forgiving

32 Ibid., 77. 33 Ibid., 78. 34 Ibid., 95. 35 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 2, 25.

Closeness and distance to the poet’s youthful narcissism 

 175

point of view. The poem begins with the feeling that nature and its phenomena are only intended for the poet:

‫ֲאנִי זֹוכֵר אֶת ּכָל ָהאִילָנֹות‬ ‫ ַע ְצמָם‬-‫ׁש ִ ּל ְבלְבּו ְ ּבחָק‬ ֶ ‫ ַע ְצמָם‬-‫ְבַּא ֲהבַת‬ ‫ ַע ְצמָם‬-‫ׁשֶל‬-‫ה ֶָרגַע‬-‫ְב ִּרׁשְרּוׁשֵי‬ .‫ׁשבִילִי הֵם‬ ְ ‫ ִ ּב‬:‫וְָאנֹכִי דִ ּמִיתִ י‬ I remember all the trees That bloomed by their own law In self-love With the rustlings of the moment of themselves And I imagined: they are here for me. The first stanza describes the illusion of the centrality of the speaker’s self – the trees rustle for him; however, beneath the differentiation between objects and subject, that is, the understanding that the former do not exist for the latter, there hides another perception of an identity between the two, in this circumstance, between speaker and trees. Indeed, the previous poems in the collection, such as “He’adir gave” and even the name of the previous collection, Avne’i Gvil: Tsamrot b’sufah, represent the poet as a tree. On the one hand, the first stanza presents a clear claim, while on the other hand, it subverts it. As stated, the claim is that whereas in the past the poet mistakenly thought that the trees were there for him, today he understands that this is mistaken and baseless: “And I imagined: they are here for me.” Nonetheless, he subverts this claim by the identification he creates between himself and the trees. The second stanza repeats the claim that the world exists and is intended for the poet, but this time, the poet focuses on an urban motif, that is, on the city which is man-made, and not on nature. The buildings, apartment rent, in other words, the entire urban experience is intended to impress the poet and to activate him. The poet describes the way in which he experienced the city in the past and as he described it in collections such as Avne’i Bohu. This experience is based upon the city as performance which is a metonymy for the poet’s soul,³⁶ and for his wish to experience negation in the city. The repetition of the words “they are for me” reinforces his almost childish narcissism with which he characterizes his attitude toward the world in the past. The poem begins in the sphere of nature, the trees and flora, moves on to the artificial, the urban landscape, and continues 36 See Chapter Six about Avne’i Bohu.

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in the third stanza to the intimate sphere, closer to man, that is, the society of people around him and his own emotions.

:‫וְָאנֹכִי דִ ּמִיתִ י‬ ‫ּכָל הַּתֻ ִפּים הִּכּו ְל ַמ ֲענִי‬ – ‫ יְהִי גִיל‬:‫ש ְׁרּתִ י‬ ּ ַ ‫ׁש‬ ֶ ‫ְו ִא ְל ָמלֵא ֲאנִי‬ .‫ֹלא הִתְ רֹונֵן עֲדֶ נָּה ׁשּום נִּגּון‬ – ‫ְו ִעּצְבֹונֹות ֲאנִי זֹוכֵר‬ ‫ׁשֶל ָמ ְעלָה‬-‫הֹו לּו ַח – ַה ְ ּצ ָבעִים ְ ּבי ַד ַצּי ָר‬ ‫ ֵּכפֶל ְוחִּלּוק‬-ַ‫וְלּוח‬ ‫ׁשֶל צֵרּופֵי ְכּתָ בִים וְתַ ְבלִינִים‬ ‫ ַהּבַג‬-‫ְ ּבפַת‬ ‫ ַהּבַד‬-‫ִיריעַת‬ ִ ‫ּוב‬ ,– ‫ּו ְב ַמע ְַרכֵי ַהּלֵב ַהּיַלְדּותִ י‬ – ,‫הֹו ְב ִּרית ְכּרּותָ ה ֵבּין הֵן ְלהִּפּוכֹו‬ .‫ִכּי כָל ּכ ֵָרה סֹוע ֶֶרת אֶל ִקּצָה‬ ...‫ׁשבִילִי הִיא‬ ְ ‫ ִ ּב‬:‫וְָאנֹכִי דִ ּמִיתִ י‬ :‫דִ ּּמִיתִ י‬ ‫ׁש ָּבח ְַרּתִ י ּבֹו מִּדַ עַת‬ ֶ ‫ִירי הּוא‬ ַ ‫ ׁש‬-‫ׁשִיר‬ ‫ִכּי ּכָך ִא ִוּיתִ י‬ ‫ּכָך ּבָדִ יתִ י לְתֻ ּמִי‬ ‫ְולִי‬ ‫ַרק לִי‬ ‫ַרק לִי‬ ‫ׁשּלָעֹולָם‬ ֶ ‫ּתְ ׁשּואֹות ַהחֵן ְו ַהּי ָגֹון‬ – –.‫ׁשֶּבֹו הַּכ ֹל צֹו ֵמ ַח ְל ַעצְמֹו‬ And I imagined: All the drums beat for me And if I it wasn’t me singing: Let there be happiness – No music would have delighted until now. And I remember sorrows – Oh canvas – the colors in the hand of the heavenly painter And multiplication and division tables Of combinations of writings and seasonings In delicacies And in the childish alignments of the heart, – Oh a pact hewn between yes and its opposite, – Because every stormy banquet is at its end. And I imagined: It is for me…

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I imagined: The song of my songs is the one I knowingly chose Because I desired thus Thus I imagined in my innocence And for me. Only me. Only me. The acclaim of grace and sorrow of the world In which everything grows for its own sake. – – The poet’s relationship to his feelings as a third limb in the series of nature and city sets a radical distance between the poet and his feelings, from both joy and sadness. The young poet created joy like God, with the words “Let there be happiness.” Joys are described by a blinking light and music, “All the drums beat for me,” while sadness is described by the painter painting a canvas with colors symbolizing sadness. The speaker also emphasizes restraining his feelings “And the moisture of the salt in eyes/ That didn’t want to cry,” as well as the technique and distance in the representation of sadness “Oh canvas – the colors in the hand of the heavenly painter/ And multiplication and division tables/ Of combinations of stains and seasonings.” The poet’s experienced sadness not only constitutes material for a painting, but also food, that is, material that nourishes his life, “delicacies.” The distance stemming from perception of the world through the technique of painting, writing of poetry, feelings, among them sadness which is nourishment for poetry, indicates that in the past the world was only raw material for the poet’s creation. The world is compared to potential poetic material and again reinforces his perception that the existence of the world is intended only for him, the poet. The world and its thrills in a selfish-poetic mirror constitute his conscious wish. The speaker emphasizes the consciousness of this wish, so there would be no doubt that the speaker had adopted this world view by chance or unconsciously: “The song of my songs is the one I knowingly chose.” This may be interpreted as a contrast to romantic rhetoric in general and even to Shlonsky’s own previous rhetoric, which presents the speaker as someone chosen to be a poet, not by his own choosing. According to the romantic perception, becoming a poet constitutes an unconscious compulsion and sometimes a divine choice. The poem, “Hitgalut,”³⁷ for example, with which Shlonsky has chosen to open all his collections, depicts the poet as Samuel who has been chosen by God, meaning as someone who receives his power not by his own choosing. As has been previously stated, in the poem “Meshugota’i,” the poet argues for conscious choice in his 37 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 1, 9.

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narcissistic world view, a conscious choice which reflects his wish. The last lines of the stanza, “The acclaim of grace and sorrow for a world/ In which everything grows for its own sake. – –” creates a contrast to the lines preceding them: “Only me/ Only me,” and express an irony about the poet, inasmuch as in the real world everything grows for its own sake and nothing has come into being for the poet. The last stanza of the poem moves between identification with and distance from the poet’s previous position in his youth:

‫אֲבֹוי לִי‬ ‫ְו ַאׁש ְַרי‬ – ‫ִכּי כֵן דִ ּּמִיתִ י‬ .‫ְבַּא ֲהבָה ֲאנִי זֹוכֵר מְׁשּוגֹותַ י‬ Woe is me And my joys Because I did imagine – I remember my mistakes with love. This stanza indicates distance from the youthful poet, inasmuch as the viewpoint is of the mature poet looking forgivingly at his young image (indeed, he calls his behavior and attitude, “my mistakes”). However, this stanza indicates an intimacy with the young poet’s world, not only because the poet remembers his mistakes lovingly, but also because of the contradictory use of “Woe is me/ And my joys,” which undermines the distance between the old poet and the young one, inasmuch as the third stanza presents exactly this combination of joy and sorry as a basic trait of the young poet. The contradiction between the words “Woe is me/ And my joys” suggests the similarity between the young and old poet, inasmuch as the previous stanza stated “And in the childish alignments of the heart, –/ Oh a pact hewn between yes and its opposite, –” and here in the last stanza, depicting the poet in his present state, we are witness to a pact between “yes and its opposite” in the image of the words “Woe is me/ And my joys.” Thus, he allows the reader to suspect that the alignments of the heart have remained childish as they were. In addition to that, the line “I remember my mistakes with love” indicates the speaker’s self-love and his present intimacy with the world of the young poet. The poem “Meshugota’i,” therefore, indicates the poet’s reconciled polarity. Whereas the poems which appear in the collection Avne’i Gvil: Tsamrot b’sufah reveal a tragic, exaggerated or disturbed speaker, in the poem “Kokhve’i Shabbat”³⁸ which concludes the collection, the poet seeks to speak to his heart to 38 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 5, 115.

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make peace naturally with his life and death and with the spiritual order of his world. The image “Sabbath stars” symbolizes the transcendence and spirituality which the poet needs to adhere to and internalize in order to overcome sadness and dread. We can summarize by saying that in the collection Avne’i Gvil, the condition of the poet in his seventh decade and old age (in those days) is reflected – what Hagorni-Green calls “the middle man,”³⁹ meaning the link between Bialik and Alterman, and the latter’s poetry has also been undermined. It is a state in which the intensity and confidence of the modernist enterprise has been significantly weakened. All those factors call into question the identity which he created for himself as a modernist subject, a fighter, and revolutionary. The figure of the revolutionary modernist speaker, a “complete,” “unified” figure, focused on the new gospel, fractured into several new poetic identities, a polyphony of speakers and feelings which had to be examined for their compatibility with the poet’s new situation. His poetry is populated by images of the poet as an exalted old man, an ordinary, simple man, and as a small child, and with feelings of despair about his poetic mission, desire for cessation, boredom, and satisfaction, and lovingamused observations of the past. These images and feelings express a mixture of narcissism with feelings of uncertainty and weakness. The modernist persona that Shlonsky chose to display most of his life couldn’t continue to serve him, inasmuch as the real self who during that period had also become part of the establishment and at the same time was marginal to the period’s new literary struggles, couldn’t “back up” this persona. The poet withdrew, therefore, to his personal experiences. The emphasis was no longer upon the zeitgeist’s objective themes and the struggle for the modernist project, but upon the representation of the self, which under the pressure of personal absence (old age and marginality) integrates within it both regression to an exalted and narcissistic self and skeptical acceptance of his situation. The attitude toward absence in his early and middle poetry can be contrasted to absence in his late poetry. In his early poetry, the desire for absence was part of a brave, modernist identity which aspired to the dark depth of things, meaning to death, secularism or the death of God and urban alienation, whereas in his late poetry, beginning with the collection Avne’i Gvil, the depth of things turned out to be the absence or emptiness of a weakening of the prophetic modernist persona adopted by him in his youth.

39 Hagorni-Green uses this name to title the chapter which discusses Shlonsky’s poetry during this period. See Hagorni-Green, Shlonsky, 136.

Chapter Eight Sefer Hasulamot – Between Ideal and Real Ladders at night? “One-sided” love: an exchange of letters with the poet Tsila Shamir In 1970 Mira Levin died. She was Shlonsky’s second wife. Shlonsky at 70 years old felt that perhaps his days were numbered and chose to focus on editing all his work and writing a last book of poetry, Sefer Hasulamot (The book of ladders). Although he participated in public events and traveled to conferences abroad, he kept to relative seclusion and an intensive work schedule.¹ During that period, Shlonsky edited his writings, wrote Sefer Hasulamot and was intensively occupied by the translation of Russian and general literature. We learn from Mikhtavim l’yehudim b’Brit Hamo’atsot (Letters to Jews in the Soviet Union) that the poet sent his translations in Hebrew of canonic and contemporary works of Russian literature as well as original literary works in Hebrew and asked to be sent stories, novels, poems, and even non-fiction prose in Russian for him to read, and especially to translate.² Among the different works were Isaac Babel’s stories, articles by poets about other poets, such as Anna Akhmatova’s article about Pushkin, the literary critic Adrian Makedonov’s article about N. Zabolotsky,³ the memoirs of Anatoly Marienhof about the period of Yesenin and the Imaginists, entitled A Novel without Lies,⁴ and others. Shlonsky customarily oversaw the layout, proofreading, pagination, and printing, in other words, all aspects of literary work. In his letter of December 14, 1970 to Yisrael Mintz, a Jewish translator and author who at that time was in the Soviet Union, Shlonsky wrote: “Weather which is not pleasant also doesn’t help in making an effort to devote myself to my work, which has been disrupted and still hasn’t returned to order. Aside from proofreading which there is a lot of because there had been a long break (on my part). That’s all for the better, because it’s a distraction from thoughts and moods” (the bold 1 The letters sent by Shlonsky to Jews in the former Soviet Union reveal the wide scope of projects Shlonsky took upon himself during this period, and reveals the poet as intensively occupied with translation at the end of his life. See Shlonsky, Mikhtavim. 2 Shlonsky’s interest in translation was so great that he even requested translations into German of Babel’s story collection Ein Abend bei ‘der Kaiserin’ [An evening with the Empress] published in German by Folk und Welt in Berlin, 1969. See Shlonsky, Mikhtavim, 208. 3 Ibid., 251. 4 Ibid., 206. The book was published in Hebrew in 1970, see Anatoly Marienhof, Roman bli kezavim [A novel without lies]. (Merḥavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1970).

