Self-Portraits in the Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch
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Lamentations of a Lovelorn Soul: Self-portraits in the Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch by Laura Wiseman A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. Hebrew Language and Literature Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations University of Toronto © Copyright by Laura Wiseman 2010 Lamentations of a Lovelorn Soul: Self-portraits in the Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch Laura Wiseman Ph.D. Hebrew Language and Literature Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations University of Toronto 2010 Abstract The poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch presents as self-writing nestled in the wide embrace of non-linear écriture féminine. Each poem offers a glimpse of the persona: body and soul, the music of her voice and the perspective of her spirit. Together the poems comprise verbal self-portraits of a lovelorn soul, torn between impulses to fully remember and deliberately forget. Through years of love, life, disappointment, bouts of depression and renewed promise, Dahlia Ravikovitch continued to compose. Through the crystals of poetry the speaker examines, from varying angles and in multiple refractions of light, those figures of alterity who are her self. For Ravikovitch poetry was the only neutral space in which her self could comfortably exist and, even so, not always. The poet-persona experiences love in unsuitable proportions. She receives too little; she goes ‘overboard’ and ‘out of bounds’ in giving too much. She experiences love, even when accessible, as an affliction. She suffers love. She laments love. ii The persona performs her malaise through contrasting physical sensations, idiosyncrasies and profound cravings. Her personal thermostat is erratic. She exhibits pronounced wardrobe-predilections. Her throat reacts to a flow of eros and creative vitality or lack thereof. She yearns for pure memory and thirsts for pure essence. The speaker’s gallery displays an elaborate montage of a golden apple endowed with gifts of wisdom, eros, poetry and passion, alongside portraits of a royal chanteuse and a skilled scribe. Crucial brushstrokes illuminate lovers and sinners, souls in flames, shipwrecks, lyric-expressive throats in various states of constriction and release, as well as voices of collective responsibility. Ravikovitch encrypts her poetry with rich resources of biblical, rabbinic, medieval and early modern Hebrew literature. She forwards the linguistic and literary resonance of these layers. She innovates upon their motifs through feats in the dimensions of feminine writing, intertextual engagements and postmodern poetics. iii Acknowledgments It really does ‘take a village’ to educate individuals and support their pursuits. I would like to thank the following significant ‘villagers’ for their teaching, care and help: Professor Harry Fox for promoting wide-angled perspectives in connecting modern Hebrew literature to its underpinnings in sifrut hazal, especially Talmud and Midreshei aggada; Professor Tirzah Meacham for sharing her approaches to a wealth of classical texts, including Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmudim, Midreshei halakha and Palestinian Aramaic targumim; Professor Libby Garshowitz for her ever-present support and invaluable advice; her passion for Hebrew language and literature of all eras has nourished my own love of Hebrew poetry and belles lettres; Professors Tamar Hess of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hamutal Tsamir of Ben Gurion University of the Negev, who each met with me and compared notes on best- loved older and newer articles, including their own, about the poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch; Professor Ilana Szobel for pointing me in the right direction for reading and for leaving the door open for future consultation; Ido Kalir for generously sharing his memories and impressions of his mother, Dahlia Ravikovitch; Ira Garshowitz, whose professionalism and sociability as a journalist opened many doors for my research appointments in Israel; Andrea and Charles Bronfman for supporting those endeavours; iv Nahman Raz, Rut Ziv and Miryam Gil of Qevutzat Geva for their candid recollections of Dahlia Ravikovitch and family; Orly Castel-Bloom for her anecdotes about friendship and editing with Dahlia Ravikovitch, as well as their mutual appreciation for the musicality of language; Yael Dayan for her vital support for the artist and for introducing me to Orly; Billi and Carmit, of Israel’s Channel One Archives, who facilitated the retrieval and screening of Ravikovitch’s television interviews; Miriam Bessin, a former student, now colleague in the field of Jewish Education, who painstakingly vocalized the Hebrew poetry; Anna Sousa, whose refined manner and good graces are the public face of NMC; My daughter Rachel, who worked alongside me on winter days with a computer missing its “e”; My son Noah, who surprised me with a big blue