Hebrew Literature and Music
- LAST REVIEWED: 11 January 2024
- LAST MODIFIED: 07 January 2025
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199840731-0196
- LAST REVIEWED: 11 January 2024
- LAST MODIFIED: 07 January 2025
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199840731-0196
Introduction
Literature and music have a long entwined history. Since Antiquity, music and poetry (a crystalized form of “literature” or the “poetic”) have been regarded as “twin sisters,” constituting a productive source of creation and inspiration. In the Romantic era (especially German Romanticism), this affinity reached one of its peaks, as demonstrated in the emergence of symbiotic musical-poetic forms and modes of aesthetic expression. From the perspective of cultural history, however, the scope of this relationship is even wider and can be traced back to the overlap between language and music. The compatibility of music and poetry has produced a range of scholarship elaborated in various traditions of knowledge and research disciplines, including semiotics, poetics, aesthetics, musicology, cultural studies, and critical theory. It is well known that sound is a central component of both musical and verbal sign systems. What happens to this sound, however, when we read a story? Moreover, whereas the connection between sounds and poems seems obvious, as shown in the field of research called prosody, which explores various phenomena such as rhythm and alliteration, metric and intonation, the connection between sounds and prose fiction is less obvious. This article focuses on a body of works—theoretical, methodological, and textual—dedicated to the exploration of literature and music relationships in general, in order to understand the relationship between Hebrew literature (including poetry, but mainly prose fiction) and music in particular. Compared to other national literatures, such as French, English, and, above all, German, the scholarly study of Hebrew literature and music is relatively young. Central domains of this study are the employment of sound and acoustic components (i.e., prosody), the incorporation of musical intertexts (i.e., texts that are connected to the realm of music, such as musical terminology, descriptions of music playing, allusions to musical repertoire and themes), and the shaping of analogies between musical forms and narrative structures (i.e., the sonata form or the counterpoint). Hebrew literature also has a history, of course, from the Bible and other ancient texts to medieval Hebrew poetry and up to modern Hebrew and contemporary Israeli literature. Viewing these poetic traditions through the specific lens of language/literature and music relationships, an emerging field of study dealing with representations of music in modern Hebrew and Israeli prose fiction will be discussed, alongside scholarship on the relationship between Hebrew poetry and music.
General Overviews
The scholarship on the affinity between music and Jewish thought in general, and Hebrew literature in particular, is relatively young. Schwartz 2013 mentions the need for further investigation and elaboration of different aspects in the field. One can discuss the stages of this research and ongoing developments within various methodological and theoretical contexts, which examine language and music relationships: structural and post-structural, semiotic, psychoanalytical, gender and critical theory. A more specific study of the relationship between literature and music emerged in the twentieth century, mainly in the work Brown 1948, whose author mapped the field influences of music on literature, influences of literature on music, and intersection of the two systems. Following him, Scher 1968 engages with the representations of music in German narrative fiction, which was highly inspired by Wagner (Wagner 2019) and Nietzsche (Nietzsche 1999). Such studies are relevant to the inquiry into music and Hebrew literature, ranging from the Bible, the Oral Law, the Kabbalah, and medieval Jewish exegeses up to the writing of modern poets, authors, and thinkers. This scholarly stream includes Harshav 1971, which explores prosodic elements in Hebrew poetry from the ancient and medieval piyut (liturgical poem) to modern poetry, as well as more recent studies on music and Jewish/Hebrew poetics: Idel 1982 on Jewish mysticism, HaCohen 2006 on Israeli song culture, and Balaban and Wagner 2014 and Ben-Horin 2015 on Hebrew narrative fiction.
Balaban, Yael, and Naphtali Wagner. “Musical Moments in Literature.” Dappim: Research in Literature 19 (2014): 300–350.
This essay offers a wide range of typologies concerning musical manifestations in literary works, including an introduction to theoretical perspectives on literary-music studies. In Hebrew.
Ben-Horin, Michal. “The Secular and Its Dissonance in Modern Jewish Literature.” In Secularism in Question: Jews and Judaism in Modern Times. Edited by Ari Joskowicz and Ethan B. Katz, 115–141. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
DOI: 10.9783/9780812291513-008
The essay discusses the role of music as theme, texture, and structure in the emergence of modern Hebrew poetry and prose, including, among others, the work of Kenaz, Hendel, and Hoffmann.
Brown, Calvin S. Music and Literature: A Comparison of the Arts. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1948.
A seminal study in the field of music and literature relationships dealing with several central domains: the influence of music on literature, literature in vocal music, the effects of literature on program music, and musical manifestations in literature.
HaCohen, Ruth Pinczower. “‘To Hear Singing and Prayer’: The Move from Words to Music and from Music to Words in Israeli Song Culture.” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 20 (2006): 13–37.
