The Path Leading to the Abyss: Hebrew and Yiddish in the Poetry Of

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The Path Leading to the Abyss: Hebrew and Yiddish in the Poetry of

Yaakov Steinberg 1903-1915

Elazar Elhanan

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014

Elazar Elhanan

ABSTRACT

The Path Leading to the Abyss: Hebrew and Yiddish in the Poetry of

Yaakov Steinberg 1903-1915.

Elazar Elhanan

This dissertation explores the dynamics of identity construction and nation building in

Hebrew and Yiddish literature in Russia and Poland in the decade following the 1905 revolution.

It examines these dynamics through a study of the poetry of Yaakov Steinberg between the years

1903-1915. Steinberg, an important but little studied poet and writer, wrote extensively in both languages. He renounced Yiddish upon his immigration to Palestine.

Through the comparison of Steinberg’s Hebrew poems and the poems he wrote in Yiddish this dissertation exposes the intricate relations between the languages and the political ideologies of Yiddishism and Zionism that accompanied them, in Steinberg’s work and in general. The dissertation shows how the constitution of a modern national subject became the prime concern for these literatures, both as a general ideological demand and as a personal, emotional question.

By placing the conflict between the two language ideologies in the center of the debate, this dissertation seeks to point out to a serious methodological lacuna in the study of Hebrew literature and of Zionist history. By placing Yaakov Steinberg’s poetry in a wide polyglot context and defining his bilingualism as a fundamental characteristic and a major theoretic concern, this work seeks to demonstrate the depth and span of the discourse on the future of the

Jews, as individuals or as a nation, that took place in the revolutionary space of turn of the century Russia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ii

Introduction. 1

Chapter I. 38

Part 1. Poems: the romantic foundations. 38

Part 2. The Book of Satires: the romantic self and the poetics of separation. 57

Part 3. The Book of Lonelinesses and the Aesthetics of Decadence 83

Chapter II. Yiddish Poems 112

Part 1. Poems 1903-1909: negotiating the romantic self. 112

Part 2. Yiddish poems 1910-1914: the decadent persona 163

Chapter III. Rusland 184

Chapter IV- Massa Avisholem 237

Discussion 286

Bibliography 291

Works by Yaakov Steinberg. 291

Works consulted: 294

Acknowledgments

My first and most profound debt of gratitude is to Dan Miron whose work is a constant source of inspiration for me. As my dissertation advisor his encyclopedic knowledge, critical eye, intellectual sophistication and wit were invaluable in the formation and development of my work. I would also like to express my profound gratitude to Hannan Hever, who accompanied me throughout this process. Hever’s careful reading of my work and his precise remarks in all matters of literary theory, nationalism and nation-building were of great value but it was his friendship, kindness and attention that were priceless. I would like to thank Uri S. Cohen who accompanied me from my first day in Columbia was there for every station of this road.

I would like to thank Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan who had read my work with attention, care and severity as only a loving mother would and to whom I owe a debt of gratitude as large as only a loving son could. Likewise I would like to thank my family that stood by me, encouraged me and supported me all along. A special thanks goes to my friends. Without their support, love and care none of this would have been possible.

Last but not least I wish to thank my partner Neta Hemo, who was the one who actually saw me through this thing to its end.

Introduction.

This dissertation is a study of the literary dynamics and ideologies in Hebrew and Yiddish in the first decades of the 20th century. The study looks at the relation of these literatures to both the political ideologies of Zionism and Yiddishism and the major aesthetic debates of the time: the question of cultural nationalism and romanticism, individualism and decadence, and modernism as it is personified in the work of Yaakov Steinberg. Yaakov Steinberg is an important but little studied poet and writer. He was a prominent figure in the literary scene, both in Hebrew and in Yiddish. Steinberg found himself, like many other writers at the time, forced to choose between the two languages. The study examines closely the poetry Yaakov Steinberg published in Hebrew and Yiddish before his immigration to Palestine in 1914 and reads it as the intersection of two vectors. The first is Steinberg’s relation to the modernist, pessimist and decadent poetic climate in which he functioned. Opposing that is his commitment to the project of national liberation, either in Hebrew or in Yiddish, which demanded very different poetics.

We shall claim that these different poetic positions were an effort to legitimize Steinberg’s own precarious notion of the poet in society and in the context of national literature. This research shows how Steinberg produced sets of poetic expression: a major critical one in Hebrew that opposed the reclusive critical hedonist to the demands of the national literature, and a minor one in Yiddish, which presented a softer lyrical, sentimental speaker contending with the contradiction between modernity and romanticism. It is our contention that Steinberg attempted to form, in either language, a personal expression that would allow him to participate in the national project while not effacing his particular identity or his objections to its romantic premises.

1. Yaakov Steinberg

Yaakov Steinberg (1887-1947) was born in a small Ukrainian town Bialya-Cherkov near

Kiev, to a lower middle class family. He received traditional Jewish education in the kheder and then the yeshiva, the rabbinical school. At fourteen he ran away from home and came to Odessa.

In Odessa, as a novice poet, Steinberg sought out Bialik and his circle “for material and spiritual aid”. He published his first poem in Hebrew in 1901 and his first Yiddish poem in 1903. In 1903, after two years in Odessa, a period marked by hunger and strife that left its mark on his work,

Steinberg moved to Warsaw. 1 There he found a translator’s post in the short-lived Hebrew language Zionist daily Ha’zofe, which also published his first stories.2 The young poet frequented Y.L. Perets’ circle of Yiddish writers and attended his Thursday parties, fashioned after Mallarmé’s.3 His first book of Hebrew poems was published in 1905, entitled Poems.