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is in the original).⁵ This intensive work routine preserved and protected the poet from experiencing the deaths of people close to him, such as his wife,⁶ and Leah Goldberg, his brother-in-law Yisrael Vegman,⁷ and Natan Alterman, as well as his own health problems. Aside from his almost obsessive focus on work, the poet fell in love romantically with the poet Tsila Shamir. This love was expressed by intensive work on her first book of poems, Hashemesh hayetah im hem ratsu (There was sun if they wanted it),⁸ and an exchange of letters which continued from the end of 1971 until the beginning of 1973. This exchange of letters is not only a rich resource which describes the poet’s mood during this period, but it is also one of the principal resources about Shlonsky’s life during this period. From the great wealth found in these letters, I will only refer to items related to Shlonsky’s coping with his isolation and aging, and I will use them for the interpretation of his last book of poems, Sefer Hasulamot. Coping with aging and the end of life takes on two aspects in these letters: the “one-sided” love of the poet for Tsila Shamir (as the poet expressed it) alongside his mentoring of her, and the explicit ars poetica expressed in these letters. These two aspects, love and ars poetica, express a spiritual link to “supreme simplicity,” a mystical position which served the poet in coping with his life’s end. In his letters to Tsila Shamir, Shlonsky expresses willingness to make any effort in connection with her poetry book, from precise editing to having it published. He sends her books to enrich her language and he is prepared to read everything she’s written (including university papers). He is aware that she holds him in esteem, but does not love him and he is sensitive to her need to distance him and tries to placate this need of hers. Nonetheless, he continues in what could

5 Ibid., 219–220. 6 In a letter from September 10, 1970, Shlonsky reported his wife’s death to Yisrael Mintz: ‘To my dear friend Yisrael: More than two weeks have passed–and I haven’t written to you due to mourning. My wife died the morning of 28 Av, Sabbath morning, 29.8. Suddenly, without a sign or forewarning. Our sages called this merciful death. She fell asleep at night and didn’t wake up. Now I must begin an unknown path of tribulations – to become accustomed to a life of loneliness. Please excuse me for the brevity of the letter. Regards to your dear wife and family members. In friendship, A. Shlonsky.’ Ibid., 217. 7 A letter from January 17, 1970 written to Yisrael Mintz is one of the only letters in which Shlonsky reports the death of others, those of the poet Leah Goldberg and his brother-in-law Yisrael Vegman. See Shlonsky, Mikhtavim, 201. 8 Tsila Shamir, Hashemesh hayetah im hem ratsu [There was sun if they wanted it]. (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1972).

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be interpreted as “embarrassing behavior,”⁹ only to correspond with her. Tsila Shamir, in her attempts to alternately distance him and bring him closer, perhaps even making herself appear to him in a less idealized light, mainly reports to him about the difficulties in her relationship with her husband, the fatigue of caring for her family, her university studies, her poetry writing, her unwanted pregnancies, her yearning for Israel, her boring suburban life, and her attraction to an ideal of love remote from Shlonsky’s image. All of this was to no avail. She continues to be “Xu-a-lu,”¹⁰ the stone flower, the poet’s magic deer or bluebird. In a letter dated February 11, 1972, Shlonsky responds to one of her attempts to make herself a real, “unattractive” figure: It’s hard, you write, hard to be Xu-a-lu because of the circumstances there (an artificial garden, canned mushroom soup, etc., etc.), but as my Xu-a-lu you also exist in those circumstances, and as many times as you read this wonderful book, it will become clear to you (you’ll feel) the true flavor, of why I sent you precisely this book (in addition to being a book which is highly poetic). In any case it’s not Mr. Shlonsky who sent it to you –¹¹

Perhaps Shlonsky’s literary and idealistic attitude toward her reaches its peak in his self-control regarding the letters in which she tries to reject him in a callous manner. She seeks to distance him by revealing her true self. In a letter dated August 6, 1972, Tsila Shamir suggests that there are “differences of taste” between them. She places her love for the author Louis Ferdinand Celine in clear contrast to the delicate “scientific poem,” “Masa Hatsiporim” (The birds’ journey) sent by Shlonsky. She writes: “By the way, have you read anything by the French author Celine? I remembered again because of your use of the term ‘the delicate report,’ and how his writing is the opposite of ‘a delicate report,’ and how much power there is to his writing…simple, almost vulgar.”¹² In the same letter, several lines later, the poet clearly states her masochistic sexual attraction to the coarse and powerful. In other words, she presents herself as having a significantly different character from the fantasy of a delicate, romantic love (the stone flower and the deer), and at the same time, she rejects Shlonsky and even “castrates” his desire by referring to her “barbaric” desire, that is, referring to the thing furthest away from Shlonsky’s existence as an old, refined, and loving poet: 9 Shlonsky, Mikhtavim l’meshoreret tse’irah: mikhtave’i Avraham Shlonsky l’Tsila Shamir, 1971– 1973 [Letters to a young poet: Avraham Shlonsky’s letters to Tsila Shamir, 1971–1973]. (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aḥaronot, 1997), 29. 10 The name ‘Xu-a-lu’ has its source in a Chinese-Manchurian word which means ‘stone flower.’ ‘Xu-a-lu’ is the heroine of the book Jen Sheng: The Root of Life by the Russian author, Mikhail Prishvin which Shlonsky translated in 1942. 11 Ibid., 27. 12 Ibid., 78.

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My dear, you say that I am avoidant. Or that I hadn’t inferred anything. I inferred, but I don’t know what to respond about that. I love you very much, but not with a sensual love, and both of those (spiritual and sensual) are split for me as everything else is, meaning I am tempted sensually to the most brutal and barbaric sort, and the more barbaric, the less I can withstand it. But I love you, love you very much in a particular way, that is, as I’ve explained.¹³

Ḥagit Halperin uses the name of Tsila Shamir’s book of poetry to indicate the tension and differences between them and Shlonsky’s delicate attempt to influence changing the name of the collection while being considerate of the poet’s preferences.¹⁴ However, in addition to that, Shlonsky allows himself to express his dissatisfaction and their differences of taste in the most explicit manner. There is no real argument about the title of the book, Hashemesh hayetah im hem ratsu, but rather, the argument is about the line “And God urinates.”¹⁵ Shlonsky requests to have this line softened, “to censor” it, according to Tsila Shamir, and to make it more suggestive by using his suggestions of alternate expressions: “lets down his rain” or “made water.” Shlonsky himself stresses that there is a significant difference between them (“that is a sensitive point, a question of taste”).¹⁶ This “argument”, similar to the letter in which Tsila Shamir writes about her masochistic attraction, demonstrates her wish to “shock” the old poet and try to distance him.¹⁷ Nevertheless, despite her words about their differences, her desire for “coarseness,” and her repressed attraction for release from her ordinary heterosexual familial relations,¹⁸ Shlonsky continues to project a lofty, romantic image on her, which will be described in “Shire’i Xu-a-lu” (The Xu-a-lu poems) and in Sefer Hasulamot. Shlonsky is aware of Tsila Shamir’s nature and of their relationship to a great extent, but his love doesn’t allow him to accept things as they are, but constitutes a “literary” projection on to what is real. He advises her in several letters to annul the differences between poetry and the letter: “And don’t be afraid 13 Ibid., 78. 14 For interpretation of the correspondence which serves Shlonsky’s sensitive attempts to change the title of the book and Tsila Shamir’s opposition, see the afterword by Hagit Halperin in Shlonsky, Mikhtavim l’meshoreret tse’irah, 98–99. 15 Ibid., 52–53. 16 Ibid., 53. 17 In a letter from January 16, 1973, Shlonsky writes: “Your desire to send me several new poems which will perhaps ‘shock’ me and even ‘in every sense.’ And I ‘am exploding’ with curiosity. I hope not in the sense of artistic quality. Send me everything and don’t be afraid of ‘shocking.’ I have – as you know – strength to withstand it.” Ibid., 72. 18 Tsila Shamir, who was living in the United States (the realm of ‘family values’) chooses, for example, to tell Shlonsky about the relationships which breach the heterosexual family, ‘People here try different forms of communal families, lesbian unions, etc.’ Ibid., 83.

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if it seems to you sometimes that the boundaries between the poem and the letter intermingle. Each one nurtures the other.”¹⁹ “If you write new poems – send them to me. So that I can read them as a supreme letter from you.”²⁰ For Shlonsky, the collapse of the difference between the letter and the poem signifies literature as devouring life and is particularly expressed in his attitude toward Tsila Shamir both in his letters and love poems. The second element in the letters which is relevant to his book of poetry is ars poetica which aspires to mystical simplicity. In his letter to Tsila Shamir of January 13, 1972, Shlonsky writes: I see that for some reason Zelda is occupying a place in your thoughts about poetry. That is a “poetry” living not by the strength of its melody and depth, but by the strength of its honesty, its sincerity, and all those good qualities which are very important to interpersonal relationships within lazy civic-human existence, but have no guarantee and root in poetry. Simplicity as a supreme value in the lyrical world is not at all similar to the simplicity of the pre-poetic essence. I would divide this into three levels (or floors?): a) the lower simplicity, the one that didn’t attain the complex, the complicated, the uncertain within us – the mist in which God dwells, but in which Satan also goes wild; b) the complicated – whose expression is still within and without, a sort of complicated expression by the complicated, and Satan himself and God himself; 3) the supreme simplicity – which was elevated and took off from the complicated to the uppermost light, peeled from the mist in order to make it live by the force of music and sad wisdom, when God and Satan ‘understand each other.’²¹

Supreme simplicity To a certain extent, Shlonsky here repeats his arguments against simplicity expressed in his articles and poems from the 1930s; however, his aspiration is not ultimately toward complexity, to the “not-simple,” but to supreme simplicity. Supreme simplicity rises above the second “complicated” stage, because in this stage, the analytical, intellectual understanding separates between the spheres, between the ideal (God) and the negative (Satan). Supreme simplicity overcomes the dialectical contradictions between God and Satan and on this level, God and Satan understand each other. A mutual, cosmic understanding exists, “the sad wisdom,” which joins negative and positive, the sublime ideal and that which seeks to undermine it. The poems in Sefer Hasulamot: Sulamot (The book of ladders: ladders at night) are ladders to that supreme simplicity. At times, a series of poems express the 19 Ibid., 16. 20 Ibid., 12. 21 Ibid., 16.

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sublime, “God as separate,” according to the second stage described by the poet, and in poems that follow, its subversion – “Satan,” so that the union and conflict between them appear within the poetic sequence. At times, a particular poem tries to describe the above union of the ideal and the subversive, that is, it describes this “supreme simplicity.” The title of the first part of the collection, “Sulamot b’leilah” (Ladders at night), also presents the union of the ladder climbing beyond spiritual simplicity with the night symbolizing pessimism and death.

Mysticism and false consciousness in “Kol eḥad mi shelo” (Each one from his one) and “B’regel adishah” (With an indifferent foor) “Sulamot b’leilah” opens with a poem cycle entitled “Mevu’ot” (Gateways). The first poem, “Kol eḥad mi shelo” (Each one from his own),²² expresses through the poem’s central figure, the Christian mystic Saint Francis, its aspiration to spiritual simplicity. Francis believed in a freely chosen poor and simple life and preached sermons to animals and stones with a humility and belief that all creation is a song in praise of God. Francis believed that animals, in their essence and telos, are capable of praising God’s honor. The fish praise God by swimming in the sea and the birds by flying in the sky. Francis is an exemplary figure of supreme simplicity because of his great humility which permitted him to conduct a dialogue with those objects in the world (animals and stones) considered to be lower than man. This figure serves the poet in order to represent a mystical speaker who speaks to the entire world and the world “understands” this world according to his own way. Through Saint Francis, Shlonsky prepares the ground for a poetry conducting a cosmic exchange of words, a poetry lacking a clear addressee, a poetry which is a spiritual expression of the poet’s soul and a petition to the entire cosmos – to “trees and stones.”

‫ ּכָל ֶאחָד ִמׁשֶּלֹו‬.‫א‬ ‫דֹורׁש‬ ֵ ‫ַא ִסּיזִי ָהי ָה‬-‫פ ְַרנְצִיסְקּוס אִיׁש‬ ‫ ִל ְפנֵי‬,‫דְ ָּרׁשֹותָ יו ִל ְפנֵי חַּיֹות וְעֹופֹות‬ .‫ֵעצִים ַו ֲא ָבנִים‬ (‫)משבחי פרנציסקוס‬ ‫ׁשּבַחֹוף‬ ֶ ‫הַּדָ גָה‬ ‫ׁשּבָאֹפֶק‬ ֶ ‫ִל ְוי ָתָ ן‬ .‫אֶל מּול ַהּקָדֹוׁש הַּנֹוׂשֵא ְמׁשָלֹו‬ – ‫ֻ ּכּלָם ְ ּכ ֶאחָד אֶל הָאֹמֶר יִקְׁשֹובּו‬ 22 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 6, 9.

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.‫ּכָל ֶאחָד מִן הָעֹמֶק ׁשֶּלֹו‬ ‫ ְוחֵן‬-‫ט ֶֶרף‬-‫חַּיֹות‬ ‫ַה ָּלבִיא ְוהָעֹפֶר‬ .‫אֶל מּול ַהּקָדֹוׁש ְו ִאמ ְֵרי ְמׁשָלֹו‬ ‫ֻ ּכּלָם ְ ּכ ֶאחָד אֶל הָאֹמֶר יִקְׁשֹובּו‬ .‫ּכָל ֶאחָד מִן ַהּיֵצֶר ׁשֶּלו‬ 1. Each one from his own Francis of Assisi used to preach His sermons to animals and birds, to Trees and stones. (Praise Francis) The fish on the shore The whale on the horizon Face the saint speaking from his words. All as one will listen to the speaker – Each one from his own depth. Animals-of-prey-and-grace The lion and the fawn Face the saint and his allegorical words. All as one will listen to the speaker Each one from his own nature. The first two stanzas describe the animals listening to the speaker, each one from its existential context and place in the cosmos. The animals’ differences are expressed by human qualities. Whereas the whale on the horizon and the fish on the shore are differentiated by depth and metaphorically by depth of understanding, the animals-of prey-and-grace are differentiated by their instincts. The former incline to aggression and death, whereas the latter incline to love and pleasing. The poet metaphorically seeks to position himself as a figure facing the entire world and unifying within it both death and love. The religious figure chosen by Shlonsky is mystical and not prophetic. In contrast to the choice of the prophet Samuel in the poem “Hitgalut,”²³ the poem which opens all his works, in which the prophet merits divine revelation and vision, the poem which opens his last book of poetry, Sefer Hasulamot, relates to a refined and mystical figure who shows love for everything in the world. While Shlonsky in his earlier poetry implements a “modernist” transformation of the hierarchical relationship of God-prophet-people to the hier23 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 1, 9–10.

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archical relationship of zeitgeist-poet-audience, in this collection’s poetry, there is more of a relationship of the poet “merging” with his audience and the hierarchical relationship is nullified. At the end of the poem, the poet does not stand as a prophet facing the people, but is situated among them:

‫וְהּוא הָעֹומֵד ְבּתֹוכָם‬ ‫ּו ִמּנֶגֶד‬ ‫נֹותֵ ן ִ ּב ְמׁשָלֹו‬ .‫ִמּשֶּׁלֹו‬ And he who stands among them And opposite them By his fable gives From his own. The poem “Kol eḥad mi shelo” describes Francis’s mystical experience, the experience of union and dialogue with the universe. In contrast to the mystical union with the universe in that poem, the poem “B’regel adishah” (With an indifferent foot),²⁴ describes the speaker’s skepticism regarding this union with the eternal and infinite. The difference in the poems’ spiritual message lies in the difference between identification with the canonic, spiritual figure and a report of the spiritually more problematic situation of the contemporary speaker, between the exemplary figure of the mystic and the poet saturated in socialistic and psychoanalytic criticism of religion, but who, in spite of this, argues for transcendent connection with the assistance of “a tune.” This mystical joining with the eternal and infinite, accompanied by subversive-suspicious skepticism that this spirituality is a kind of false consciousness or man’s self-delusion. The desire to undermine this delusion and come into contact with existence’s arbitrariness and meaninglessness, expresses the desire for absence in its present incarnation. Illusion in this poem is not only the connection with the infinite, but also the “chosen-ness” of the self by a greater force which protects it. The poem opens with a world view undermining the pretension of this illusion:

‫ַה ּזְמַן ּבֹועֵט ְבָּך ְב ֶּרגֶל אֲדִ יׁשָה‬ ‫ִ ּכבְעֹוט ַטּי ָל‬ .‫ׁשעַל הַחֹוף‬ ֶ ‫ּבְקֹונְ ִכּי ָה ְפּלֹונִית‬ ‫ַאּגַב מָעּוף מֵחֹול אֶל חֹול‬ 24 Ibid., Volume 6, 13.