HaCohen employs musicological theories in a cultural analysis of the Israeli song. In Hebrew.
Harshav, Benjamin (Hrushovski). “The Hebrew Rhyme from Piyut Until Today.” Ha-Sifrut/Literature: Theory - Poetics - Hebrew and Comparative Literature 2.4 (1971): 721–749.
This essay discusses the structural component of music-poetry relationships and lucidly presents the basic principles of Hebrew rhyme from medieval Hebrew poetry to Israeli poetry in the second half of the twentieth century. In Hebrew.
Idel, Moshe. “Music and Prophetic Kabbalah.” Yuval 4 (1982): 150–169.
A comprehensive definition of the musical manifestations in the literature of the Kabbalah, and the role of acoustic and sound components in the prophetic repertoire in particular.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “The Birth of Tragedy.” In The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings. Edited by Raymond Geuss and Roland Speirs. Translated by Roland Speirs, 1–116. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Nietzsche’s essential essay traces, from a philological and philosophical perspective, the cultural history of the relationships between image/word and sound, literature and music as they are reflected in theatrical works from classical tragedy to Wagner’s modern music dramas. Originally published 1872.
Scher, Steven P. Verbal Music in German Literature. London and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968.
A pioneering work on portrayals of music in German novels.
Schwartz, Dov. Music in Jewish Thought. Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar Ilan University Press, 2013.
A panoramic survey and insightful exploration of the historical and cultural forms of music’s embodiments and applications in various periods and schools of Jewish thought, including literature in Hebrew, and an analysis of religious Zionist literature. In Hebrew.
Wagner, Richard. “Opera and Drama.” Translated by William Ashton Ellis. 2019.
In this programmatic text, Wagner clarifies the intense relationship between sounds and words, music and verbal text, which is fundamental to his perception of the music drama and the opera of the future. Originally published 1852.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Abraham Isaac Kook
- Aggadah
- Agudat Yisrael
- Ahad Ha' am
- American Hebrew Literature
- American Jewish Artists
- American Jewish Literature
- American Jewish Sociology
- Ancient Anti-Semitism
- An-sky (Shloyme Zanvil Rapoport)
- Anthropology of the Jews
- Anti-Semitism, Modern
- Apocalypticism and Messianism
- Aramaic
- Archaeology, Second Temple
- Archaeology: The Rabbinic Period
- Art, Synagogue
- Austria, The Holocaust In
- Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867-1918
- Baron, Devorah
- Biblical Archaeology
- Biblical Literature
- Bratslav/Breslev Hasidism
- Buber, Martin
- Buczacz
- Bukharan Jews
- Canada
- Central Asia, Jews in
- Chagall, Marc
- China
- Chofetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan) and his Mishna Be...
- Classical Islam, Jews Under
- Cohen, Hermann
- Culture, Israeli
- David Ben-Gurion
- David Bergelson
- Dead Sea Scrolls
- Death, Burial, and the Afterlife
- Debbie Friedman
- Demography
- Deuteronomy
- Dietary Laws
- Dubnov, Simon
- Dutch Republic: 17th-18th Centuries
- Early Modern Period, Christian Yiddishism in the
- Eastern European Haskalah
- Economic Justice in the Talmud
- Edith Stein
- Emancipation
- Emmanuel Levinas
- England
- Environment, Judaism and the
- Eruv
- Ethics, Jewish
- Ethiopian Jews
- Exiting Orthodox Judaism
- Feminism
- Film
- Folklore
- Folktales, Jewish
- Food
- Forverts/Forward
- Frank, Jacob
- Gender and Modern Jewish Thought
- Germany, Early Modern
- Ghettos in the Holocaust
- Goldman, Emma
- Golem
- Graetz, Heinrich
- Hasidism
- Hasidism, Lubavitch
- Haskalah
- Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) Literature
- Hebrew
- Hebrew Bible, Blood in the
- Hebrew Bible, Memory and History in the
- Hebrew Literature and Music
- Hebrew Literature Outside of Israel Since 1948
- History, Early Modern Jewish
- History of the Holocaust
- Holocaust in France, The
- Holocaust in Germany, The
- Holocaust in Poland, The
- Holocaust in the Netherlands, The
- Holocaust in the Soviet Union, The
- (Holocaust) Memorial Books
- Holocaust Museums and Memorials
- Holocaust, Philosophical and Theological Responses to the
- Holocaust Survivors, Children of
- Humor, Jewish
- Ibn Ezra, Abraham
- Indian Jews
- Isaac Bashevis Singer
- Israel Ba'al Shem Tov
- Israel, Crime and Policing in
- Israel, Jewish Communities in
- Israel, Religion and State in
- Israeli Economy
- Israeli Film
- Israeli Literature
- Israel's Society
- Italian Jewish Enlightenment
- Italian Jewish Literature (Ninth to Nineteenth Century)
- Jewish American Children's Literature
- Jewish American Women Writers in the 18th and 19th Centuri...