Steinberg first book was celebrated as a major event. It received wide acclaims, most important of which was H.N. Bialik’s high opinion of it.

Steinberg left Warsaw between 1905 and 1906. He traveled to Bren in an unsuccessful attempt to study medicine and then to the region of Kiev to escape the political unrest that followed the failed revolution. He later returned to Warsaw, which became his home base until his departure to Palestine. During this time Steinberg was employed in “Der Fraynd”, the

1 Israel Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg: Ha-Ish Vi-Yetsirato ([Tel-Aviv]: Devir, 1972), 16-19.

2 Tsiporah Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg (1991), Thesis/dissertation (deg); Microfiche (mfc); Microfilm (mfl), 13.

3 Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg: Ha-Ish Vi-Yetsirato. 19

important Yiddish periodical where he would publish a great deal of his Yiddish work.4 In

Hebrew he published mostly in the journal “Reshafim” and in other periodicals. The publishing house “Sifrut” that owned “Reshafim” published two collections of Steinberg’s poems from those years: The Book of Satires and The Book of Lonelinesses.5 These books were badly received and were viewed as a misguided detour from the high road indicated in Steinberg’s first book.6 Besides poetry he also published prose work and drama in different Hebrew and Yiddish periodicals. Between 1906 and 1914 Steinberg became a prolific Yiddish prose writer, overshadowing his Yiddish work in drama and poetry.7 In 1909 he publishes the book Collected

Writings, a collection of works in prose and poetry in Yiddish.8 During that year he published nine stories in different publications. Over the next three years he published a play and no less than fourteen stories in Yiddish. 9 Steinberg’s Yiddish poetry was published sporadically in different periodicals and dailies between 1903 and 1909. This period was followed by “the years of bounty” between 1910 and 1914 when the bulk of his prose and poetry work in Yiddish was published.10 This most likely due to his association with the daily “Der Fraynd”, which even

4 Ibid. 20-21

5 Jacob Steinberg, Sefer Ha-Satirot, Shirim, Bibliotekah Shel Sifrut; (Varshah: Hotsaat "Sifrut,"

Place: Poland; Warsaw, 1909); Sefer Ha-Bedidot : Shirim(Varshah: Hotsat "Safrut", 1910).

6 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg, 15-16.

7 Zalman Niger Samuel Rejzen, Leksikon Fun Der Yudisher Literatur Un Prese, Steven

Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library (Varshoy: Tsentral, 674, 2003). 601-04

8 Jacob Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften. (Varsha: Velt bibliotek, 1908).

9 Aharon Komem, Darkhe Ha-Sipur Shel Ya`Akov Shtainberg (Yerushalayim: [.h. mo l.], 1976), Thesis/dissertation (deg), 37.

10 Ibid.

published a supplement dedicated to his work. Steinberg’s work includes several dozens of short poems, one long Bialik-like epic poem, three other longer works and his chef-d’oeuvre, a long narrative poem Rusland, which was serialized in 1911 in “Der Fraynd” and was later published in a book form with a preface by the known critique Bal-Makhshoves.11 He received acclaims for his Yiddish poetry from prominent figures such as Avrom Reyzin. However, the works he published in the Yiddish press, daily and periodicals was often ignored and in its larger part, never collected.12

Aharon Komem lists three traumatic experiences that appear as autobiographical in

Steinberg’s stories. The childhood of hardship and hunger, the critical attacks on his poems and the indifference to his prose and his marriage, which was the third traumatic event. In Warsaw he married “an educated woman, a dentist” and they had a son together. After their divorce, a few years later, she left for Moscow. She took the child with her, and Steinberg had never managed to have any contact with either of them.13 To avoid the draft to the Tsar’s army Steinberg had to fake epileptic seizures, and in the spring of 1914 he left Warsaw for Palestine. Steinberg immigrated to Palestine without joining any Zionist group or organization, a voyage he defined in several poems as escape. He did not write another word in Yiddish from that moment on, ad he had hardly mentioned that language or culture in his work or in his writings about the work of others.

11 Bal-Makhshoves (Man of Thoughts), a literary critic. pseudonym of Isidor Eliashev (1873–

1924) Jacob Steinberg, Rusland a Poeme, Universal-Bibliotek (Varsha: Ferlag "Universal",

Place: Poland; Warsaw., 1914), Microfiche (mfc).

12 Komem, Darkhe Ha-Sipur Shel Ya`Akov Shtainberg, 37.

13. Barzel, "Shirat Ha-TeḥIyah : Amane Ha-Z'aner," -28.

Steinberg spent the War years in Palestine. After the end of the War he traveled to Berlin for several years to study. While in Berlin he renews the close relations with Bialik, which were weakened during his Warsaw years.14 With Bialik’s aid Steinberg published a collection of short stories and a collection of his poems.15 During the same time he republished in a book form two

Yiddish stories and that was his last publication in that language.16 In 1924 Steinberg finally settled down in Tel Aviv. There he was integrated in the literary center that was being created in

Tel Aviv around Bialik and his circle who had also arrived from Berlin.17 Steinberg earned a reputation of a quarrelsome, hard man with unique, polemic and sometimes extreme opinions.