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‫ׁשלָה ַע ְצמָּה ִלבְטֹו ַח‬ ְ ‫ַהאִם ּגַם זֹו ַמ‬ ‫ׁשּלָה‬ ֶ ‫ִכּי ַה ֻּמּצָב עַל מ ְִר ָּבצָּה‬ ‫ּכָך קָרֹוב ֵאלֶי ָה‬-‫ּכָל‬ ‫ר ֹאׁש‬-‫ה ְַרחֵק ְ ּב ֶהנֶף‬ ‫ְ ּב ַמּשֶׁהּו גָבֹו ַּה ֵמהַּכ ֹל‬ ?‫ָּבחַר ּבָה ֵמה ְַר ֵבּה‬ Time kicks you with an indifferent foot Like a stroller kicks A nameless shell on the beach. While flying from dune to dune Did it too delude itself into trusting That what is positioned above it So close to it A head’s movement away That something higher than everything Had chosen it from among many? The image of the individual compared to a kicked shell is an allusion and development of Spinoza’s famous allegory in which the philosopher attempted to demonstrate the false sense of man’s freedom. In the allegory, man is compared to a stone kicked in a certain direction. The stone, due to its lack of awareness of the real reason for its motion, “thinks” that it itself has chosen its direction by its internal freedom. In a similar manner, man thinks that he is free to choose his way in the world, because of a lack of awareness of the causal chain directing his path. Shlonsky gives expression to this allegory and replaces the stone by a shell. The shell, in which we can hear the whisper of the sea, these sounds symbolizing the attraction to the open and infinite, is moved arbitrarily by forces greater than it. The second stanza describes the shell’s illusion “That something higher than everything/ Had chosen it from among many.” Its choice is of course an allusion to the chosen-ness of the people of Israel, and particularly of its prophets, and the reference to illusion (“delude itself into trusting”) refers to the criticism of religion, particularly Freud’s criticism. According to the use of the word “delude” in the poem, and particularly the linking of religious illusion and dream, it seems that Shlonsky is clearly referring to psychoanalysis, and specifically to Freud’s article, “The Future of an Illusion,”²⁵ that could have used other terms regard25 For religion as illusion, see Sigmund Freud, “The Future of an Illusion,” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. by James Strachey, Vol. XXI.

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ing faith, not necessarily “illusion,” terms such as “self-alienation” according to the criticisms of religion by Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Marx, “the morality of slaves” and “atrophy” according to Nietzsche, etc. The shell “delude[s] itself into trusting,” that is, it deludes itself that “something higher than everything,” meaning that God has chosen it as unique among many others and therefore, also protects it. The next stanza also expresses illusion, a compensating illusion through a dream:

‫ַהאִם ּגַם הִיא ּבֹודָ ה לָּה ַה ִפּּצּוי‬ ‫חֲלֹומֹות‬-‫עַל ֻסּלָמֹו ׁשֶל ַּבעַל‬ ‫ְואֶת ַה ְבּדּות הַּז ֹאת הִיא הֹו ִמּי ָה‬ ?‫ִמ ֶפּה לְאֹזֶן‬ .‫ ִא ְוׁשָה‬-‫הַחֹול ּו ֶפסַע אֵין‬-‫שֹפַת‬ ְ ‫ַטּי ָל עַל‬ .‫ַה ּזְמַן ּבֹועֵט ְבּך ְב ֶּרגֶל אֲדִ יׁשָה‬ Does it also invent for itself compensation On the dreamer’s ladder And sighs this fabrication By word of mouth? Strolling on the edge of the sand and stepping without a murmur Time kicks you with an indifferent foot. The shell, while being arbitrarily kicked by time, “invents for itself the compensation,” compensation for its arbitrary existence using a dream. The expression “the dreamer’s ladder” refers to Jacob’s dream (Genesis 28:12–15), in which the ladder rises to the heavens with angels upon it ascending and descending. God, an omnipotent figure, promises great fertility and power in the dream, and until the promise is fulfilled, God will be with Jacob and protect him. The ladder symbolizes the connection between earthly and godly. The expression “the dreamer’s ladder” also refers to Joseph, “the dreamer,” who in the dream of the sheaves saw all the sheaves, implying all the members of his family, lying down before him. Joseph’s dream depicts a wish to possess power and authority, a wish which deviates from the “natural” order of things, in which son honors father and is subordinate to his authority. The fabricated dream, in which influence, might, and contact with God are promised, is an apparent compensation for the violent arbitrariness which in reality moves the speaker about. (London: Hogarth Press, 1975).

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The shell “sighs” “this fabrication,” “by word of mouth.” The sound made by the shell, from its “mouth,” normally a sound reminiscent of the infinite sighing of the sea, in the poem describes the dream of fertility, prestige, and power. The sound of the shell, therefore, “compresses” the link with the infinite sea with the heavenly promise of endless fertility and might. Within the poem’s framework, the shell is at the same time consciousness joined with the infinite as well as being coincidental. Its life’s progression, the direction in which it is moved, it is a product of coincidence and arbitrariness. The shell is an image of the poet’s existential situation. On the one hand, his poetic enterprise connects him to eternity, the infinite, and mystical, while on the other hand, he is an old man kicked by the hand of time.

Undermining the image of the modernist prophet in “Kaneh-suf” (Reed) The poem “Kaneh-suf” (Reed),²⁶ which follows the poem “B’regel adishah,” also deals with fantasy and the creator’s fabrication responsible for his romantic view of life and his poetry itself. This poem, similarly to “B’regel adisha,” depicts a will to undermine the empowered self. In this poem, it is the poet’s young, modernist self. The poem seeks to negate and mourn that empowered self and to come into contact with the aging poet. The poem’s first stanza mourns the speaker’s “reed.” The “reed” symbolizes the confident expression of the tempestuous and revolutionary stage in the poet’s works. “Reed” is an allusion to self and a variation of the “straw” which appears in one of Shlonsky’s earlier poems, “Honolulu”:

.‫ׁשּגָע! נָבָל! – ָרג ֹם ּתִ ְרּגְמּונִי‬ ֻ ‫הֶדְ יֹוט! ְמ‬ ‫ּשׁקָה עִם רּו ַח‬ ְ ַ‫ ְקפָץ ! ָואֶתְ נ‬:‫וְָאנֹכִי‬ .‫ ַהּקַׁש ְ ּבפִי‬-‫ּו ְקנֵה‬ .‫ ּפִי‬-‫ּב ִֹרית ּכָאן ָאפִי ַח ְ ּב ֶהבֶל‬-‫ּבּועֹות‬ !‫אֲדָ מָה‬-‫ְ ּפחָה – ּכַּדּור‬ !‫ׁשמֶׁש‬ ֶ – ‫ְ ּפחָה‬ Layman! Madman! Scoundrel! – Stone me with stones. And I: Jump! And I will kiss it with the wind And a piece of straw in my mouth. I’ll blow soap bubbles by mere words. Blow – earth! 26 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 6, 14.

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Blow – sun!²⁷ The motif of straw, which constitutes a source of poetry and the construction of new worlds, indicates outward defiance as opposed to the internal, the “heart” of romanticism. With its help, the poet blows words creating worlds (“earth,” “sun”). In the poem’s first stanza, the poet mourns that “reed,” symbolizing modernist and rebellious confidence which believes in its power to create worlds:

‫ׁש ִלּי‬ ֶ ‫סּוף‬-‫ְקנֵה‬ ‫סֹוף‬-‫ְקנֵה‬ ‫ש ַּל ְבּדָ יֹות‬ ׁ ֶ ‫הָּה סֹוף ָרצּוץ‬ .‫ר ָפאִים ׁשֶל מַה ׁשֶֹּלא זָכָה ִלהְיֹות‬-‫ֵל‬ ְ ‫צ‬ My reed Reed of an end Oh a shattered end to fabrication A ghostly shadow of what it wasn’t fortunate to be. The change of “a piece of straw” into two different variations in the poem “Kaneh suf” to “reed of an end” (conclusion) and “reed” is not coincidental. In “a piece of straw” of his youth, there is something which stands out, and is defiant and arrogant, whereas “reed” in its biblical allusion refers to Moses’s concealment and signifies something protective, arousing the infant’s dependence, and also metaphorically, the old man’s dependence and fragility. The variation which turns “reed” into “reed of an end” reinforces the image as signifying old age. The line “Oh a shattered end that to fabrication/ A ghostly shadow of what it wasn’t fortunate to be” shows the speaker as lamenting the illusion of creating new worlds, an illusion which was not fulfilled. The second stanza also indicates separation from the young modernist persona and taking stock of life’s end:

‫ ְולַאו ׁשֶל ע ֶֶרב‬-‫אֹור ְוהֵן‬-‫וַּדַ אי ׂשֶל ּבֹקֶר‬ .‫ְו ֶצנַח ַה ָּמסָך‬ .‫ּו ְמחִי‬ .‫ְוה ֶֶרף‬ .‫ׁשבַת ה ִָריב ֵבּין ַהּפִדְ יֹון ְוהָָאבְדָ ן‬ ָ ‫ש ּנִבְּדָ ה‬ ׁ ֶ ‫ַאל ּתֵ ָרצַע אֶל מְּזוזַת ַה ַּבי ִת‬ ‫ַאל ּתֹולִיכֵך ׁשֹולָל ּתַ חְּפֹׂשֶת ָהעִּתִ ים‬ .‫ּורתֵ ת ַאל ּתְ דַ ֵבּר אֶל ֶהעָתִ יד‬ ְ 27 Ibid., Volume 1, 80.

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 Sefer Hasulamot – Between Ideal and Real

Certainty of morning-light and yes-and-no of evening And the curtain dropped And clap. And stop. The quarrel between redemption and devastation ceased. Don’t pierce [yourself] to an imagined home’s mezuzah Don’t let the costume of the times mislead you And trembling don’t talk to the future. The second stanza employs several metaphors to represent life’s end. The certainty of the morning, which represents the poet in his youth, contrasts the lack of certainty, the “yes-and-no” of the evening. The falling of the curtain at the end of life’s play is the conclusion of “the quarrel between redemption and devastation,” that is, the conclusion of the quarrel between life as “redeemed,” whole and possessing meaning, and the perception of life as having no value. The last three lines of the stanza describe the speaker’s wish to be set free from the modernist-charismatic person which he had established for himself in his youth. The speaker turns to himself and argues: “Don’t pierce [yourself] to an imagined home’s mezuzah,” that is, don’t be an eternal slave to the imaginary world you built, maintain freedom for yourself to be freed from the “fantasy” which describes the poet’s identity as a “prophetic” modernist.²⁸ The next line strengthens the interpretation of an identity bound in time (such as the modernist poet), inasmuch as the speaker seeks not to be misled as a result of the time’s fashions. The last line of the stanza, “And trembling don’t talk to the future,” may be interpreted as a shaking off of the modernist prophetic persona and of idealization of the figure of the aging poet on the threshold of death facing his future audience.²⁹ The speaker apparently seeks to discard both these personas who structure their identities on the basis of “prophecy.” In the third stanza, the speaker seeks to restrict himself to the present, to be neither in the past nor the future:

‫ׁש ִפּתְ אֹמָיו ֵהזִימּו ִמ ְבטָחֹו‬ ֶ ‫ּו ְכאִיׁש‬ ‫ֵמ ָעמְדְ ך ַהּבֵט קָדִ ימָה וְָאחֹור‬ .‫וְַאל ּת ֹאמַר הֶָאח וְַאל ּת ֹאמַר אֲבֹוי‬ – ‫ּכָל ַה ְפּתָ חִים הֵם ֹלא מֹוצָא וְֹלא מָבֹוי‬ ...‫הֲלֹום‬-‫הֵם עַד‬ ...‫ׁשּמָא‬ ֶ ‫ ְו‬-‫חֲלֹום‬-‫הֵם עַד‬ 28 For the separation from the modernist person, see Chapter 7, about Avne’i Gvil. 29 Although the poet in his paradoxical manner turns to his future audience in the poem “Ha’etz hu kol gilav” [The tree is all its ages], which also appears in the collection Sulamot b’leilah, 70.

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.‫ׁשמֶת‬ ֶ ‫ְואֵין חֹונֵן לָח ֹן נַ ְפׁשִי ַהּנֶ ֱא‬ ‫ּכֵן ֶא ְלמַד הֲזֹות עַל נַחַל ְ ּב ָצ ְמאִי‬-‫עַל‬ ‫ּו ְבאֵין חֹונֵן – סָלֹו ַח ְל ַע ְצמִי‬ ‫ׁש ַּל ִכּּסּוף‬ ֶ ‫ּשׁגָגֹות ָה ַע ִלּיזֹות‬ ְ ‫אֶת ַה‬ .‫שׁר וִּתְ רּו עַל ַה ִכּּסּוי‬ ֶ ‫אֶת הַּתּוגֹות ֲא‬ And as one whose suddenness refuted his safe haven From your position look forward and back And don’t say hooray and don’t say alas. All the openings are neither a point of departure nor an alleyway – They are until now… They are until a dream-and perhaps… And there is no one to pardon my accused soul. Therefore I’ll learn to hallucinate a stream in my thirst And with no pardoner – I forgive myself The gay errors of yearning For sorrows which had relinquished cover. The last three lines of the third stanza reveal the speaker as someone who cannot escape his illusions. Although he pleads with himself, “don’t say hooray and don’t say alas,” and argues that “All the openings are neither a point of departure nor an alleyway,” the last lines of the third stanza suggest the speaker’s inability to relinquish dream and hallucination. In the fourth stanza, the speaker accepts the inability to relinquish hallucination and yearning, and even celebrates it. The aged speaker cannot free himself from his visions no matter how much he pleads with himself to focus on the here and now.

Idealization and realism A struggle between hallucination and reality also arises in the figure of King Lear, a symbol of the self-delusion which comes with old age. The poem cycle “Meshire’i hadusi’aḥ” (From the dialogue poems) makes use of Shakespearean figures, particularly King Lear, to represent the speaker and his situation. Shlonsky had already made use of King Lear in his cycle “Shire’i hashot v’hashoteh” (Poems of the whip and the fool),³⁰ in the collection Avne’i Gvil: Tsamrot b’sufah; however, there the use was “objective,” that is, it sought to use the play to paint a poetical picture “for its own sake,” without having a close connection to the representation of the 30 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 5, 44–48.

