Biblical poetry such as theSong of the Sea and theSong of Deborah may be considered early examples of Jewishepic poetry, though very short by normal epic standards. Both songs are compared by scholars to Canaanite and Assyrian epic poetry.[1][2]
There are a few medieval and later works, some translations or adaptations of works in other languages, and other adaptations of Biblical material. It is fair to say that few of these achieved very wide or lasting fame, even within the Jewish community. The most lasting were composed inYiddish. It has been argued that Jewish attitudes discouraged the promotion of hero figures, generally a feature of the epic form. It has also been argued that few if any of the works mentioned below are truly epic, if only on the grounds of length.
Ezekiel the Tragedian was a Jewish dramatist who lived, according to some scholars, in the 3rd century BCAlexandria, and who wrote the five-act epic dramaExagōgē. It's written iniambictrimeter, retelling of the biblical story of The Exodus from Egypt. Moses is the main character of the play, and parts of the biblical story have been altered to suit the narrative's needs. This drama is unique in blending the biblical story with the Hellenistic tragic drama. Although it survives only in fragments found in the writings ofEusebius,Clement of Alexandria, andPseudo-Eustathius, the extensive quotations by these writers make possible the assembly of 269 lines of text, about 20-25% of the whole.
Two medieval Jewish communities are notable for producing their own epic works: theIranian andAshkenazi Jews. According to Vera Basch Moreen, Judeo-Persian literature is the product of the confluence of two mighty literary and religious streams, the Jewish Biblical and post-Biblical heritage and the Persian literary legacy.[3] Examples of Jewish-Persian Biblical-themed epic poems include 14th centuryMūsā-nāmeh,Ezra-nāmeh andBereshit-nāmeh byMaulānā Shāhīn;Fatḥ-nāmeh andḤanukā-nāma byʿEmrāni (15th century).[4]
14th-16th century AshkenaziYiddish epic poems may be divided into 2 major categories: Jewish-themed compositions fusing Biblical andMidrashic material influenced by Germanic epics, especiallyThe Song of the Nibelungs, and Jewish-flavored variants of Arthurian, German and Middle English epics. The first category includesShmuel-Bukh, a midrashic verse epic characterized bySol Liptzin as the greatest Old Yiddish religious epic, andMlokhim-Bukh ("The Book of Kings"), which fuses Biblical material, Midrashic legends, and rabbinical folklore with European chivalric poetry. Both works, strongly resembling the Nibelungenlied, inspired a series of other Yiddish epic poems.
The second category includesDukus Horant, a heroic epic in Judeo-German (Proto-Yiddish) with thematic similarities to the German poemKudrun found in the earliest Yiddish literary manuscript from 1384. In the early 16th centuryElia Levita published hisBovo-Bukh, a Yiddish version ofSir Bevis of Hampton. Some characters in Levita's work were turned by the author's into Jews; the book remained the most popularchivalric romance in Yiddish up until the 19th century. Another example of once popular epic isVidvilt orKinig Artis houf, a Yiddish version of theMiddle High German epicWigalois. Despite the fact that the contents of such works are unrelated to Jews, they were perceived by the Ashkenazi Jews as an integral part of their cultural and literary tradition.[5][6]
Isidore Singer, the managing editor of the early 20th centuryJewish Encyclopedia, argued that though an abundance of historical reminiscence and legend lay in the storehouse ofJewish literature, none of it was built intoepic poems until relatively recently. Religious and secular poets often treated of such subjects asAbraham andIsaac and thenear sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah,Jacob andJoseph and the story of their lives,Moses andAaron and the departure fromEgypt,Joshua and the entrance intoCanaan,Jeremiah and the fall ofJerusalem,Elijah the Prophet, etc. These, however, are often considered only poems with an epic coloring. Singer claimed that a "pure epic poem according to the rules of art" was not produced during theMiddle Ages.
According to Singer, "the stern character of Jewishmonotheism prevented the rise ofhero-worship, without which real epic poetry is impossible". Subsequent research refuted most of Isidore Singer's assumptions on the subject as antiquated misconceptions. It's worth to mention that several European epic poems, includingThe Song of Roland,The Lay of the Cid andThe Song of the Nibelungs were produced in Christian societies, which also "prevented the rise of hero-worship" while encouraging veneration and glorification of heroes and saints. Similarly, the Muslim culture of Iran did not preventFerdowsi from writing hisShahnameh, which inspired numerous Persian-Jewish epic poems. Both Judeo-Persian and Ashkenazi tradition of epic poetry continued to flourish and develop in the 17th century.
In the 16th century, theKabbalistrabbi Mordecai ben Judah Dato wrote the epicIstoria di Ester (Story of Esther) composed inottava rima. A Portugueseconverso poet, Miguel de Silveyra (c. 1578–1638), composed a Spanish baroque epic El Macabeo (The Maccabean).
Antonio Enríquez Gómez, a Spanishcrypto-Jew, was one of the first Jewish modern epic authors who wrote (Sansón Nazareno: Poema heróico, a Spanish-language heroic epic version of theSamson story),[7][8] followed closely bySolomon de Oliveira's epic ("Elat Ahabim," Amsterdam, 1665). One of the first modern Jewish epic poets wasN. H. Wessely with his Moses-themes "Shire Tif'eret" (Berlin, 1789–1802), an epic on theExodus from Egypt. According to Isidore Singer, the influence of a similar work by the German poetFriedrich Gottlieb Klopstock on is evident. Next to him standsShalom Kohn with his "Ner David", an epic poem on KingDavid (Vienna, 1834). The influence of these two epics on the readers and poets of that time was considerable.
In addition the following poets may be mentioned from that and the succeeding period:Issachar Bär Schlesinger ("Ha-Ḥashmona'im," Prague, 1817);Samuel Molder ("Beruriya," Amsterdam, 1825);Süsskind Raschkow ("Ḥayye Shimshon," Breslau, 1824);Gabriel Pollak ("Ha-Keritot," Amsterdam, 1834, and "Ḳiḳayon le-Yonah," ib. 1853); andHirsch Wassertrilling ("HadratElisha'," Breslau, 1857, and "Nezer Ḥamodot," ib. 1860). Works of this sort have been written byM. I. Lebensohn,Judah Leib Gordon ("Ahavat David u-Mikal", Wilna, 1856, and vols. iii. and iv. of his collected works,St. Petersburg, 1883),Chaim N. Bialik, andS. Tschernichowski.[9]