He opposed the creation the writers association, claiming that writers were better off suffering alone. In spite of his quarrelsome personality he participated regularly in mainstream publications such as “Davar” and “Ha’Poel Ha’Tsa’ir”. 18 On the occasion of Steinberg’s 50th birthday his Collected Writings were published in three volumes. The following year he was awarded the Bialik prize on behalf of the city of Tel Aviv. He occupied a series of editorial positions in major institutions of the time; most notably he was the co-editor of “Moznaym”, the journal of the writers association, where he worked until shortly before his death in June 1947.19

2. The Criticism of Steinberg’s Work.

14 Barzel, "Shirat Ha-TeḥIyah : Amane Ha-Z'aner," 27-28. Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg: Ha-Ish Vi- Yetsirato. 23.

15 Jacob Steinberg, Shirim (Lipsiyah: A.Y. Shtibel, 1922); Sipurim, 2 vols., Mi-Sifre Moriyah; Variation: Mi-Sifre Moriyah (Berlin: Yerushalayim, 1923), Fiction (fic).

16 In a Farvorfn Vinkl, Klal-Bibliyotek; Variation: Klal-Bibliyotek. (Berlin: Klal-farlag, 1922), Fiction (fic); Microfilm (mfl); Master microform (mmc).

17 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg, 19.

18 Ibid. Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg: Ha-Ish Vi-Yetsirato. 29

19 Ibid.

After the success of Steinberg’s first book Poems, many critics, both Steinberg’s contemporaries and later scholars, had a hard time making sense of the change in his style after this first book. The Book of Satires and The Book of Lonelinesses had a seemingly unmotivated dark tone, which expressed profound pessimism and delighted in decadent sexuality. The Hebrew critics of Steinberg’s time judged these books according to the norms put down in the poetry of Bialik, which became dominant in the works of his successors.

These norms demanded a poetry that was expressive, articulating the experiences of a unique individual whose personal life is connected to the life of the nation.20 Many critics judged the two books of Steinberg according to these principles and viewed them as a poetic, personal and ideological failure.21 After Steinberg regained his ‘serious’ standing in the late 1920s, these poems were dismissed as a “folly of youth” or “an educational process”,22 and by and large disregarded. Steinberg’s biographer Israel Cohen seems to express the generally accepted opinion in viewing the Hebrew poems of 1907-1914 as poems expressing a loss of way, typical of the fragmented life in the Diaspora, which was resolved by Steinberg’s decision to immigrate to Palestine.23

Steinberg returned to the literary debate in the 1960s when the poet Nathan Zach created a polemic by presenting him as a rediscovered marginalized and silenced poet.24. This polemic brought about a significant change in the evaluation of Steinberg’s work. The overall

20 Ibid., 3.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., 4.

23 Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg : Ha-Ish Vi-Yetsirato, 65.

24 cf. Zach’s essay in: yaakov Steinberg, Mivhar : Lirikah U-Reshimot, Sifriyat "Devir La-`Am". Sidrah 1 (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1963). Barzel, "Shirat Ha-TeḥIyah : Amane Ha-Z'aner," 712.

assessment of his poetry and character was replaced by a closer attention to Steinberg’s uniqueness as an artist, to the poetic sophistication of his work etc. The renewed critical attention was still focused on his later poetry, dividing his poetry to two distinct periods, if not two distinct persons.25

The very few scholarly studies written about Steinberg’s work tend to concentrate on the description of certain particular problems in Steinberg’s early poetry. The work of Tsiporah

Sivan is unique in trying to come up with a totalizing description of his poetry. However, she makes a grave error by accepting Steinberg’s qualification of the poems as satires and expending this definition beyond The Book of Satires. Sivan judges all his poems from 1909-

1914 according to the satirical genre’s conventions.26 On the other hand Ada Barkai, Zoya

Kopelman and Judith Bar-El each take a look at a particular aspect of Steinberg’s poetry:

Barkai examines the prevalence and then the decline of the use Steinberg makes of Bialik’s figurative language in his poems,27 Kopelman looks at Steinberg’s connections to the poetry of Lermontov,28 and Bar-El examines the place of the autobiographical epic poem in

Steinberg’s work.29 All these works either ignore the particularity of the second and third books or regard it as a dead-end experiment that was forsaken. Thus they fail to see or to

25 Cf. Dan Miron, "Beyn Mukdam Leme'ukhar Beshirat Ya'akov Steinberg " haaretz, January 18 1963.

26 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg.

27 Ada Barkai, MishkaÌm Byalikaiyim Be-Shirat Meshorim Ìvriyim Be-Reshit Ha-Meah Ha-Èsrim, 1900-1920([Jerusalem: ha-Universitah ha-Ìvrit, Place: Israel; Jerusalem., 1976), Thesis/dissertation (deg).

28 Zoya Kopelman, Presence of Michail Lermontov in Hebrew Poetry from the Middle of the 19th Century Till Our Times. (2003).

29 Judith Bar-El, Ha-Poemah Ha-Otobiyografit Bi-Yetsiratam Shel Hayim Nahman Byalik U-Vene Doro (Yerushalayim: ha-Universitah ha-`Ivrit, Place: Israel; Jerusalem., 1983), Thesis/dissertation (deg); Microform (mic).

explain the place and meaning of the change in his poetry, and maintain the image of

Steinberg as an erratically shifting writer.