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 Sefer Hasulamot – Between Ideal and Real

poetic speaker. In spite of this, in Sefer Hasulamot, in the poem cycle “Meshire’i hadusi’aḥ,”³¹ and in the poems “B’kamul hakikayon” (On the withering of the castor oil plant),³² and “Re’i beḥashekhah” (A mirror in darkness),³³ the speaker returns to King Lear as well as to Hamlet to indicate an affinity between himself and the figure of the king. The second poem, “Hemshekh l’dusi’aḥ she eyn lo sof” (Continuation to a dialogue which has no end),³⁴ from the cycle “Meshire’i hadusi’aḥ,” discusses the tension between the fiction and reality, between idealization of reality, particularly the speaker’s, and realism which subverts this idealization. The poem is constructed from a dialogue between two speakers. The first speaker sides with poetry, dreams, and fiction, whereas the second is a skeptic and realist. The metaphorical meaning of this dialogue is the speaker’s internal account rendering, in which the poet seeks to negate the empowered speaker, the heightened poetic self. The first stanza opens with a speaker who supports fiction, maintaining that the existence of the fictitious is eternal:

‫– מֵיטַב ַהּשִׁיר ְוהַדְ ּמָמֹות‬ ‫ּכֵן‬-‫הּוא ַלהֲדָ ם – ֲאׁשֶר עַל‬ .‫ּגַם ֹלא י ִּכֹון ּגַם ֹלא י ִּמֹוט‬ – The best of the poem and the silences Is that they never were – therefore Neither will they be established nor collapse. Shlonsky employs the expression “the best of the poem is its lie” and creates a variation of it. The best of the poem is “lahadom,” that is, “such things never were.” The poem and its silence “is that they never were,” and therefore they are guaranteed an eternal existence, an existence which “Neither will they be established nor collapse.”³⁵ The second stanza draws a parallel between the poem and the dream:

31 Ibid., Volume 6, 28–37. 32 Ibid., ibid., 61. 33 Ibid., ibid., 63. 34 Ibid., ibid., 31–32. 35 Shlonsky makes a similar argument in the manifesto “Tselem” (Image), in which in a manner which is not incidental, he also makes use of an example from King Lear in order to illustrate the claim that the picture, in other words, the fiction, is eternal whereas the moral is transient: The ‘moral’ of King Lear has long ceased to exist for us, However the old king’s face during the storm will always accompany us. And this is the power of drama which is a tool using the image: body and the image of the body. See Harshav, Manifestim, 205.

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?‫– ַוחֲלֹומֹות‬ :‫– אּולַי ק ְִריֹו ׁשֶל אֵיזֶה ּכֵן‬ !‫זַּנֵק! זַּנֵק‬ ‫ ָּכנָף‬-‫אּולַי מ ְִריֹו ׁשֶל אֵין‬ !‫ה ְַרחֵק! ה ְַרחֵק‬ ...‫אִם ִכּי‬ – And dreams? – Perhaps a wall of some yes: Leap forth! Leap forth! Perhaps the rebellion of something wingless Away! Away! Although… The skeptical speaker raises the question regarding the dream (“And dreams?), and the idealistic speaker relates to the dream as a rebellion of those who can’t fulfill their noble, romantic desires, “the rebellion of something wingless.” Despite the first stanzas, which validate the importance of fiction and its existence, the stanzas which follow serve to raise doubt regarding fiction’s positive influence upon the individual and present fiction as a harmful and misleading illusion:

?‫ ִכּי‬-‫– ּגַם ּפ ֹה אֵפֹוא ֲע ַק ְל ַקּלָיו ׁשֶל ָהאִם‬ ‫– הֹו הּוא ּתָ מִיד‬ ‫הּוא ּכָך ּתָ מִיד ֵמגִי ַח ֵמ ֶחבְיֹון ֻע ְמקִי‬ .‫ ּפָסּוק עַל מֶל ֶך שֶּכֹוזֵב‬-‫ּבְסֹוף‬ – Therefore here too are ‘as though’s’ twists? – Oh, always It always bursts out from a deep hiding place As the final word about a lying king. The skeptical speaker raises doubts about the idealistic speaker. The dream, the poem, and the fiction which are presented in the first and second stanzas as eternal and representing man’s noble desire, represent in this stanza a harmful, narcissistic, romantic illusion. Doubt which “bursts out from a

196 

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deep hiding place/ As the final word about a lying king,” refers to King Lear who deluded himself into thinking that his daughters were loyal to him and therefore, he bequeathed them his entire kingdom. The fiction turns from noble aspiration to self-delusion, dangerous to the man and the kingdom. The skeptical speaker latches on to the idealistic speaker’s admission:

?‫– ּו ְבכֵן אַּתָ ה מֹודֶ ה‬ ...‫– מֹודֶ ה וְֹלא עֹוזֵב‬ :‫– לֵאמֹור‬ ...ֶ‫ עַד ׁש‬...ֶ‫ ֲחלִילָה עַד ׁש‬-‫הֹוזֶה‬ – .‫ׁש ַחסְּדֹו יִגְמֹול ָעלַי הַּסֹוף‬ ֶ ‫עַד‬ ?ֶ‫– וְֹלא ְלהֵפך‬ ?‫סֹוף‬-‫ֹלא ֶרׁשַע ֶהגְיֹונֹו ׁשֶל ָהאֵין‬ – So therefore you confess? – Confess and don’t deny… – Saying: Hallucinates and so forth until…until that… Until his grace will compensate me with the end. – – And not the opposite? Isn’t the logic of the infinite evil? The idealistic speaker seeks to adhere to his illusions by writing poetry and dreaming until the day of his death, “until his grace will compensate me with the end,” but the realist says that he may not be able to preserve the illusion until his end or until his death, but that he’ll need to renounce it at some stage of his life (“the logic of the infinite [is] evil”). The skeptical speaker, two stanzas later, tries to show the idealistic speaker that their perceptions are, in essence, identical:

:‫ ָאדָ ם‬-‫– זֹוכֵרני ִכּי ָאמ ְַרּתָ ֶבּן‬ ′.‫עָתִ יד ׁשֶל ַלהֲדָ ם‬-‫חֲלֹום הּוא לְׁשֹון‬′ :‫ַע ְכׁשָיו נַ ֵסּה לֹומַר ָהפְּכֹו ׁשֶל הַּדָ בָר‬ ′– ‫ ָעבָר‬-‫ ִּבלְׁשֹון‬-‫ ַה ֵּלהֲדָ ם הִּנֹו חֲלֹום‬′ ‫וְתִ ָּוכַח‬ !‫ ַהי ְנּו הָך‬:‫ִכּי זֶהּו ׁשֶָאמ ְַרּתִ י‬

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– Does he remember me that you said man: ‘A dream is the future tense of never was.’ Now try to say its opposite: ‘No such thing ever was is a dream-in-the-past-tense – ’ And be convinced Because that’s what I said: The same thing! It’s possible to interpret these speakers as two voices of the aging poet. One voice sees the dreams of the young poet positively even though they end in things that never were, whereas the other voice relates to the desires and dreams of the youth and to his life itself which passed like a dream. The poem “B’kamul hakikayon” also represents the past, especially the values and wisdom held by the speaker, as dreams and illusion regarding which the speaker has sobered up about. This sobering up is essentially negation and subversion of the speaker’s former pretensions:

‫קֹורדֶ ְלי ָה וְׁשֹוטֶה לֹו‬ ְ – ‫ַהּמֶל ֶך לִיר‬ .‫ְוהֵם יִׁשְעֹו מִּבּוז הַּלֹו ֲעזִים‬ ‫אֹותִ י ֵמסִית ְ ּכי ָגֹו אֶת אֹוטֶלֹו‬ .‫ׁש ִבּי – ְואֵין ֵמזִים‬ ֶ ‫ַארכִי ַס ְפקָן‬ ְ .ֶ‫ ַהּמֶלך‬-‫ּכָל ַה ּנִגְלֹות – ֻ ּכּלָם עֵדֵ י‬ .‫ֵירּמָם‬ ֻ ‫ַה ּנִסְּתָ רֹות – יָצְאּו ְ ּבע‬ ‫עַד יֹום ֶאחָד ָאבַד ִפּתְ א ֹם ַה ֶּכלַח‬ .‫עַל ּכָל ֲאׁשֶר רֹו ַממְּתָ וְרֹומַם‬ .‫ ּכָל ָח ְכמָתְ ך הֹובִיׁשָה‬.‫ּכָל ִסב ְְרך נִ ְסּכָל‬ .‫ּפתְ א ֹם חָדְ לּו ּכָל סֵתֶ ר ְו ֶחבְיֹון‬ ‫שׁה‬ ָ ‫ׁשמֶׁש ּתַ ך עַל ר ֹאׁש ַהּנָס ּתַ ְרׁשִי‬ ֶ ‫ְו‬ .‫ְכּדִ ין יֹונָה ִ ּבקְמֹול ַה ִקּיקָיֹון‬ King Lear – Cordelia and his fool And they rescued him from the scorn of the foreigners. Like Othello by Iago I am incited by The arch-skeptic in me – and there’s no refuting it. Everything revealed – all are the king’s ornaments. The hidden things – emerged in their nakedness. Until one day suddenly Everything you had elevated and raised became obsolete.

198 

 Sefer Hasulamot – Between Ideal and Real

All your intent thwarted. All your wisdom shamed. Suddenly every hiding place and mystery ceased. And the sun beating down on the head of one fleeing Tarshish Like Jonah’s judgment on the withering of the castor oil plant. The first two lines of the poem invoke the figure of King Lear, symbol of self-delusion. However, the speaker’s situation is more difficult than Lear’s inasmuch as Cordelia and the fool stood by the King, whereas the speaker has no forces at his side. The opposite is true; he only has a kind of internal Iago, a skeptic, an advocate of evil, who inflames the speaker’s doubts, “Until one day suddenly/ Everything you had elevated and raised became obsolete.” The last two lines of the poem are a variation on the story of Jonah, “And the sun beating down on the head of one fleeing Tarshish/ Like Jonah’s judgment on the withering castor oil plant.” Jonah who fled Tarshish in order to avoid prophesying about the city Nineveh, ultimately successfully prophesizes to that city and everyone repents, thus preventing its destruction. Jonah is not satisfied that his prophecy of destruction hadn’t been fulfilled and he secludes himself in the hot desert where God provides him initially with a castor oil plant which shelters him from the sun, and afterwards it disappears. The sun, therefore, doesn’t beat down on Jonah’s head when he escapes to Tarshish, but does so at the end of the story when he is in the desert. Nevertheless, the poem interprets Jonah’s story by saying that the sun beating down on Jonah’s head at the end of the story signifies God’s dissatisfaction with Jonah’s dodging his mission at the beginning of the story. In the context of the entire poem, the sun serves as a cruel force, revealing and “drying up” all the speaker’s pretensions and illusions (“All your wisdom shamed”). The sun in the story of Jonah reveals his childish, narcissistic anger at the non-fulfillment of his prophecy of Nineveh’s destruction, whereas in this poem, it symbolizes the revelation of the speaker’s delusional narcissism, his wisdom, the things he had considered valuable to him (“the king’s ornaments”). The speaker draws a parallel between his life story and Jonah’s, because even though his poetical mission had succeeded, he suffered from a false consciousness regarding himself which becomes revealed at the end of his life. Similar to the poem “B’kamul hakikayon,” the poem “Re’i beḥashekhah” also represents an exposed, illusion-free encounter of the speaker with himself. If in “B’kamul hakikayon” the speaker’s values and wisdom have been subverted and exposed, in “Re’i beḥashekhah,” the poet deals with his approaching death in an objective, realistic, and difficult manner. In Shlonsky’s poetry, the encounter with the mirror constitutes a revealing encounter with the self. This situation has already appeared in Shlonsky’s earlier poems, for example in the poem

Ladders at night? 

 199

“Lo,”³⁶ in the collection Avne’i Bohu where the encounter with the mirror signifies an encounter with the conscience and pangs of conscience regarding the poet’s arrogance toward the prostitute he had met on a Parisian bridge. Meanwhile, in the poem “Ne’um ploni al shkhunato,”³⁷ the encounter with the mirror signifies his empty existence. In the poem “Re’i beḥashekhah,” the encounter neither reveals the speaker’s scruples nor the emptiness of his life, but it is rather, a tragic encounter with aging and approaching death. The poem opens with the speaker’s suffocated sensation experiencing the tightening darkness enveloping him “and more/ and even more/ and unbearably more/ and already a siege in the depths of night.” The dark, inanimate face in the night symbolizes his approaching death. His face’s external motionlessness and silence merge with the internal cessation of the motion of thought, “And soon and also the last of my thoughts/ Blind of knowledge and declining.” However, the image of death as silence, as an external and internal quiet is replaced by an image of the tragic end of King Oedipus, “As a king who blinded-himself-to knowledge/ about patricide/ about murder of the riddles.” The question which follows, “– When Lord of the Worlds?/ When?!” has multiple meanings and signifies at the same time a question about the date of that repressed event of patricide which explains the Freudian attitude to repressing what occurs in a dream (“In all the dreams which escape your memory!”), but according to the next lines this question refers to the speaker’s appointed time of death. The circumstances of his death which appear in the dream are repressed and cannot be known. The following lines describe a last attempt to oppose death’s verdict, represented as an unavoidable gut feeling. To describe his situation, the speaker uses an image of a decisive duel. The poem’s second two-line stanza continues the image of the duel, but seeks to shock the reader:

‫ַאל ּתִ תְ ַּפ ְלּאּו אֵפֹוא אִם ְבּׁשּו ְטכֶם ַּבּיַעַר‬ .‫ירית‬ ִ ‫ׁש ֶלכֶת ע ֲִר‬ ְ ‫ּתִ ְראּו גְ ִוּי ָה ֻמ‬ Don’t wonder therefore if in your forest wanderings You see a dumped corpse alone. The end of the poem, which deviates from the rest of the poem, seeks to bring us together with the speaker’s corpse, but because it is impossible to report on this corpse as the speaker’s internal experience, the speaker surprisingly turns to the readers. The shocking, grotesque content – the meeting with the corpse, 36 See the poem “Lo” in Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 3, 41. For an analysis of this poem, see Chapter 5 about Avne’i Bohu. 37 Ibid., Volume 5, 37. Also see Chapter 7, about Avne’i Gvil.

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 Sefer Hasulamot – Between Ideal and Real

the abject, a meeting which erodes the division of object-subject, of internal and external – also explains the modification from describing an internal experience to “an audience” which is invited to see the speaker’s corpse. At the end of the poem, the encounter with the Real reaches a climax when the speaker is reduced to a dead body. This reduction of the dead body, signifying struggling with the poet’s imminent death, is a conclusion to the struggle between illusion and reality. The speaker seeks to experience himself as a dead body and not only to negate his various images, such as the image of prophet or the poet as modernist spearhead, but also to negate his life.