wagon to haul all the library books; My mother Marcy, whose encouragement has been unflagging from as far away as her archaeological field-work in the Dakhleh Oasis; My father Yona, zikhrono li-verakha, who insisted on U of T; even when his strength was dwindling, he would send me home to do schoolwork; Aharon, aharon, vetamid haviv, Barry, behir libbi, whose gentle soul, quick wit and understanding heart have made this work possible. v Dahlia Ravikovitch: About the Poet Dahlia Ravikovitch was born in 1936 to Mikhal and Levi Ravikovitch. Mikhal was a teacher whose family had lived in one of the earliest homes built in the Me’a She‘arim1 area of Jerusalem. Levi, né Leo, was an engineer who had made his way to Israel from Russia following a sojourn in China. Dahlia Ravikovitch spent her early childhood in Ramat Gan. At age six she became the big sister of brothers Amiram and Ahiqam. Barely six months later, Dahlia’s father was struck down by a drunk driver, a fact kept concealed from the child for approximately two years. Well-meaning friends convinced Mikhal that it would then be easier to raise her family in the supportive environment of a kibbutz. Kibbutz Geva became home to the family. Nahman Raz, former member of Israel’s parliament, now kibbutz librarian and archivist, had recently finished the Geva jubilee book when he used it to take me on a visual tour of the family’s history at the kibbutz. Mikhal worked in the kibbutz school and was known there as a colourful character who made a few waves in her time. The twins were the subjects of much attention and affection, and adjusted easily to their new surroundings. Dahlia had a much more difficult time entering the zealously guarded social circle, routine, and work ethic of kibbutz society. She was held at arm’s length as yelidat hutz – one born outside of the kibbutz precincts. The delayed traumatic discovery of her father’s death, her artistic, sometimes dreamy demeanour, as well as issues with the conformity called for by kibbutz life, all contributed to Ravikovitch’s extreme discomfort in that setting.2 1 This information emerged from an interview of Ido Kalir that I conducted in Neve Tzedeq on July 28, 2008: [DR Interview: Ido Kalir]. 2 This information emerged from an interview of Nahman Raz [DR Interview: Nahman Raz] that I conducted in the library of Kibbutz Geva [Qevutzat Geva] on July 31, 2008. Also in attendance were Rut Ziv and Miryam Gil. I retained a digitally recorded sound file with their permission. Rut had worked in the kibbutz school office during Mikhal’s work there. Miryam, a year older than the poet, had been in the same group as Dahlia Ravikovitch for kibbutz activities. She recalled that Dahlia enjoyed Israeli folk dancing. vi Newspaper reportage printed in August 2006, the summer of the poet’s first yahrtzeit,3 coincides with the content of some not-entirely-fictional short stories that Dahlia produced: Ravikovitch suffered distressing treatment at the hands of a kibbutz adult who promoted escalation of social sanctions against her by her peers, and robbed her of a voice in personal matters.4 By the age of thirteen Ravikovitch left the kibbutz and spent her adolescence in the care of several foster families in Haifa. Following truncated service in the Israel Defense Forces, Dahlia attended university and came into her own as a poet and writer, lover and mother. Dahlia Ravikovitch was well-read in the classics of the Hebrew literary canon, particularly bible. She gained access to some aggadic and some halakhic literature of the Sages through commentaries and conventional compendia. She learned the Hebrew poetry of Golden Age Spain, as well as bible commentaries and philosophy of that era. She was fully conversant with the work of early modern Hebrew poets and writers such as Bialik, the work of earlier colleagues such as Leah Goldberg, Rachel and Esther Raab, and the poetry of contemporaries such as Yehuda Amichai, Yona Wallach and Natan Zach. Ravikovitch’s reading encompassed Greek mythology and the legends of the far-east. She was also well acquainted with a collage of belles lettres and literary criticism in English ranging from the work of Shakespeare to that of Yeats, from T.S. Eliot to Antoine de Saint Exupéry; from Emily Dickenson to Scottish ballads, not to mention fairy tales and operas. Ravikovitch’s knowledge of world literature is clearly far-reaching. She was as ‘at home’ with a biblical hapax legomenon as she was with postmodern literary theory. Her own writing spans more than five decades. Dahlia is survived by a charming son Ido who recalls her love and honours her memory. From the cozy corner booth of his favourite haunt in Neve Tzedeq, Ido Kalir depicted his early childhood memories of a creative mother whom he described as determined and 3 Yahrtzeit is a Yiddish term for the annual commemoration of an individual’s date of death. 4 See for example: Dahlia Ravikovitch, “Ha-tribunal shel ha-hofesh ha-gadol,” [“The Summer Vacation Tribunal,”] Mavet ba-mishpaha [A Death in the Family] (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1982) 34-65.