- Jewish Bible Translations
- Jewish Children During the Holocaust
- Jewish Collaborators in the Holocaust
- Jewish Culture, Children and Childhood in
- Jewish Diaspora
- Jewish Economic History
- Jewish Education
- Jewish Folklore, Chełm in
- Jewish Genetics
- Jewish Heritage and Cultural Revival in Poland
- Jewish Morocco
- Jewish Names
- Jewish Studies, Dance in
- Jewish Territorialism (in Relation to Jewish Studies)
- Jewish-Christian Polemics Until the 15th Century
- Jews and Animals
- Joseph Ber Soloveitchik
- Josephus, Flavius
- Judaism and Buddhism
- Kafka, Franz
- Kalonymus Kalman Shapira
- Karaism
- Khmelnytsky/Chmielnitzki
- Kibbutz, The
- Kiryas Joel and Satmar
- Ladino
- Languages, Jewish
- Late Antique (Roman and Byzantine) History
- Latin American Jewish Studies
- Law, Biblical
- Law in the Rabbinic Period
- Lea Goldberg
- Legal Circumventions in Rabbinic Law
- Life Cycle Rituals
- Literature Before 1800, Yiddish
- Literature, Hellenistic Jewish
- Literature, Holocaust
- Literature, Latin American Jewish
- Literature, Medieval
- Literature, Modern Hebrew
- Literature, Rabbinic
- Magic, Ancient Jewish
- Maimonides, Moses
- Maurice Schwartz
- Medieval and Renaissance Political Thought
- Medieval Anti-Judaism
- Medieval Islam, Jews under
- Meir, Golda
- Menachem Begin
- Mendelssohn, Moses
- Messianic Thought and Movements
- Middle Ages, the Hebrew Story in the
- Midrash
- Minority Literatures in Israel
- Minsk
- Modern Germany
- Modern Hebrew Poetry
- Modern Jewish History
- Modern Kabbalah
- Moses Maimonides: Mishneh Torah
- Music, East European Jewish Folk
- Music, Jews and
- Nathan Birnbaum
- Nazi Germany, Kristallnacht: The November Pogrom 1938 in
- Neo-Hasidism
- New Age Judaism
- New York City
- North Africa
- Orthodoxy
- Orthodoxy, Post-World War II
- Palestine/Israel, Yiddish in
- Palestinian Talmud/Yerushalmi
- Philo of Alexandria
- Piyyut
- Poetry in Spain, Hebrew
- Poland, 1800-1939
- Poland, Hasidism in
- Poland Until The Late 18th Century
- Politics and Political Leaders, Israeli
- Politics, Modern Jewish
- Prayer and Liturgy
- Purity and Impurity in Ancient Israel and Early Judaism
- Queer Jewish Texts in the Americas
- Rabbi Yeheil Michel Epstein and his Arukh Hashulchan
- Rabbinic Exegesis (Midrash) and Literary Theory
- Race and American Judaism
- Rashi's Commentary on the Bible
- Reform Judaism
- Revelation
- Ritual Objects and Folk Art
- Rosenzweig, Franz
- Russia
- Russian Jewish Culture
- Sabbath
- Sabbatianism
- Sacrifice in the Bible
- Safed
- Sarah Schenirer and Bais Yaakov
- Scholem, Gershom
- Second Temple Period, The
- Sephardi Jews
- Sexuality and the Body
- Shlomo Carlebach
- Shmuel Yosef Agnon
- Shulhan Arukh and Sixteenth Century Jewish Law, The
- Sociology, European Jewish
- South African Jewry
- Soviet Union, Jews in the
- Soviet Yiddish Literature
- Space in Modern Hebrew Literature
- Spinoza, Baruch
- Sutzkever, Abraham
- Talmud and Philosophy
- Talmud, Narrative in the
- The Druze Community in Israel
- The Early Modern Yiddish Bible, 1534–1686
- The General Jewish Workers’ Bund
- The Modern Jewish Bible, Facets of
- Theater, Israeli
- Theme, Exodus as a
- Tractate Avodah Zarah (in the Talmud)
- Translation
- Translation in Hebrew Literature, Traditions of
- United States
- Venice
- Vienna
- Vilna
- Walter Benjamin
- Warsaw
- Weinreich, Max
- Wissenschaft des Judentums
- Women and Gender Relations
- World War II Literature, Jewish American
- Yankev Glatshteyn/Jacob Glatstein
- Yemen, The Jews of
- Yiddish
- Yiddish Avant-garde Theater
- Yiddish Linguistics
- Yiddish Literature since 1800
- Yiddish Theater
- Yiddish Women's Fiction
- Zamenhof
- Ze’ev Jabotinsky
- Zionism from Its Inception to 1948