Sefer Hasulamot: “Me shire’i Xu-a-lu” (The book of ladders: From the Xu-a-lu poems) Reflecting the speaker’s voice and wish fulfillment in “K’feta hasuma” (Suddenly blind) The second part of the collection Sefer Hasulamot, entitled “Me shire’i Xu-a-lu” (From the Xu-a-lu poems), gives expression to self awareness of the idealization of the loved one’s life and image. This section opens with the poem “K’feta hasoma” (Suddenly blind),³⁸ in which the speaker seems to explicitly tell his future readers: I am aware of the subversive interpretation which will be given to these poems in the name of repressed reality in general, and specifically by its “psychoanalytic” content. In other words, the speaker is aware of the gap between his interpretation influenced by his desires and his wish to beautify things and his future readers’ interpretation. The poem constructs the transition from wish and imagination to reality by means of different aspects of psychoanalysis, such as “reflection,” “dream,” “confession,” and “wish fulfillment.” The sudden and sharp transition from wish and imagination to reality occurs through reflection of the speaker’s voice. In the beginning of the poem, the poet is conscious of his embarrassing, actual image when hearing a recording of his voice:

‫ש ֱהבִיכַתְ נִי‬ ֶ ‫ֲאנִי זֹוכֵר הֵיטֵב ַה ִפּתְ א ֹמּות‬ ‫ׁשמַע ְצלִיל קֹולִי ל ִָראׁשונָה‬ ֵ ‫ְל‬ :‫ׁשמְקֹול‬ ַ ‫ִמ ֶס ֶּרט ה ְָר‬ ?‫– ֲהזֶה קֹולִי‬ ?‫ׁשלִי‬ ֶ ‫קֹולִי‬ !‫שֹנֵאתִ י קֹול ֲאׁשֶר ָּכזֶה‬ ָ ‫הֵן ּכָל יָמַי‬ 38 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 6, 87.

Sefer Hasulamot: “Me shire’i Xu-a-lu” (The book of ladders: From the Xu-a-lu poems) 

 201

I well remember the suddenness with which I was embarrassed By hearing the sound of my voice for the first time From the tape recorder’s reel: – Is that my voice? My voice? Yes all my life I’ve hated a voice like that! As previously mentioned, the voice as “a vocal mirror” reveals the speaker to himself as someone unloved and even hated. The amazement of “My voice?” is passed over by the determination that the speaker hates his own voice. Generally, voice serves as a metonymy for identity and general style. This metonymy comes up in common expressions such as “the speaker’s voice,” and “the author’s voice.” That being the case, hatred of the voice is likened to hatred of the poet or of his identity as a poet. The recording of his voice, its reflection and reproduction, reveal the man in a new way, uncovering unpleasant and repressed features. The voice recording is a mechanical reproduction which cannot be manipulated and doesn’t allow for repression, substitution or beautifying things through embellishment or cheating, in contrast to dream and confession which beautify defects, testify falsely, and embellish.

‫ְוכִי ֹלא ִמּשּׁום כָּך ׁשֹוכֵח הָָאדָ ם חֲלֹומֹותָ יו‬ ‫ַּב ֲהקִיצֹו‬ ‫ֶאּלָא אִם ּכֵן יִּפָה אֶת מּומֵיהֶם‬ ?‫יֹודְ עִים‬-‫ְבֹּלא‬ And isn’t it because of this that a person forgets his dreams Upon awakening But rather he beautifies their defects Without anyone knowing? In other words, according to the poem man beautifies his dreams not because they express forbidden wishes but because they reflect him too precisely. The reference to psychoanalysis is continued by one of the popular analogies of this process, the confession.

‫ְוכִי ֹלא ִמּשׁום כָּך ּכָל וִּדּוי ָיו‬ (‫)עַל ַה ְצּדָ קֹות ְו ָה ַעוְלֹות ּגַם יַחַד‬ ?‫ ּבַּדָ בָר‬-‫עֵדּות ּכֹוזֶבֶת הֵם ׁשֶל הַּנֹוגֵע‬ ?‫ מִּדַ עַת‬-‫גֻזְמָה ׁשֶֹּלא‬

202 

 Sefer Hasulamot – Between Ideal and Real

:‫ָמחָר וַּדַ אי יֹוכִיחּו לִי גַם זֶה‬ ‫עֵינַי ַו ֲעלִילַי‬-‫ׁשּכָל מ ְַראֹות‬ ֶ ‫ּכָך‬-‫ִהּנָם ֹלא‬ ‫הֵם‬-‫ִהּנָם ֹלא‬ ‫ִהּנָם ַרק ֶח ְפצִּיֹות‬ .‫ׁשָל ַהּנָסִיך ַהּמִתְ ַחּטֵא‬ And isn’t it because of this that all his confessions (About both justice and injustice together) Are false testimony of the one involved? An unknowing embellishment? Tomorrow they’ll certainly prove this to me too: That all my visions and stories Are all not so Are not what they are They are only wish fulfillment Of the sinful prince. Shlonsky is aware of the subversive interpretation that views his idealistic outlook as an illusion originating in desire, or, as he translates the Freudian concept expressing the desire for wish fulfillment (Wunscherfüllung) into Hebrew as “ḥeftsi’ut.”

‫ּכָך רֹואֶה ָאדָ ם מ ְַראֵה עִירֹו‬ .‫קֹולִי‬-‫ְ ּב ַטי ִס עַל‬ ‫ ֶלכְּתֵ נּו‬-‫ ָחלָל רֹואִים ּכֹוכַב‬-‫ּכָך ַטּיָסֵי‬ ‫ׁשֶהּוא זָעִיר יֹותֵ ר‬ – ‫נָאֶה יֹותֵ ר‬ ...‫י ֹותֵ ר‬ .‫ַאך ֹלא ְכּמֹו‬ ‫ּכָך ַה ֵּמקִיץ זֹוכֵר קֹורֹות ַוחֲלֹומֹות‬ .‫ׁשנֵי ָּפנִים ׁשֶל ַלהֲדָ ם ֶאחָד‬ ְ ‫ִ ּכ‬ ‫הֹו ֶפּתַ ע הַּסּומָא ְ ּב ִה ָּפקַח עֵינָיו‬ .‫לְבּוׁש‬-‫אֶל הַּגּופִים ְ ּבאֵין‬ Thus a man sees his cityscape In supersonic flight. Thus astronauts see our planet

Sefer Hasulamot: “Me shire’i Xu-a-lu” (The book of ladders: From the Xu-a-lu poems) 

 203

Smaller More pleasant – More … But not like. Thus the wakened remembers happenings and dreams Like two faces of one thing that never was. Oh the sudden blinding when his eyes open On the unclothed objects. The last stanza describes confusion over the boundaries between a man’s events and his dreams. Both have the appearance of things that never were. Not only dreams, but also life itself as remembered by the individual are a fiction organized by him according to his wishes. In the last stanza, the speaker describes the insight employing the image of Adam’s and Eve’s sudden vision of their nakedness after having eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. Adam’s and Eve’s embarrassment parallels that of the sensitive poet upon hearing his voice in the first line: “I well remember the suddenness with which I was embarrassed/ By hearing the sound of my voice for the first time. The poem conveys the sense of an unpleasant awakening which makes life a sort of dream and presents actual things in their embarrassing essence. On the intimated level of the poem, the speaker aspires to an encounter of this sort with the self and seeks to cope with the negative reflection of his image. The desire for absence assumes a masochistic nature here and the speaker seeks to experience himself as unloved.

Transcendence of music and mystical vision in “Ata koreh l’zeh Nigun” (You call this music) and in “Ari haboker” (Lion of the morning) The poem “Ata koreh l’zeh Nigun” (You call this music)³⁹ presents an explicit and conscious contrast to the poem “K’feta hasuma.” The contrast can be interpreted as arguing that despite the self’s consciousness of its wishes, its “wishfulfillment,” the self is not prepared to believe in the uniqueness of concrete daily existence, the one reflected by his recorded voice. The self believes in an additional existence, one of transcendence and the “Nigun,” that is, it believes in “music” which, because of its abstractness, deviates from the concreteness of words. Shlonsky’s poetry, similar to mystical writings, sets music as a transcendent, metaphysical being, preceding all other beings and diverging from them,

39 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 6, 89.

204 

 Sefer Hasulamot – Between Ideal and Real

while being connected to all things. The first stanza presents music as exceeding thought:

‫ ַה ַּמ ְחׁשָבֹות‬′ – ′‫ַה ַּמ ְחׁשָבֹות ְונִיבֵיהֶן‬ :‫ׁשפָתַ י ִם‬ ְ -‫ַאך ֹלא ּתָ מִיד ַאתָ ּה דֹובֵר ְבנִיב‬ .‫קֹורא ָלזֶה נִּגּון‬ ֵ ‫אַּתָ ה‬ ‘Thoughts Thoughts and their idioms’ – But you don’t always speak in the idiom of language: You call that music. The first stanza and the next two following ones are organized as a dialogue. The first speaker apparently maintains the central essence of immanent categories of existence such as “thoughts,” “love,” and “journeys,” whereas the second speaker argues for what exists beyond things themselves. Thoughts cannot be the central or important thing in existence, inasmuch as man does not always say things with language. In the second stanza, the first speaker argues for an existence of love and its profession, whereas the respondent speaks of absence, that is, silences which actually express more:

‫הַָא ֲהבָה‬′ ′″– ‫הַָא ֲהבָה ּווִּדּוי ֶיה‬ :‫א ַך ׁשְתִ יקֹותֶ י ָה מִתְ וַּדֹות יֹותֵ ר‬ .‫קֹורא ָלזֶה נִּגּון‬ ֵ ‫אַּתָ ה‬ ‘Love Love and its confession’ – But its silences confess more: You call that Nigun. The third stanza expresses the idea that desire for something is more eternal than its fulfillment. The desire to be in faraway places is loftier than fulfilling these desires.

– ‫ּו ַּמּסַעֹות‬′ ′?– ‫ ֶח ְפצָן‬-‫ַה ַּמּסָעֹות ּומְחֹוז‬ .‫א ַך מ ְֶר ַח ִקּים קְרֹובִים יֹותֵ ר אֶל ַה ּנִ ְצחִי‬ .‫קֹורא ָלזֶה נִּגּון‬ ֵ ‫אַּתָ ה‬

Sefer Hasulamot: “Me shire’i Xu-a-lu” (The book of ladders: From the Xu-a-lu poems) 

 205

‘And journeys – Journeys and their destinations?’ – But distances are closer to the eternal. You call that Nigun. The distance from a destination is more expressive of man’s aspiration for the eternal than his actual visit to this destination. It is not the concrete journey, but the wish for the journey which expresses the individual’s spirit. The fourth stanza places music as something beyond the meanings and interpretations made possible by language:

– ‫אַּתָ ה אֹומֵר נִּגּון ּומִתְ ַּכוֵן לַּכ ֹל‬ ‫ ְוהַּתַֹאר‬-‫ ָה ֶעצֶם‬-‫ּפֹורקֵי ֻעּלָם ׁשֶל ׁשְמֹות‬ ְ ‫ְלכָל‬ ‫ַהּמִתְ ַמ ְ ּלטִים מֵאֹור ּכֹוזֵב ׁשֶל ֵ ּפׁשֶר מִתְ ַחׂשֵף‬ ‫ לְדַ עַת‬-‫ּומִתְ ַח ְ ּפׂשִים‬ .‫ׁש ַּלּפ ְַרּדֵ ס‬ ֶ ‫ַאר ַּבעַת ַה ַּמסְוֹות‬ ְ ‫ְ ּבכָל‬ You say music and mean everything – For all that unloads the burden of nouns-and-adjectives Who flee from false light of revealed meaning And masquerade to knowledge In all four disguises of the Pardes. “For all that unloads the burden of nouns-and-adjectives” are those things which it is impossible to speak about with language which usually describes using nouns and adjectives. Music cannot be expressed or cannot be subjugated to language or even to metaphysics, in which all things in the world are objects and descriptions.⁴⁰ The fifth stanza again emphasizes music as preceding language. This time it is the pre-linguistic connection between man and God.

‫ִכּי ַהנִּּגּון הּוא זֵכֶר ַאחֲרֹון‬ ‫ְצּוריו‬ ָ ‫ׁשֶל ׂשִי ַח אֵל אֶל י‬ .‫לָׁשֹון‬-‫ׂשפַת‬ ְ -‫ְ ּבט ֶֶרם‬ ‫ִכּי הִיא מִּצּוי ׁשֶל ּכָל זַעֲקֹותֶ יך‬ .‫ֲאׁשֶר ׁשָתַ קְּתָ ִבּתְ פִּלֹות הַָא ֲהבָה‬ 40 The negation of Aristotelian metaphysics can be seen here, in which there is as overlap and correspondence between language and the world, that is, the world itself consists of (like language) objects and descriptions.

206 

 Sefer Hasulamot – Between Ideal and Real

Because music is the last trace Of God’s conversation to his creatures Before-language Because it is the exhaustion of all your shouts Which you silenced with prayers of love. This stanza demonstrates and re-emphasizes Shlonsky’s view, spirituality as dialogue, as “againstness” which he wrote about in his article “Dor bli Donquishotim:” ‘I love you, man against God!’ Because in this againstness – if it is permitted to speak thus – I’ve always felt the secret and foundation of greatness and inconsequentialities which are part of the human being. And it, in my opinion, is also the secret and foundation of faith as opposed to religion. And… – And that is my principal topic: also the secret and foundation of true art. This is that great heresy, which is the true religiosity.⁴¹

Shlonsky emphasizes the pre-linguistic condition of againstness as a clear contrast to the dialogue which uses language and in doing so emphasizes the nonverbal relationship of man to the world and God. As has previously been stated, the stanza defines music as exceeding language, “Because music is the last trace/ Of God’s conversation to his creatures/ Before-language.” Music is defined here as a link to the sublime, to the divine by way of negative theology. Negative theology tries to define God not by means of positive attributes, but by negating those attributes or by describing God as beyond attributes and language in general – in other words, by determinations such as saying that God is beyond being and does not exist in being, that God is wise without (the specific attribute of) wisdom, etc. “Music” which deviates from the real and the mundane stands in salient contrast to the reflection of the real, to the recording of the speaker’s voice in the previous poem, “K’feta hasuma.” Apparently, in both these poems, the speaker expresses two facets of poetry or of the voice reciting poetry: the hated daily tone of voice and “music,” an entity beyond ordinary things: love before its confession, thoughts before they receive verbal expression, God’s conversation with man before there was language. In the next stanza, music is compared to mystical visions of the moon on the sea:

‫הֵן ּגַם הַּיֹום אַּתָ ה דֹומֵם אֶת מְא ֹד ֶך‬ (!‫ ְ ּבמִּלּוָאה ֵמעַל ַל ַּמי ִם‬-‫)הֹו ְל ָבנָה‬ ‫ׁשחַף הַּזֹוכ ֶֶרת י ָם ָרחֹוק‬ ַ ‫עִּתִ ים זֹו‬ – ‫הַּגּוף ִמ ּנֶגֶד‬-‫עִּתִ ים זֹו ַאּיָלָה ִבּדְ מּות‬ .‫ֲאבָל ּתָ מִיד נִּגּון‬ 41 Shlonsky, “Dor bli donquishotim,” Yalkut Eshel, 43.