What is sorely missed from these works is the sensation of a sensible structure, a feeling of the poetic practice that had put these diverse elements into play. The two works that produce such a logic are Dan Miron’s work When Loners Come Together,30 that deals with the authors of the renaissance generation, and the relations between them and the literary world they functioned in; and Aharon Komem’s doctoral dissertation that gives a detailed account of the style of Steinberg’s short stories and follows their stylistic development from sentimental realism to symbolism.31 In Miron’s book the modernist logic of Steinberg's affiliation to Bialik’s poetry and the distance through parody and mimicry is presented, while

Komem brings to light Steinberg's dissatisfaction with his artistic achievements and the experiments that lead to the solidification of a particular oxymoronic style of balancing antinomies: a style that is affective and reflective, essayist and suggestive.32

If the works quoted above seem to be partial, unable to give a fuller sense of Steinberg’s work it is for the simple reason that they are partial. Lacking from these works is the place of

Steinberg’s Yiddish work, which for him was a major field of literary production and not just something he dabbled in as one might explicitly read in Cohen’s monograph and implicitly in most other works. Again there are exceptions: Komem does discuss Steinberg’s Yiddish stories and their relation to their Hebrew counterparts in an appendix to his dissertation and

30 Dan Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim, Variation: Sifriyyat Ofaqim ;; 139. (Tel Aviv: Àm Òved, 1987).

31 Komem, Darkhe Ha-Sipur Shel Ya`Akov Shtainberg.

32 Ibid.

elsewhere, and Miron discusses the novel in rhyme Rusland in his book.33 However other than these two examples Steinberg’s Yiddish poetry was hardly ever studied and the overall relations between his Yiddish and Hebrew poetry were not discussed at all. 34

The hope of this study is to rectify this situation somewhat. In examining Steinberg’s

Yiddish poetry we hope to illuminate the function of Yiddish in his work. The objective of this work is not to describe the Yiddish poems alongside the Hebrew ones but rather to try and place the two in a conceptual system that would make sense of their interaction.

3. Rationale.

The fact that Steinberg, or anyone else, wrote both in Hebrew and Yiddish is more than a biographical fact. It constitutes a major theoretical problem. The assumption grounding this work is that Hebrew and Yiddish literatures were an integral part of the effort to constitute a modern national identity for the Jewish people of Eastern Europe. These literatures are to be understood as part of the romantic rejection and correction of the Enlightenment, as it manifested itself in the form of cultural nationalism in the German and Eastern European cultural and political spheres. The theoretical problem arises from the fact that cultural nationalism is understood as an expression of a unique collective identity projecting a desired utopian state of affairs. An author who participated in both literatures was bound to negotiate the different utopias they project.

33 cf. Ibid., 440-71. Introduction in: Jacob Steinberg, Komem Aharon Gezamlte Dertseylungen = Collected Yiddish Stories, Yiddish Literature (Yerushalayim: Hotsaat sefarim à. sh. Y.L. Magnes, ha- Universitat ha-Ìvrit, 1986), Fiction (fic). Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam : Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim. 207

34 One notable exception is Hillel Barzel who does offer a concise historical description of the Yiddish poems. Cf. Barzel, "Shirat Ha-TeḥIyah: Amane Ha-Z'aner," 372-84.

I. Modern national identity and romantic rejection

We understand the term modern national identity as an attempt to reconcile the contradictions arising from the liberal notion of politics. Étienne Balibar places the beginning of the modern epoch in politics, in which every man is a subject and therefore can be a citizen, at the time of the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789.35 The equation achieved between man, subject and citizen opened up the space for the politics of rights. This message of freedom, heralded by the armies of Napoleon, was perceived as the imposition of foreign cosmopolitan thought, which was in appearance universal and liberating but in reality not only alien but also destructive to local identity.36 This forceful imposition of the cosmopolitan idea, viewed as “decomposition”, was countered by the notion of the anthropological difference, defining and bordering as well as safeguarding identity inside the cultural nation.37 Cultural nationalism views the nation as an organic outgrowth of the people.

The nation is the embodiment of the national culture as it is expressed through language, tradition, literature and religion. It is the culture that constitutes the volk as opposed to the liberal state, which is constituted by its citizens. Therefore the nation is an exclusive term: one can belong only to one nation, unlike the citizen who voluntarily associates himself with the state.38 A political project developed in Germany in the beginning of the 19th century and

35 Etienne Balibar, Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy before and after Marx, (NewYork:Routledge,1994), http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ID6T1W6/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb. Kindle. Chapter Two.

36 Ibid., Fichte and the Internal Border., Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism, ed. Henry Hardy(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013).

37 Balibar, Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy before and after Marx. Fichte and the Internal Border. Kaiser, Romanticism, Aesthetics, and Nationalism. 27

38 Ibid.

then moved on east to the Russian empire: that of defining and accentuating the anthropological difference and developing from it the ‘right’ and ‘true’ form of government that would be ‘natural’ for the nation.39 The nation became the condition for the rights that the citizens who compose it deserve. From inside the nation the individual can experience himself as a subject with universal rights.40 Therefore the modern national identity is constituted as a romantic rejection of enlightenment via the practice of cultural nationalism.

In order to understand the term romantic rejection we follow scholars such as Isaiah

Berlin, Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthes, Antoine Berman and Michael

Lowy,41 and distinguish between romanticism as an artistic style with its formal attributes and worldview, and the vast intellectual movement that the aforementioned scholars describe as a constant resistance to the effects of modernity.42 Isaiah Berlin places the root of the romantic sentiment in a wounded, humiliated sense of the national identity.43 Lowy gives the romantic sentiment a broader base, defining it as that amorphous sense of resentment towards the contradictions of modernity that are experienced as alien mysterious forces curtailing the

39 Balibar, Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy before and after Marx. Fichte and the Internal Border. Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, "The Nazi Myth," Critical inquiry (1990): 298.

40 Hever, in: Gluzman, Hever, and Miron, Be-Ir Ha-Haregah: Bikur Meuhar: Bi-Melot Meah Shanah La- Poemah Shel Byalik, 42-43.