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Yes today you too silence your might (Oh moon in its fullness over the water!) This season a seagull remembering a distant sea This season a doe in the image of a body opposite – But always music. The speaker compares himself to the moon silent above the water. This moon apparently looks at a seagull or a doe, “in the image of a body opposite.” Again, as in the previous stanza it is precisely distance and “longing” which signify the “music.” Music now is also expressed by sights of nature. Hillel Barzel tries to characterize music in the following: Nigun, says the partner in conversation, its meaning is escape from the false light of ‘revealed meaning,’ meaning revelation, as it were, of lofty truths. Nigun rejects “masquerade to knowledge in all four disguises of the Pardes’ (literal meaning, hinted mystical meaning, midrashic homeletical meaning, secret mystical meaning). Music reverts to what preceded words, to God’s discourse with his creation ‘before-language.’ Light is cast upon the connection between music and love. The language of music is that which stimulates silence and shouting and joins them together in love poems […] The image system depicts the lover in the image of the full moon, silent above the water, in the appearance of a seagull who remembers a green sea, or the lover yearning for his beloved standing opposite him.⁴²

Hillel Barzel emphasizes the mystical nature of music, the connection of music to love, and interprets the moon as well as the seagull as symbolizing the lover. It is also possible to see the seagull as symbolizing the beloved in the image of the doe, both of which the lover gazes upon in silence. The doe and seagull serve as a link in the poem to the following stanza, in which music symbolizes the relationship between the lovers:

‫ְו ַהנִּּגּון אֹומֵר לְך‬ .‫ לּו‬-ָ‫א‬-‫ׁשמָּה הּוא חּו‬ ְ ‫ִכּי‬ :‫ְו ַהנִּּגּון אֹומֵר לְך‬ .‫ׁשמְך הּוא ַא ְב ִּרי‬ ִ Nigun speaks to you Because her name is Xu-a-lu. And music speaks to you: Your name is Abri.

42 Barzel, Shirat Eretz Yisrael, 284.

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The last stanza is a kind of contradiction to the previous stanzas. How can it be that music which is beyond thought, language, and words speaks explicit words such as “Because her name is Xu-a-lu” and “Your name is Abri?” This contradiction intensifies the mystical feeling accompanying music. Music is both transcendent and beyond words, but can also be expressed by words, and not just by any words, but by words of affection. The name “Xu-a-lu” which the Nigun “speaks to you” establishes the image of the beloved from this poem onward as an unreal, abstract figure. Just as music is above reality, beyond thought, and mundane things, so too is the message put in music’s mouth, the name “Xu-a-lu,” is beyond thought and objects. Also “Abri,” a diminutive nickname for the poet Abraham, paradoxically becomes a mythical, heightened, affectionate nickname for the eternal lover when it is put in “music’s” mouth. The poem, “Ari-haboker” (Lion of the morning)⁴³ also places poetry and love as mystical visions. The first line of the poem suggests to the reader that the poem’s vision is a dream. The dream is parallel “to a transparent-opaque window,” that is, the dream can be seen as transparent as well as opaque, revealing and concealing, exposing and repressing “night’s annihilation,” meaning the death of the speaker himself. The speaker observes with his long-distance vision not permitted by real vision. He sees “from the threshold of the home which has closed all its shutters/ to virgin forests hiding the poem’s instruments.” The home which has closed its shutters and the forest which has hidden the instruments of the poem arouse a feeling of secrecy. The poem continues to describe the speaker whose poetic ability has been roused and he tries to bring his poetry to humans:

‫ׁש ִכּימֵי ָהעִיר‬ ְ ‫ְמצָאּונּו ַמ‬ ‫הַּסֹו ְבבִים ְב ִּריק ְרחֹובֹותֶ י ָה‬ ‫ׁשמְעּו ׁשִירֹו‬ ָ ‫ָראּו ַה ְ ּכלִי – וְֹלא‬ ‫ ַהּמִּלֹות‬-‫ׁשמְעּו – וְֹלא ֵהבִינּו ֵ ּפׁשֶר‬ ָ :‫ׁשאֲלּו ְ ּב ַפחַד זֶה ָלזֶה‬ ָ ‫ְו‬ ‫שֹפַת לֹועֵז‬ ְ ‫– מִי ׁשָר ְלעֵת ָכּז ֹאת ִ ּב‬ !?‫ְו ָהא ֲִרי ּבַחּוץ‬ ?‫לּו‬-ָ‫א‬-‫– מַה ֵ ּפׁשֶר חּו‬ ?‫– מַה ֵ ּפׁשֶר ַא ְב ִּרי‬ They have found us the city’s early risers Who wander its empty streets They saw the instrument – and didn’t hear its song They heard – and didn’t understand the meaning of the words 43 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 6, 92.

Sefer Hasulamot: “Me shire’i Xu-a-lu” (The book of ladders: From the Xu-a-lu poems) 

 209

And asked each other fearfully: – Who sings at this hour in a foreign tongue When the lion is out?! – What is the meaning of Xu-a-lu? – What is the meaning of Abri? This stanza sounds like the narrative of the spiritual hero who comes from a place in nature or from seclusion (a desert, mountain or forest) to the city where he experiences apathy and a lack of understanding of his message by others. The stanza is a variation of this narrative. It begins with the words “They have found us,” which changes the speaker from singular to plural. This stanza presents the people of the city as those who don’t understand poetry or love. Initially they see the instrument, but they don’t manage to hear the song; afterward, they manage to hear the song, but they don’t understand the words which sound to them like a foreign language; finally, they understand the words “Xu-a-lu” and “Abri” but don’t understand their meaning. The line “– Who sings at this hour in a foreign tongue/ When the lion is out?!” signifies the baselessness of the love song in the morning, a time when people are preoccupied by daily matters. The last stanza presents the wonder or miracle of poetry as dissipating and disappearing as a result of noontime’s crowdedness and concentration:

‫עַד י ְׁשֹוקֵק ה ְָרחֹוב אֶל ּג ֹדֶ ׁש ָצה ֳָריו‬ ‫ׁש ָּבלְּתָ ם‬ ִ ‫ נָהָר אֶל‬-‫ְ ּכמֵי‬ .‫וְֹלא י ִ ְהי ֶה ׁשֹואֵל עֹוד‬ .ּ ְ‫ּגַם ֹלא ַאת‬ Until the street bustles to its noontime congestion Like a river’s waters heavily flowing And no one else will ask. Not even you. The street in its noontime congestion like a river’s waters heavy flowing, meaning a morning which begins dramatically, indicating the sudden appearance of an instrument of the song and of the playing fingers, gradually disappears into noontime. The extraordinary drama in which a love song and dawn merge, turns into an unamazing, ordinary day; even the loved one isn’t amazed by it. However, in this poem we are witness to the contradiction between the ideal and the subversive mundanity in the image of the ideal love song, erased and disappeared by noon.

210 

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Variations on a beloved image and a narcissistic compensation In the collection “Meshire’i Xu-a-lu,” Shlonsky expresses the sublime and ideal particularly in the figure of the beloved and the various attitudes adopted by the speaker toward her. Turning to the beloved uncovers a wide emotional variety toward the absent loved one, the need for her presence, and the pain of her absence, the happiness when recalling her image, seeking her intimacy, etc. The poem “Ḥiyug yashir” (Direct dialing),⁴⁴ describes the pain of absence, feelings of solitude and despair. On the other hand, in the poem “Vehastikot smadar” (And the silences of the first fruit),⁴⁵ the speaker chooses to be silent when faced with the questions of his loved one, so that his words by their “music” are of merit, meaning his poems. The poem describes the joy of bestowing the poetry to his beloved.⁴⁶ Many times the speaker relates to the effectiveness of the dialogue with his loved one which is essentially the conversation of the poet with himself, for example in the last stanza of the poem, “Ula’i at” (Maybe you).⁴⁷ Whereas in the poem “Neshematam shel merḥakim shenifgashu” (The soul of distances that met),⁴⁸ a meeting of the lovers which was never realized is described sometimes as a mystical meeting of natural forces and other times as the arrival of the loved one as a kind of miracle, such as in the poem “Hen ta’u lehafli” (They incredibly erred).⁴⁹ The structure uniting the diversity of feelings regarding the loved one is that of a refined love, nearly “unpossessive,” paternal, in which the one who loves will not “stalk” the one loved.⁵⁰ The

44 Ibid., 133. 45 Ibid., 124. 46 In his letter of January 29th, Shlonsky writes to Tsila Shamir about his happiness that soon his poems, and metaphorically, ‘he himself,’ will be with her: ‘Two hours ago I delivered the package of books to her (my ten volumes) and therefore my ‘plot’ succeeded. A few days from now, it will arrive at her house. Another way (and that, due to material circumstances, could only have been sent by ship) the package would have wandered around several months. This is a personal autobiography (and therefore also impersonal), an expression of the spirit of the time (my time, and therefore also not only my time) – however, not by way of the protocol and the chronicled reaction; their history of content and form – content which merited life by the form’s strength and not by crude strength – and the way to maturity and experiments to get to the third floor. […] However, I see that I have been judged by ‘philosophies.’ That comes from the excitement that I succeeded in ‘my plot,’ and that soon I will be in your hands.’ See Shlonsky, Mikhtavim l’meshoreret tse’irah, 25–26. 47 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 6, 123. 48 Ibid., ibid., 135. 49 Ibid., ibid., 114. 50 The reference to an absence of desire to stalk her is also a reflection of Shlonsky’s relationship with Tsila Shamir, a relationship in which he cannot ‘stalk’ the poet, as well as a reference to Mikhail Prishvin’s story, Jen Sheng. See above, footnote 10.

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speaker guards himself from being possessive or aggressive in his love, as exemplified in the following lines in “Meshorer v’tsa’id” (A poet and his game):

– ‫אִם מָׁש ַך ְ ּב ַקׁשְּתֹו – הֵן ָאסַף אֶת ַהּי ָד‬ !‫ְׁשֹורר ְל ַצּי ָד‬ ֵ ‫ְוחַס אִם י ִ ְהי ֶה מ‬ If he pulled his arrow – yes and gathered his hand – And heaven forbid that a poet should become a hunter!⁵¹ Sometimes the wish is that the poet will attain her as a result of this refinement. The poem “Gordon 50” also indicates the poet’s desire to attain his beloved without “stalking” her:

.‫ׁשאֲלּו‬ ְ ִ‫ּגֹורר ּפ ֹה? – ּת‬ ֵ ְ‫– מִי מִת‬ ?‫ׁשאֲלּו אִיׁשִים‬ ְ ִ‫הֵן ּת‬ ‫ לּו‬-ָ‫א‬-‫ּגֹור ֶרת חּו‬ ֶ ְ‫– ּפ ֹה מִת‬ .50 ‫ּגֹורדֹון‬ ְ ‫ׁשֶל‬ ‫ ַּפּיְטָן ֶאחָד‬:‫– וְעֹוד? – אֹומ ְִרים‬ ‫חֹוטֵא ׁשֶֹּלא ָחטָא‬ – ‫ׁשֶֹּלא ָרצָה ִלהְיֹות ַצּי ָד‬ .‫ּכֵן ָלכַד אֹותָ ּה‬-‫עַל‬ – Who lives here? – you’ll ask. Yes important people will ask? – Here lives Xu-a-lu Of 50 Gordon Street. – And more? – They say: One sinning poet Who didn’t sin Who didn’t want to be a hunter – Because of that he caught her.⁵² In this poem, the power of the imagination possesses the ability to create love and to turn it into myth. The use made of the real fact, “50 Gordon Street,” can

51 Shlonsky, Shisha sidre’i shira, Volume 6, 120. 52 Ibid., ibid., 137.

212 

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be contrasted with the poem “Ne’um ploni al shkhunato.”⁵³ Whereas in the poem “Ne’um ploni al shkhunato,” the use of reality (such as “My building has five floors”) serves to create a troubling reality and indicates the emptiness of daily existence, in the poem “Gordon 50,” the street and house number become mythic symbols, symbolizing the location of the lovers. The second stanza gives a report of the poet with a sort of amusing humility (“One sinning poet/ Who didn’t sin”); seemingly the poet nonchalantly is reporting about himself. The unrealized love of “a hunter who didn’t capture” becomes in the third stanza a tale from mythology that ends mythically and not realistically, apparently saying that this impossible love is realized only as myth:

?‫ַהאִם ָלכַד? ַהאִם נִ ְלּכַד‬ !‫עִּגּול ּב ְִרּבּועֹו‬ ‫ּבַדִ ּים קַדְ מֹון עַל ּכַד‬-‫סִּפּור‬ .‫עַל ּכַד ּומַּבּועֹו‬ ‫שׁר נִתְ לּו‬ ֶ ‫ׁשמֵיהֶם ֲא‬ ְ ‫ְועַל‬ .‫ּכָל ַליְלָה חֲדָ ׁשִים‬ ‫שּנָחֲלּו‬ ׁ ֶ ‫ׁשנֵיהֶם‬ ְ ‫ְועַל‬ .‫ֵאלִים ּו ִמקְּדָ ׁשִים‬ ‫לּו‬-ָ‫ א‬-‫ִכּי ִמנִּי ָאז הִיא חּו‬ .50 ‫ּגֹורדֹון‬ ְ ‫ׁשֶל‬ Did he capture her? Was he captured? A circle squared! An ancient lie on a vase On a vase and its spring. And on their skies each night Hung anew. And about both of them who suffered Gods and temples. Because since then she has been Xu-a-lu Of 50 Gordon Street.

53 Ibid., Volume 5, 37. For the analysis of the use of reality in the poem, see Chapter 7, about Avne’i Gvil.

Sefer Hasulamot: “Me shire’i Xu-a-lu” (The book of ladders: From the Xu-a-lu poems) 

 213

The ending “And about both of them who suffered/ Gods and temples,” typical of the attitude of ancient Greek society toward its heroes, situates the story of their love as a myth of monumental status, “a temple” expressing in its body their love following their death. Love after death is also the subject of the poem “Ketovato haḥadasha” (His new address),⁵⁴ a poem in which the speaker describes “his address” after his death:

‫הַּיֹום ִמכְּתָ ב ָקצָר‬ ‫ָקצָר מְא ֹד‬ ‫הַּיֹום ּבָאתִ י לְהֹודִ יע ֵך ְכּתָ בְּתִ י ַהחֲדָ ׁשָה‬ :‫ׁש ְ ּכבָר ֲאנִי יֹודֵ ַע ּבְדִ ּיּוק‬ ֶ ‫ּשׁבִיעִי‬ ְ ‫ה ָָרקִי ַע ַה‬ ‫ ָה ֶאבֶן‬-‫מּול ֶפ ַּרח‬ .‫ְקצָת יְמִינָה‬ !‫ִכּתְ בִי לִי ִכּתְ בִי ה ְַר ֵבּה‬ Today a brief letter Very brief Today I came to inform you of my new address Which I know exactly: The seventh heaven Across from the stone-flower A little to the right. Write to me write a lot! Apparently, this poem is influenced by Shlonsky’s persistent and repeated requests to Tsila Shamir that she write to him, or at least, it can be compared with them. On the occasion of his trip to a conference in France, Shlonsky writes in at least two letters the address where he’ll be staying: I hope that at the conference, and abroad in general, you’ll have time (not only physical, but leisure of the heart) to write long letters about impressions, etc., and of course you’ll be the first address, if not the only one, for letters such as these. All this assuming that you too will write me there. I don’t know exactly my entire schedule, but I already know something of it in advance: I know that from August 8th until the 30th (31st), I’ll be in Paris. And the address there is: Dr. H. Meyer 11 Avenue des Merisers Nogent sur Marre France

54 Ibid., Volume 6, 138.

214 

 Sefer Hasulamot – Between Ideal and Real

(That’s next to Paris, in the Bois de Vincennes). Afterward, (from the 30th or 31st of August for a week) I’ll be in Belgium at the conference. Afterward, either returning to Paris and from there to London or…or back to Tel-Aviv. And that depends upon a lot of things, including Marx’s Das Kapital. In any case, you can always write to the Paris address (considering the dates, of course) if you’re not stingy with writing, in the sense of how many times (up until now you’ve written me a letter every two weeks if I’m not mistaken) and I’ll write to you about that from there.⁵⁵

The comparison of the wording of the letter to the poem itself indicates simultaneously the filters which for Shlonsky differentiate life and art – filters such as omitting details, generalization, and mythization; however, it is possible to also see a more refined message of his love in the poem. More importantly, the poem, in contrast to the letter, deals with the poet’s approaching death in its hope-joy for eternal love. The end of Shlonsky’s life and poetry are marked by a combination of skepticism, even of nay-saying sabotage of the images and idealizations of the poet. Shlonsky’s poetry seeks to undermine the modernist persona and to negate the positive images of the self. It continues, although by modification, the desire for absence expressed in his middle poetry. Nevertheless, in his poetry Shlonsky institutes a renewed idealization of poetry as well as love. Coping with aging can be seen in his aspiration for supreme simplicity in his poetry and in his love for Tsila Shamir. The love for Tsila Shamir and his great concern for her and her book of poems, together with the absence of sexual fulfillment of his love and the great age difference between them, make this love a “fatherly” one. Similar to this love, there is an overestimation of the “child” and compensation for the self that is facing its life’s end. It seems that Shlonsky sought to continue himself after his death through love, the care and nurture of Tsila Shamir’s poetry.