41 Isaiah Berlin, "Political Ideas in the Romantic Age: Their Rise and Influence on Modern Thought," ed. Henry Hardy and Joshua L. Cherniss (Princeton; Princeton University Press, 2006); "The Roots of Romanticism." M. Löwy et al., Romanticism against the Tide of Modernity (Duke University Press, 2001). Antoine Berman, L'èpreuve De L’ètranger: Culture Et Traduction Dans L'allemagne Romantique: Herder, Goethe, Schlegel, Noalis, Humboldt, Schleiermacher, Holderlin, Les Essais (Paris: Gallimard, 1984). Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy, "the Nazi Myth."

42 Kaiser, Romanticism, Aesthetics, and Nationalism. 4

43 Berlin, "The Roots of Romanticism," 58.

freedom of the individual subject, a resentment of which the national sentiment is just one of many possible manifestations.44 All these manifestations share several attributes: in their center is the individual subject who is demonstrating his irreducible autonomy in two ways simultaneously: by the rejection of the present world and the projection of a distant past or a fantastic elsewhere.45 The subject might be crushed by society or he might rebel against it but either way he cannot fit into the normalizing and rationalizing civilization. Therefore he is in a constant state of struggle, conducting a revolution against everything. This antagonism is momentarily resolved through the symbol that substitutes the union with god by an aesthetic experience. The relations between individual and collective, particular and universal are at question here. The symbol reconciles the contradiction between them in a dialectical manner, instead of a system where one element overpowers the other.46 The nation is such a symbol in which the contradiction between the individual and the community is reconciled. It conceptualizes alienation as the main infliction of modernity, a symptom of the fragmentation of an authentic community.47 The nation is an authentic community unified through myth and emotion, which is expressed through the subject and his individuality. The nation is a free expression of the subject’s will that can assure him the freedom he deserves as an individual.48 However, it is worth reiterating that the nation is just one expression of the need for integration and meaning, an expression that the modern epoch in politics promoted as

44 Löwy et al., Romanticism against the Tide of Modernity. 21

45 Berlin, "The Roots of Romanticism," 33.

46 Kaiser, Romanticism, Aesthetics, and Nationalism. 29

47 Ibid.

48 Balibar, Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy before and after Marx. Fichte and the Internal Border.

‘natural’, but it is by no means the only one.

II. Utopia

The project of romantic cultural nationalism is a utopian one. It projects an image of a desired future state of affairs and as such it indicates a course of action. At the same time it is also completely involved with the past, the fantastic and the unattainable. Ernst Bloch’s theory of utopia deals exactly with this paradoxical nature of romantic thought. Bloch’s language of utopia functions on two levels. The first would be that of interpretation: utopian thought has the capacity to put in place a positive system of reading that would allow for the recovery of hidden and lost meanings, which are located in cultural productions.49 Ernst

Bloch sees culture and mainly art as the realm of future and possibility. Cultural symbols express humanity’s search for itself beyond class struggle and contradictions. In Bloch’s reading of the utopia, Humanity’s aspirations are defined in the words of Goethe’s

Prometheus as the hope for a home, for a warm hearth, for freedom.50 Humanity seeks the

“…homeland of identity in which neither man behaves towards the world, nor the world behaves towards man, as if toward a stranger”.51 The second level of utopian thinking is that of action. It is a systematic appraisal meant to distinguish between truth and falsehood, between the “real possible” or the concrete utopia and the abstract utopia.52 The abstract utopia leaves the world as is or chases impossible goals, striving only to change the

49 Fredric. Jameson, "Marxism and Form; Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of Literature,"(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972), 175.

50 Ernst Bloch, The Spirit of Utopia, Meridian (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000), 209- 11.V. Geoghegan, Ernst Bloch (Taylor & Francis, 2008), 71.

51 Ernst Bloch, "The Principle of Hope,"(Cambridge, Mass. :: MIT Press, 1986), I:209.

52 Jameson, "Marxism and Form; Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of Literature," 175.

dreamer’s place in the world. A concrete utopia is “…not only wishful but willful thinking”, having the New as a goal, it is working towards a radical transformation.53 According to

Ernst Bloch the concrete utopia is tested by its possibility (Nach der Möglichkeit) that is by its accordance to material life and the possibilities of struggle and change that exist in a given historical moment.54 However it is also tested ‘in its possibility’ (In-Möglichkeit) namely in the varied possibilities it offers for internal development based on its own coherent principles.55 The key is in the symbol. The work of art achieves its utopian concreteness by producing symbols that are read as possible. They do not realize their content as possible, of course, but rather realizes themselves fully as indications of a possibility, an anticipatory illumination (Vor-Schein) that comes forth from the darkness of the lived moment and projects a non-alienated future space from which the text is read.56 The work of art produces through the practice of fiction a discursive field shared by the artist and his audience, where symbols appear and are interpreted as a force indicating a possibility.57 However, the ‘hot current’ of thought that is expressed in the symbol and its “forward gait” should be constantly criticized by the ‘cold’, calculating, rational current that produces the desired political action.58

53 Levitas in: Jamie Owen Moylan Tom Daniel, Not Yet: Reconsidering Ernst Bloch (London: New York, 1997), Biography (bio), 67.

54 Bloch Ernst, Ernsṭ Blokh: Ketavim NivḥArim /

55 Ibid.

56 Jameson, "Marxism and Form; Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of Literature."

57 Louis Marin, "La Pratique Fiction Utopie," in Utopie- Marxisme Selon Ernst Bloch, ed. Gérard Raulet(Paris: Payot, 1976).

58 Levitas in: Daniel, Not Yet: Reconsidering Ernst Bloch,. 73

Bloch's argument, that the distinction between the two types of utopia can be objective and epistemologically unassailable, was harshly criticized for its being in fact a system of evaluation that can organize itself around any kind of governing principle that would allow a critical examination of the utopian symbol vis-à-vis the material conditions of the struggle.59

For example, in the case of our study the governing principle was the nationalistic one, understood as both the condition and the result of being an autonomous subject deserving of human rights.

4. Hebrew and Yiddish

This research views both Hebrew and Yiddish literatures as national and utopian literatures. That is to say that these literatures were a part of a cultural nationalist effort to develop symbols that will express the form of polity that will assure equal rights for the

Jews.60 Even if initially the desired polity was viewed in more liberal terms, in the form of the possibility to become equal citizens of a reformed Russia, by end of the 19th century it was clear that the project in question was that of imagining a Jewish community is which

“the political and national units should be congruent".61 The two nationalist projects contending for the future of the Jews were the either idea of Diaspora Cultural Nationalism or

59 Ibid, 78.

60 Miron, From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking. Chapter Three.

61 E. J. Hobsbawm, "Nations and Nationalism since 1780 Programme, Myth, Reality,"(Cambridge [England] ;: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 9. B. Trachtenberg, The Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish, 1903-1917, (Syracuse University Press, 2008), http://books.google.co.il/books?id=7nIQzLna_HwC. Kindle. From Jargon to Vinshaft.

Yiddishism and the idea of a Zionist territorial nationalism.62

I. Hebrew.

Hebrew literature in Russia secured itself a position as a public institution from the second half of the 19th century through the work of the proponents of the Haskala, the Jewish enlightenment. At first the notion of a national literature only existed in Hebrew and there was no such conception regarding Yiddish. The Haskala, or the Jewish enlightenment viewed

Yiddish as a non-language, a ‘zhargon’, while Hebrew was the national language and the path to national reform.63 Yiddish was looked down upon by the Jewish elite, as the language of woman and children, while Hebrew, the language of men, was the last and only trace of the masculine character of the Hebrew nation.64 Following the pogroms of 1881 and the reaction of Nikolai II against his predecessor's liberal policies, which demonstrated the failure of emancipation through assimilation, a wave of ‘repentance’ for those liberal ideas swept through Jewish intelligentsia. This wave, inspired by the Russian narodnic (populist) currents of thought, brought many members of the assimilated intelligentsia back to the fold of nationalist thought. The governing concept changed from emancipation to the notion of auto-emancipation and with this change came the understanding that auto-emancipation

62 Tsur, in: Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, Kehiliyot Medumyanot: Hagigim Àl Mekorot Ha-Leumiyut Ve- Àl Hotpashtutah, trans. Daor Dan, Mahad. meùdkenet. Place: Israel; Tel Aviv ed., Universitah Ha- Petuhah (Tel Aviv ha-Universitah ha-petuhah, 1999).

63 Miron, From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking. Chapter Three; Trachtenberg, The Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish, 1903-1917. From Jargon to Vinshaft.

64 Miron, From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking. Chapter Three. D. Fishman, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (University of Pittsburgh Pre), 5.

could not take place in Russia.65 Thinkers such as Lilienblum66 or Echad Ha’am67 defined

Hebrew as the national language of the Jewish people, connecting its present with its past

(and therefore also with its future), with the different scattered Jewish communities and with its biblical moral essence. Hebrew literature, that shared these ideas with a reading public of hundreds of thousands, assumed its role in this period as a national literature.68

A major task of the national literature in Hebrew was the creation of the individual national subject, the starting point and goal of romantic national thought. The constitution of a sovereign autonomous subject legitimizes the Zionist demand to be a nation like all other nations, with its own national territory, in which it is able to grant its members the universal rights they deserve. The poetic expression of the individual was seen as the crowning

65 Hannan Hever, "Between Approval and Negation of the Diaspora in ‘Abshalom’s Journey’ by Yaakov Steinberg," ʻIyunim bi-teḳumat Yiśraʾel: meʾasef li-veʻayot ha-Tsiyonut, ha-Yishuv u-Medinat Yiśraʾel 22(2012): 226.

66 Mosheh Leib Lilienblum, (1843–1910), “A Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian writer; his autobiography, Ḥat’ot ne‘urim (The Sins of Youth)... had a major influence, as it reflected the spiritual and social problems [of]...being uprooted from traditional society...Lilienblum’s second autobiography, Derekh teshuvah, which describes his abrupt shifts from Lithuanian Torah study to the Haskalah, to Russian radicalism, and afterward to Jewish nationalism, made its mark on the historiography of Jews in the modern period and on the study of modern Hebrew literature.....His forceful description of his transition from allegiance to radical Haskalah to support of nationalism was read ... as an objective historical Document.” Yiśraʼel Barṭal, "Lilienblum, Mosheh Leib." in YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. (2010).

67 Born Asher Ginzberg (1856–1927), “Aḥad ha-‘Am, (a pen name that translates as “One of the People”) was a Hebrew essayist of singular power and authority, a Jewish nationalist leader who publicly eschewed politics while seeking to fundamentally change the priorities of Zionism and, more broadly, the Jewish people as a whole. Although his impact on Hebrew culture was extensive, his political imprint was equivocal.” Steven J. Zipperstein, "Ahad Ha-Am," in YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (2010).