55 Shlonsky repeats the address in his letter of August 7, 1971. See Shlonsky, Mikhtavim lemeshoreret tse’irah, 63–65.

Conclusion Shlonsky’s poetry expresses a persistent preoccupation with negative sentiments characteristic of modern existence: urban alienation and loneliness, loss of religious faith and objective values, a world in which historical events are uncontrollable, stirring, and anarchic. The speaker of Shlonsky’s early poetry (Stam, B’ḥefazi) seeks to take a ride on history’s back, to institute a negating modernist process by his active searching. This poetry seeks to express the chaos in the period following the Russian Revolution, a period characterized by undermining the world political order when thousands of refugees and émigrés were looking for a new shelter. The speaker seeks to join forces with and “lead” these refugees and to express their fate in expressionist and futurist poetry. The active leadership of the refugees is a reaction against those omnipotent forces determining their destiny. This response is not worded against specific political forces (such as Russian nationalism, etc.), but seeks to lead world anarchy instead of being led by it. The desire to be master of anarchy translates into poems in which this anarchy is simultaneously mourned and “celebrated,” expressing a desire for the lack of order and the chaos of modern existence. The desire for absence undergoes transformation in Shlonsky’s different collections of poetry. Instead of giving expression to historical forces, his poetry deals more with the encounter of the self with experiences which negate this self. In the collection Gilboa, the speaker seeks to negate his regular self in Sisyphean agricultural work in which he is “punished” by nature or unites with it, whereas in the collection Avne’i Bohu, the speaker yearns for experiences of the alienated and solitary man, lacking social support, who comes into contact with the city and its corruption. He seeks his redemption precisely in extreme situations where he encounters emptiness and a lack of meaning and purpose in existence, that is, in his poetry, the encounter with emptiness and negation becomes a goal in itself and leads the poem to its climax. In Lekh Lekha and Metom, the speaker seeks both to reject religion and the existence of God as well as to mourn the loss of a traditional way of life. However, not only in his poetry, but also in his editorial writing, Shlonsky seeks to actively reject religion and tradition, “to commit heresy” against its commandments and to experience a new spiritual existence without the social framework provided by traditional religion, a situation in which man expresses the desire and will for continuous negation and a demand for renewed spirituality. In Shlonsky’s late poetry, absence is described as an internal absence moreso than experiences of solitude and secularism. Absence is expressed in an internal dialogue seeking to take stock of the poet’s self-image as a modernist rebel. In this dialogue, the speaker seeks contact with that side which claims a lack of reality

216 

 Conclusion

of that empowered modernist self, and instead, aspires to minor and minimalistic representation of the self, representation that includes self-hatred and experiences its existence in the world as arbitrary and empty. His late poetry constitutes an internalization of that absence which was externalized toward external objects and experiences in his early and middle poetry. The transition from his early and middle poetry to his late poetry preserves the basic position of being preoccupied with and desiring to experience absence, but modifies its objects. This transition can be interpreted as based on the internalization of those objects and experiences (such as urban alienation, secularization, Sisyphean labor) which had been the foundation of his poetry in the past. By means of a close reading of Shlonsky’s various poetry collections, I have indicated a central tendency in his poetry, a poetic attitude which has been minimally referred to in the criticism, criticism which whether it has placed emphasis on formal analysis of his poetry or whether it has situated his poetry within the modernist or nationalist historical context, hasn’t related to this tendency. Likewise, I have noted the diversity of form and theme in Shlonsky’s poetry as representing unity in the poetic speaker’s attitude toward his objects. This attitude, expressing “a desire for absence,” to a great extent has shaped the themes of his poetry as well as the speaker’s attitude toward them.

Bibliography Primary sources Shlonsky, Avraham. B’Galgal [In the wheel]. Tel Aviv: Davar Publishing, 1930. —. “Al Tslav HaLyrika (5 Shanim L’Mot Blok)” [On the cross of the lyrical 5 years to Blok’s death]. Ktuvim 1 (August 27, 1926): 2–3. —. “Ale’i Teref” [Predatory leaves]. Ktuvim 9 (September 29, 1926): 2–3. —. “Me’Inyan L’Inyan” [From matter to matter]. Torim (November 24, 1933): 1. —. “Ḥaim Naḥman Bialik.” Torim 1, 45–46 (July 13, 1934): 1. —. “Et L”Hizdahut” [Time to identify]. Itim 15 (January 30, 1948): 2. —. Yalkut Eshel [The complete works of Avraham Shlonsky]. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1960. —. Mikhtavim L’Yehudim B’Brit Hamo’atsot [Letters to Jews in the Soviet Union]. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1977. —. Pirke’i Yoman [Journal selections]. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1981. —. Mikhtavim L’Meshoreret Tse’ira: Mikhtave’i Avraham Shlonsky l’Tsila Shamir 1971–1973 [Letters to a young poet: Avraham Shlonsky’s letters to Tsila Shamir 1971–1973], afterword Ḥagit Halperin. Tel Aviv: Yediot Aḥaronot, 1997. —. “Ra’ananut” (1923) [Freshness] in Manifestim shel Modernism, edited by Binyamin Harshav. Jerusalem: Carmel, 2001. —. Shisha Sidre’i Shira: Kol Shire’i Avraham Shlonsky, Krakhim 1–6 [Six volumes of poetry: The complete poems of Avraham Shlonsky, volumes 1–6]. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 2002.

Research sources Alter, Robert. Hebrew and Modernity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. Arendt, Hannah. “A Consumer’s Society.” In The Human Condition, 126–135. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Arpaly, Boaz. Ḥedvot HaHashva’a: Tmorot B’Shira Ha’Ivrit HaModernit [The joys of comparison: transformations in modern Hebrew poetry]. Tel Aviv: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, Hakibbutz Hame’uḥad. 2004. Bahat, Ya’akov. Avraham Shlonsky: Ḥeker V’Iyun B’Shirato U’BeHaguto [Avraham Shlonsky: Research and study of his poetry and thought]. Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1986. Balakian, Anna. The Symbolist Movement: A Criticial Appraisal. New York: Random House, 1967. Barzel, Hillel. Shirat Eretz Yisrael: Avraham Shlonsky, Natan Alterman, Leah Goldberg [Poems of the land of Israel: Avraham Shlonsky, Natan Alterman, Leah Goldberg]. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 2001. Bataille, George. Theory of Religion. New York: Zone Books, 1998. Bialik, Ḥaim Naḥman. Kol Shire’i Ḥ. N. Bialik [The collected poems of H. N. Bialik]. Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1997. Calinescu, Matei. Faces of Modernity: Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977.

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 Bibliography

Feldman, Yael. “Yitzḥak o Oedipus? Migdar V’Psykho-politika B’Gilgule’i Ha’Akeda” [Isaac or Oedipus? Gender and psycho-politics in the variations of the binding]. Alpai’im 22 (May 2001): 53–77. Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny” in Sigmund Freud (standard edition) Vol. XVII (1917–1919), 219–256. Translated and edited by James Strachey.. London: Hogarth Press, 1975. —. “The Future of an Illusion” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud Vol. XXI, 5–58. Translated and edited by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press, 1975. Fromm, Erich. Amanut Ha’Ahava [The Art of Loving]. Translated by Dafna Levi. Lod: Maḥbarot l’sifrut, 2001. Gertz, Nurith. Sifrut V’Idi’ologi’a B’Eretz Yisrael B’Shnot HaShloshim [Literature and ideology in the land of Israel in the 1930s]. Tel Aviv: Ha’universita Hapetuḥa, 1988. Gluzman, Michael. The Politics of Canonicity: Lines of Resistance in Modernist Hebrew Poetry. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Golomb, Ya’akov, ed. Nietzsche B’Tarbut Ha’Ivrit [Nietzsche in Hebrew culture]. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2002. Gordon, Aharon David. HaAdam V’HaTeva [Man and nature]. Jerusalem: Hasifri’a hatsi’onit, 1951. Greenberg, Uri Tsvi. Kol Katavav, Krakh Tet Vav [Complete writings, Volume 15]. Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 2004. Hagorni-Green, Avraham. “Milḥamto shel Avraham Shlonsky L’ma’an HeḤadash ben Shte’i Milḥamot Olam” [Avraham Shlonsky’s war for the new between two world wars]. Doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University, 1976. —. Shlonsky B’Avutot Bialik [Shlonsky in the bonds of Bialik]. Tel Aviv: Or-Am, 1986. Halperin, Ḥagit. Me’Agvani’a v’ad Simfoni’a: HaShira HaKala shel Avraham Shlonsky V’Parodiot al Shirato [From tomato to symphony: the light poetry of Avraham Shlonsky and parodies of it]. Tel Aviv: Katz Institute for Research in Hebrew Literature, 1997. Harshav, Binyamin. Introspectivism B’New York: Kolel Mivḥar Shire’i A. Leyeles B’Tirgum MeYiddish [Introspectivism in New York: including a selection of A. Leyeles poetry in Yiddish]. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hame’uḥad, 1997. —, ed. Manifestim shel Modernism [Manifestoes of modernism]. Jerusalem: Carmel, 2001. —. Sadeh U’Misgeret:Masot B’Te’ori’a shel Sifrut [Fields and frames: Essays in the theory of literature and meaning]. Jerusalem: Carmel, 2000. —. Shira Modernit: Mivḥar Tirgumim [Modern poetry: a selection of translations]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1990. Heine, Heinrich. Eretz Ashkenaz: Hagadda shel Stav [Germany. A winter’s tale]. Translated by S. Ben-Tsion. Tel Aviv: Davar, 1938. Keren, Michael. Ben-Gurion and the Intellectuals: Power, Knowledge and Charisma. Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1983. Komem, Aharon. “Hitgalut v’HaParasha: ben Shlonsky L’Bialik”[Revelation and the affair: between Shlonsky and Bialik] in Sefer Shlonsky Bet, Miḥkarim al Avraham Shlonsky V’Yetsirato. Edited by Yisrael Levin. Tel Aviv: Katz Institute for Research in Hebrew Literature, Sifriat Poalim, 1988. Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. —. Tales of Love. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Kurzweil, Baruch. Ḥazut HaMavet V’Harat Olam B’Shire’i Avraham Shlonsky, ben Hazon l’ven Ha’Absurdi [The appearance of death and the fatal day in Avraham Shlonsky’s poetry: between vision and the absurd]. Jerusalem: Schocken, 1973. Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Lamdan, Yitzhak. Kol shire’i Yitzhak Lamdan [The Collected Poems of Yitzhak Lamdan]. Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1973. Laor, Dan. “Shire’i Gilboa V’Ha’Etos shel Ha’Aliyah HaShlishit: He’Arot Petiḥa” [The Gilboa poems and the ethos of the Third Aliyah: opening remarks]. Mozna’im 49 (1979): 134–140. Levin, Yisrael. Ben Gdi L’Sa’ar – Iyunim B’Shirat Shlonsky [Between a kid goat and a tempest – a study of Shlonsky’s poetry]. Merḥavia: Sifriat Poalim/ K’tavim, Hakibbutz Ha’artsi Hashomer Hatsa’ir, 1960. —, ed. Sefer Shlonsky Aleph [Shlonsky Book 1]. Tel Aviv: Katz Institute for Research in Hebrew Literature and Sifri’at Hapoalim, 1981. Marienhof, Anatoly. Roman bli Kezavim [A Novel without Lies]. Merḥavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1970. Mayakovsky, Vladimir. Kakh Giliti et America [My discovery of America]. Translated by Edna Kornfeld. Merḥavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1950. Miron, Dan. Arba Panim B’Sifrut Ha’Ivrit Bat-Yamenu: Iyunim B’Yetsirot Alterman, Ratush, Yizhar, Shamir [Four aspects of contemporary Hebrew literature: studies in the works of Alterman, Ratush, Yizhar, Shamir]. Jerusalem: Shocken, 1978. —. Ḥadashot Me’Eyzor HaKotev: Iyunim B’Shira Ha’Ivrit HaHadasha [News from the pole: studies in new Hebrew poetry]. Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1993. —. Meprat el Ikar: Mivne Genre V’Hagut B’Shirato shel Natan Alterman [From detail to the essential: structure, genre, and thought in Natan Alterman’s poetry]. Tel Aviv, Hakibbutz Hame’uḥad, 1981. —. Noge’ah B’Davar: Masot al Sifrut, Tarbut V’Ḥevra [Concerning: essays on literature, culture and society]. Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 1991. —. “He’arot Ḥadashot L’Maḥloket Yeshana – Al Sefer Avne’i Bohu l’A. Shlonsky U’Svivo” [New remarks about an old controversy – surrounding A. Shlonsky’s book Stones of Void]. Akhshav 29–30 (Fall 1975): 63–91.\ Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Holadatah shel HaTragedi’a [The Birth of Tragedy]. Translated by Yisrael Eldad. Jerusalem: Schocken, 1969. —. Hamada haAliz [The Gay Science]. Translated by Yisrael Eldad. Jerusalem: Schocken, 1969. Netz, Reviel. “Poshte’i HaMadim: al Shirat He’Ḥaruz HeḤadash” [Taking off the uniform: the new rhyming poetry]. Ho! 2 (June 2005): 116–140. Oz, Amos. “Contemporary Hebrew Literature.” Partisan Review 49 (1982): 17. Perry, Menachem. Hamivneh HaSemanti shel Shire’i Bialik: Truma L’Te’oria shel Pitu’aḥ Mashma’uyot B’Retsef HaText HaSifruti [The semantic structure of Bialik’s poems: a contribution to the theory of the development of meanings in the continuity of the literary text]. Tel Aviv: Mifalim Universita’im, 1976. Pomorska, Krystyna. Russian Formalist Theory and its Poetic Ambiance. The Hague: Mouton, 1968. Rachel. “El Ot HaZman.” Davar (March 21, 1926). Said, Edward W. Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays. London: Granta Books, 2000.