68 Cf. Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim, 21-111. From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking. Chapter Three

achievement of Haim Nahman Bialik,69 who was dubbed ‘the national poet’. As Miron shows, Bialik managed to create the effect of individual subjectivity by constructing the self from three facets: the personal, the collective and the poet. The personal, which is the biography of the individual, is united with the collective historical background of the nation but is not immersed in it. The poetic action taken by the poet creates the union between the collective and the personal while maintaining the particularity of the self.70 The subject is optimistic and future-oriented by its emotional identification with the Zionist project viewed as a project of national and personal renaissance. The possibility of re-territorialization of the uprooted subject is embedded in the Zionist project. This romantic perception of the symbol as well as the anchoring of the national project in the self were instituted as the sine qua non of poetic expression in Hebrew by powerful critics and editors such as Y.H. Brenner71 and M.

69 Ḥayim Naḥman Bialik (1873–1934), was the leading figure in Hebrew literature of the turn of the century. He came to be known as the ‘national’ poet of Hebrew literature: “With Bialik’s innovations, Hebrew poetry for the first time conveyed a poetic voice of a living, complex person, full of paradoxes … the speaker in Bialik’s poetry was portrayed as a real person with a concrete biography and unique sensibilities, urges, psychological complexes, inner energies, distresses, strengths, and weaknesses.” Bialik introduced far-reaching poetic changes to Hebrew poetry in terms of form, rhythmic structure, figurative language, themes, etc.: “The canonical corpus of Bialik’s Hebrew poetry contains only 130 poems, but these works form the foundation of modern Hebrew poetry.” His poetry had set the poetic norms practiced in Hebrew poetry. The genres Bialik experiemented with and introduced to Hebrew literature became the very model of poetic expression at the time: the short lyric poem, the long, lyrical reflective poem, the long narrative poem, the prophetical poem of anger “written as a powerful dramatic monologue and delivered by an individual who reproves the public for its sins and errors” as well as the folk song. Holtzman Avner, "Bialik, Ḥayim Naḥman.," YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (2010).

70 Dan Miron, Ha-Peridah Min Ha-Ani He-`Ani: Mahalakh Be-Hitpathut Shirato Ha-Mukdemet Shel Hayyim Nahman Biíalik, 1891-1901, Mehkere Ha-Universitah Ha-Petuhah (Tel-Aviv: Hotsaíat ha- Universitah ha-petuhah, 1986), 30-31.

71 Yosef Ḥayim Brenner (1881–1921) was a Hebrew writer, essayist and critic: “Brenner was one of the most influential and admired of modern Hebrew writers. Those who knew him were spellbound by his creativity as an artist and his sense of morality that led him to feel personally responsible for the fate of his people. … Though skeptical about the idea of a Jewish renaissance in the Land of Israel, he nonetheless lived in the Land, devoting his whole being to the establishment of a cultural center and invoking the policy of “nevertheless” and “despite everything,” an approach that was to be regarded as

Y. Bredichevsky.72 The national literature in the formulation of Berdichevsky and Brenner is romantic and utopic. 73 The Hebrew literature is written in conditions of want and economical, national, spiritual duress. In depicting the individual contending with the conditions of his life, literature affirms the individual’s irreducible subjectivity and his entitlement to universal rights that would be granted by his nation, in his national language, on his national territory, where he will be sovereign.74 Hebrew national literature in its radical versions was not tolerant of other constructions of the subject or of different political utopias.

This intolerance was not formulated in political terms but rather was expressed as strict aesthetic criteria that demanded the radical negation of the possibility of life in the Diaspora and the depiction of the individual subject and his agency.75

his last will and testament.” Brenner was killed by Arab rioters in 1921 near Jaffa on 2 May 1921.. Govrin, Nurit "Brenner, Yosef Ḥayim," in YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. (2010).

72 Mikhah Yosef Berdichevsky (1865–1921), writer and thinker. Berdichevsky wrote in Hebrew, Yiddish and German, but is known for his pivotal role in the context of Hebrew literature. Berdichevsky’s worldview “tended to deny the values of the sheltered Jewish world completely and was enchanted by Western philosophy and European belles lettres. Later he rejected culture itself in favor of the sanctification of primal urges and instincts, perhaps under the influence of Nietzsche. Around 1896, however, he … tried to find a synthesis between Judaism and modern European cultural values (stressing an unmediated connection with nature, love, art for its own sake, belles lettres, and the plastic arts).” In 1896 he initiated his famous polemic with Echad Ha’am. “Berdichevsky (and his colleagues) severely criticized the limited space that Ahad Ha-Am had allotted to belles lettres in his vision of Hebrew culture….” His Hebrew prose “reflected the tension experienced by the individual between a wish to satisfy erotic desires and intellectual cravings in the modern world, and the immensely powerful pull of the ancestors’ traditional world, which binds like knots that cannot be untied.” The task of Hebrew literature, according to Berdichevsky, was to to heal “the ‘rent in the heart’…in order to enable Jewish youth to ‘become integrated ‘Hebrew human beings,’ nourished from one common source.’ This polemic soon developed into a multilayered debate that lasted for two years, regarded by many as one of the most important in the history of modern Hebrew literature.” Berdichevsky was viewed as the leader of the younger generation of Hebrew writers. Holtzman, Avner, "Berdyczewski, Mikhah Yosef.," in YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. (2010).