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 Bibliography

Shaḥam, Ḥaya. Krovim Reḥokim: Ben-Textuali’ut, Maga’im U’Ma’avakim B’Sifrut Ha’Ivrit HaHadasha [Distant relatives: intertextuality, contacts and struggles in new Hebrew literature]. Beersheba: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2004. —. “Ha’Et Kuvan mul HaYeshimon” [The spade directed against the wilderness]. Mozna’im (May 2000): 28–35. Shamir, Tsila. HaShemesh Hayetah im Hem Ratsu [There was sun if they wanted it]. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1972. Shapira, Anita. “’Black Night – White Snow:’ Attitudes of the Palestinian Labor Movement to the Russian Revolution, 1917–1929” in Studies in Contemporary Jewry an Annual IV: The Jews and the European Crisis 1914–1921, 509–543. Edited by Jonathan Frankel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Shoham, Reuven. “Poetry and Prophecy: The Image of the Poet as a ‘Prophet,” a Hero and an Artist” in Modern Hebrew Poetry. Boston: Leiden, Brill, 2003. Spiegel, Shalom. “Me’Agadot Ha’akeda: Piyut al Sh’ḥitat Yitzḥak V’Teḥiyato L’Rav Efraim M’Boneh” [From tales of the binding: liturgy of Isaac’s sacrifice and revival to Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn]. New York: American Rabbinical College, 1950. Sternberg, Meir. “The Structure of Repetition: Strategies of Informational Redundancy” in The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, 365–440. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1985. Vogel, David. Taḥanot Kabot [Extinguished stations]. Tel Aviv: HaSifri’a Hahadasha, 1990. Yoffe, A. B. Shlonsky: HaMeshorer U’Zmano [Shlonsky: the poet and his time]. Merḥavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1966.

Index of Persons Agnon 46, 67 Alterman, Natan 5, 9, 13, 14, 24, 57, 156, 179, 181, Amichai, Yehuda 162, 170 Barzel, Hillel 27, 28, 147, 151, 171, 207 Bat-Miriam, Yocheved 9 Baudelaire, Charles 159 Bialik, Hayim Nachman 1, 5, 12, 13, 32, 46, 67, 71, 72, 79, 110, 165, 166, 179 Blok, Alexander 31 Blubstein, Rachel 9 Buber, Martin 68, 69 Calinescu, Matei 66 Celine, Louis Ferdinand 182 Eliot, T.S. 10, 17 Feldman, Yael 83, 84 Freud, Sigmund 188 Gluzman, Michael 9, 20, Gogol, Nikolai 62 Goldberg, Leah 57, 61, 181, Gordon, Aharon David 40 Greenberg, Uri Zvi 7, 25, 32, 35, 46, 52, Hagorni-Green, Avraham 6, 67, 110, 179 Halfi, Avraham 5 Halperin, Ḥagit 183 Hoffmann, E.T. A. 147 Kant, Immanuel 75 Katznelson, Berl 54, 114

Kaufmann, Yehezkel 52 Klausner, Yosef 52 Komem, Aharon 71, 72 Kronfeld, Chana 9, 20, Kurzweil, Baruch 77 Lamdan, Yitzchak 47, 59, 60 Laykin, Lucia 172, Leavis, F.R. 10 Levin, Israel 38, 138, 180 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso 27 Mayakovsky, Vladimir 28, 29, 46, 62 Mintz, Yisrael 180 Miron, Dan 5, 9, 10, 20, 23, 24 Nietzsche, Friedeich 99, 189 Penn, Alexander 5 Pound, Ezra 10 Raab, Esther 9 Ratosh, Yonatan 57 Rimbaud, Arthur 121, 122, 130 Sadan, Dov 9, 10 Shamir, Tsila 3, 180-184, 213, 214 Shofman, Gershon 9, 20, 23 Tolstoy, Leo 38, 138, 141, 146 Vogel, David 7, 20, Whitman, Walt 39 Wieseltier, Meir 9, 20, Yoffe, Avraham B. 6, 26, 38, 138, Zach, Natan 9, 13, 14, 20, 24, 156, 162, 170

222 

 Subject Index

Subject Index (Land of) Israel 28, 32, 35, 69, 74, 75 America 29, 32, 33, 162 Anti-Semitism 32, 45, 147 Anxiety 7, 8, 46, 82, 115, 163 Authenticity 5, 9, 10, 23 Binding 77-78, 81-88, 27, 41, 161 Bourgeois 46, 55, 57, 59, 69, 78 Christianity 51, 53, 66 Cold War 157 Deformation 78, 81 Desire 2, 8, 18, 38, 46, 65, 87, 94, 158, 166, 170, 179, 182, 183, 187, 202, 204, 211, 215 Detachment 5, 20 Dream 71, 129, 189, 190, 193, 195, 199, 201, 203, 208 Expressionism 13 Francis of Assisi 185 Freudian 147, 148, 199, 202 Futurism 8, 13, 25-34, 57-64 God 1, 53, 66-69, 71, 2, 74-76, 81, 87, 88, 90, 94, 96-99, 101, 102, 104-106, 123, 128, 129, 140, 173, 174, 179, 183-185, 189, 198, 206, 215 Imagination 16, 79, 200, 211 Immigrants 25-34 Institutions 7, 60, 76, 78, 79 Jesus 51-53, 93, 96, 98, 143, 159 Marxism 36 Masochism 40-42, 45, 46, 51, 55 Metaphor 1, 3, 18, 20, 41, 59, 61, 62, 78, 89, 91, 92, 97, 113, 117, 125, 142, 144, 158, 162, 163, 171, 186, 192, 194 Modernism 6, 7, 13, 14, 36, 53, 59, 111, 149, 162, 163 Modernization 45, 146 Myth 78, 81, 84, 148, 213

Narcissism 1, 55, 62, 156-179 Nazism 137 New Testament 51-54, 96, 106, 143 Nietzschean 1, 154 Nihilism 35-37, 53, 54, 120 Of absence 1-3, 5, 8, 19, 26, 34, 76, 110-136, 156, 170, 179, 187, 203, 214-216 Paris 61, 122, 123, 133-136, 152 pioneer 2, 38, 40-42, 48, 49, 54, 56, 58-60, 62, 69, 74 Poetics of experience 10 Poetry of wit 10 Post-symbolism 26, 46, 57 principle of dialogue Prophet(s) 2, 3, 37, 66, 69, 72, 73, 77, 133, 154, 165, 166, 186-188, 190-193, 200 Realism 7, 24, 59, 71, 120, 194-200 Religion 44, 51, 53, 56, 65-81, 84, 87, 93, 94, 156, 157, 162, 187-189, 215 Romantic poetry 14, 46 Romanticism 45-50, 66, 191 Russian Revolution 36, 37, 113, 215 Sacrilegious, heterodoxy Secularization 66, 67, 77-109, 216 settler Socialism 162 Super-ego 69 Symbolism 13, 26, 51, 55, 57-64 Technology 3, 137, 147 Tel Aviv 8, 54, 57, 59, 60, 61 Time 89, 90, 92, 117, 123-125, 129, 140, 142, 162, 163, 192 Tradition 10, 12, 13, 27, 52, 53, 64-77, 80, 83, 84, 90, 100, 107-109, 148, 156 Uncanny 137-155 Zionism 9, 35-37, 58, 59, 74, 76, 115

Index of Poems and Collections 

 223

Index of Poems and Collections A Cloud in Trousers 62 Ad mot hatsameret (To the canopy pole) Cycle Adamah (Land) Cycle 39 Adir barukh (Blessed might) 174 Akeda (Binding) 27 Al Hasaf (On the threshold) 22-25 Al Hasneh (About the thorn bush) 126 Al ḥeta (For the sin) 133 Al Mil’et (Inlaid with jewels) Collection 43, 156 Ale’i teref (Predatory leaves) 12, Aleh la’anah yarak (He expectorated a wormwood leaf) 132 Amal (Toil) 40-42 Ani v’hu (Me and him) Anokhi (Me) 39, 40, 174 Ari haboker (Lion of the Morning) 203-210 Arve’i Krakh (City evenings) 133 Asafsuf (Rabble) 29-32 Ata koreh l’zeh Nigun (You call this music) 203-210 Avne’i Bohu: Karkhi’el (Stones of Void: Karkhi’el) 110-137 Avne’i Gvil: Kokhve’i Shabbat (Rough stones: Sabbath stars) Collection 173 Avnei Gvil: Tsamrot b’sufah (Rough Stones: Treetops in the Storm) 156-179, 193 Azazel 122 B’alil (Clearly) 173, B’dmi ye’ush (In my silence of despair) 15-17 B’ḥashmalit (By tram) 128-130 B’ḥefazi (In my haste) 1, 5-34, 60, 77, 215 B’kamul hakikayon (On the withering of the castor oil plant) 194, 198 B’ma’agal (In a circle) 116, 118-120 B’nimnum rakhavot (Napping trains) 137 (footnote) B’pnim mulatim (With a covered face) 47 B’regel adishah (With an indifferent foot) 187-190 B’sirah (In the boat) 116, 133 B’taltela (Shaken about) 125 B’Tel-Aviv (In Tel-Aviv) 61, 62, 86 B’Tel-Aviv (In Tel-Aviv) Cycle 56-65 B’ya’ar shel krakh (In an urban forest) 152-155

Beit Netivot(Terminal) 116 Bereshit aḥeret (A different genesis) Cycle 43 Dor bli Donquishotim (A generation without Don Quixotes) 67, 206 Dusi’aḥ al ovdan hamilim (A dialogue about the loss of words) 164-170 Dva’i (Distress or Anguish) Cycle 13, 50, 66 Etz b’ya’ar Boulogne (A tree in Bois de Boulogne) 154, 155 Gilboa 2, 35-57, 60, 61, 69, 116, 174, 215 Gordon 50 211, 212 Ha’erev hamet (The dead evening) 161-163 Haflagah (The sailing) 116 Hamatmid (The persevering one) 79 Ḥatsot (Midnight) Cycle 130 Hayad ha’iveret (The blind hand) 132 Hayofi hamesukan (Dangerous beauty) 149-152 He’adir hagave (Glorifying the dying) 156-158, 162 He’eder ki yigalesh (The herd when it will spill over) 52 Hemshekh l’dusi’aḥ she eyn lo sof (Continuation to a dialogue which has no end) 194 Hen ta’u lehafli (They incredibly erred) 210 Hitgalut (Revelation) 69-73, 177, 186, Honolulu 27-29, 32, 190 Ḥozeh lekh braḥ (O thou seer go flee thee away) 165, Hulin (Worldliness) 136 Hulin (Worldliness) Cycle 78, 81-88, 91 K’feta hasuma (Suddenly Blind) 200-203, 206 Kaneh-suf (Reed) 190-193 Kiryat Namal (Port city) 122-126 Kokhve’i Shabbat (Sabbath stars) 173, 174 Kol eḥad mi shelo (Each one from his one) 185-190 Kru’im anu (We are torn) 57 L’abba-ima or L’abba-ema (For father-mother) 12, 85 Lekh Lekha (Go forth) Collection 1, 2, 56-78, 215 Lekh Lekha (Go forth) Cycle 65-76

224 

 Index of Poems and Collections

Leylot (Nights) Cycle 17-24 Lo Tirtsaḥ (Thou shalt not kill) 29 Lo (No) 122, 126-128 Magen-avot magen banim (The shield of the fathers the shield of the sons) 108 Maḥlakah shlishit (Third class) 116 Mareh dori (My generation’s appearance) 158-161 Masa (Journey) Cycle 116-118 Me’agvani’a v’ad simfonia (From a tomato to a symphony) 44-45 Mesherut b’nakhar (From service in foreign lands) 61 Meshire’i hadusi’aḥ (From the dialogue poems) Cycle 194 Meshirot b’nakhar (From the poems of foreign lands) Cycle 56 Meshorer b’malkhut hashishit (A poet in the sixth kingdom) 54 Meshorer v’tsa’id (A poet and his game) 211 Meshugota’i (My Mistakes) 174-179 Metom Aleph: B’eyn elohim (Perfection 1: Without God) 88-95, 102 Metom Bet: Lahadom (Perfection 2: Such things never happened) 96-100 Metom Dalet: Metom (Perfection 4: Perfection) 102- 107 Metom Gimel: B’sha’ar ha’ashpat (Perfection 3: at the garbage gate) 100-102 Metom (Perfection) Collection 1, 2, 77-109, 156, 215 Metropolis 116, 122 Mevu’ot (Gateways) Cycle 185 Misefer Hayoreh (From the book of the first rain) 156 Montparnasse 116, 122-126, 131 Mul hare’i (Opposite the mirror) 161-164 Ne’um ploni al shkhunato (Said John Doe of his neighborhood) 170-173, 199, 212, Ohaleynu (Our tent) Cycle 52 Oved adamah (Tiller of the soil) 43 Parum ḥultsah (An unraveled shirt) 39 Pegisha (Meeting) 131 Po (Here) Cycle 57 Ra’ananut (Freshness) 11, 37

Rakevet (Train) 57 Re’aḥ kokhavim atikim (Scent of ancient stars) 146-150 Re’i beḥashekhah (A mirror in darkness) 194, 198, 199 Rimbaud – reyo shel Verlaine (Rimbaud – Friend of Verlaine) 120, Sefer Hasulamot: Me shire’i Xu-a-lu (The book of ladders: From the Xu-a-lu poems) 200- 214 Sefer Hasulamot: Sulamot (b’leilah) (The book of ladders: ladders at night) 184-200 Sefer Hasulamot (The Book of Ladders) 1, 3, 180-214 Sha’ot srufot (Wasted hours) 122 Shire’i Hamapolet v’Hapi’yus (Poems of collapse and reconciliation) 138, 139, Shire’i hamerutsah hara’ah (Poems of the bad flight) Cycle 164 Shire’i hapaḥad haribu’a (Songs of Fear Squared) 137-155 Shire’i hashot v’hashoteh (Poems of the whip and the fool) 193 Shire’i Xu-a-lu (The Xu-a-lu poems) 200-213 Shirei Hanakhar (Poems of foreign lands) 12 Stam (Ordinarily) Collection 1, 5-34, Sulamot b’leilah(Ladders at night) 184-200 Ta’anot u’ma’anot (Arguments and responses) 29, 53, 58 Ta’atu’im (Illusions) 57 Taḥav (Moss) 130, 131 Tamror (Road signs) 141 Tefilah al habedut (Prayer for fiction) 173, 174 Tefilah al sod hasi’aḥ (Prayer about the secret of the discourse) 175 Tenuva (Crop) 49-52 Tselem (Image) 80 Tsḥok hasharav b’Paris (The laugh of the heat wave in Paris) 152-155 Tshuvato shel hashotek (The response of the silent one) 164-170 Ula’i at (Maybe you) 210 Yarid (Fair) 32 Yisor (The petrel) 116