73 Hever, Ha-Sipur Veha-Leom: Keriot Bikoratiyot Be-Kanon Ha-Siporet Ha-`Ivrit, 17.

74 Ibid., 32-33.

75 Ibid., 9, 23.

II. Yiddish.

When we come to discuss Yiddish literature as a national language and its relation to

Hebrew, it is very important to note that at first the Yiddish and Hebrew literatures were not considered as two separate political projects. Yiddish in fact was not considered at all, and the only excuse for writing in this language was a utilitarian one as major difference between the languages was that of class: while Hebrew was the language of the educated elite,

Yiddish was the language of the Jewish masses. 76 Yiddish literature came into being as an institution from the 1880s when the mood of ‘repentance’ mentioned earlier also changed the attitude towards Yiddish. Many of the names that would later be associated with the Yiddish national culture, like Sholem Aleichem, Y.L Perets, S. An-ski or s. Dubnov, who at the beginning of their career turned to Hebrew or Russian, and found their way back to ‘the idiom of the people’ in that period.77 However Yiddish did not become a national literature as

Hebrew did until the turn of the 20th century.78 Indeed even though Yiddish literature as a national literature was first conceived by a segment of the Jewish bourgeois intelligentsia, it did not become a public sphere for Yiddish life until it was adopted by the different political parties, primarily the Bund. By public sphere we mean the type of discursive arena adopted from the Russian literature in which literary questions were dealt with as if they pertained meaningfully to life, while life’s questions were supposed to be answered by works of literature.79 As Fishman shows, the Russian policy of Russification in the pale, the

76 Miron, From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking. Chapter Three.

77 Ibid.

78 D. Fishman, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (University of Pittsburgh Pre), 20.

79 Miron, From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking. Chapter Three.

effacement of local languages, was very active in relation to Yiddish.80 Considered as a hotbed for revolutionary ideas, Yiddish press and even theatre were almost completely banned in Russia. The public space of discussion was supplied by the underground press and clandestine reading circles of the radical movements. As many researches show the Bundist narrative, laying claim to the emergence of the national Yiddish culture, is inaccurate to say the least.81 The Bund had not recognized the national problem in its platform until 1901, 4 years after its establishment.82 However, by 1905 the Bund had adopted a radical Yiddishist position. Even though the Bund did not conceive of the idea of a national-cultural autonomy for the Jews, it soon became its champion; its tens of thousands of members and their demand for dignity for their national language constituted the public sphere of Yiddish literature.83

Yiddishism or Diaspora nationalism, first presented as a program by the historian Simeon

Dubnov who was the ideologue of the liberal Folkspartey. 84 He described in vague terms the notion of Autonomism according to which in a democratic multinational federation

80 Fishman, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture, 23.

81 Ibid., 21.

82 Yoav Peled, "Otonomya Leumit Tarbutit: Me'ah Shana Labund," Teʼoryah u-viḳoret : bamah Yiśreʼelit, no. 11 (1997): 163.

83 Ibid., 55.

84 Simon Dobnov (1860–1941), “Russian Jewish historian and ideologue of Jewish Diaspora nationalism.... Although... [his] optimism about the future of Jewish life in Russia was not immediately shaken by the pogroms of 1881–1882, he became despondent as the decade drew to a close. Inspired by the writings of Leo Tolstoy and Ernest Renan, he decided that a completely universalistic, scientifically detached point of view was not possible...The cruel expulsion of Jews from Moscow in 1891 finally convinced him that a Western model of Jewish emancipation was not in the offing in Russia: an entirely different approach was necessary, one more rooted in the historical and social realities of Eastern Europe...In 1907...with Dubnow’s help, the small political Folkist party (Folkspartey) was founded to espouse this combination of political liberalism and cultural autonomy for Jews as a fully legitimate national minority.” Robert M. Seltzer, "Dubnow, Simon" in YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (2010).

communities must have the right to govern their internal, communal, cultural affairs while at the same time being represented and involved in the wider constitutional politics on the level of the state.85 The idea was endorsed and further developed by many others over the coming decade, acquiring the name Yiddishism and the specification as the demand for a personal non-territorial cultural autonomy for the Jews in the pale of settlement.86 It was viewed as an idea that could give quick responses to urgent problems without ruling out any other possibilities, a formulation that in the Zionist lexicon was dubbed “work of the present” as opposed to the Zionist “work of the future”.87 Thus Liberals, Zionists, Social Democrats and

Social Revolutionaries could support the claims of the Jews in the Pale for a cultural autonomy, without feeling it hindered their efforts to assimilate into Russian culture, colonize

Palestine, or wage uncompromising class warfare. The loose nature of this ideology also manifested itself in less confining norms. The Yiddishist national literature did display tendencies similar to the Hebrew literature: a demand for a socially engaged mimetic realism that would address the problems of the people opposed by a devotion to lyrical poetry concentrating on the experiences of the individual.88 Like in Hebrew, the latter approach was that of the younger generation that was making its first steps at the turn of the century. The dominant figure for that generation was Y.L. Perets who was not of the same stature as

85 These ideas follow those of the Austrian social-democratic party regarding the national problem in the Habsburg Empire. Matityahu Mintz, "Leʾumiyut Yehudit Vele'umiyut Shel Miutim Akherim " in Leʾumiyut U-PoliṭIḳAh Yehudit: PerspeḳṬIvot ḤAdashot, ed. Jehuda Reinharz, et al.(Yerushalayim :: Merkaz Zalman Shazar le-toldot Yiśraʾel ;, 1996), 210. Peled, "Otonomya Leumit Tarbutit: Me'ah Shana Labund," 172.

86 Fishman, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture. Mintz, "Leʾumiyut Yehudit Vele'umiyut Shel Miutim Akherim " 210.

87 Hever, Ha-Sipur Veha-Leom: Keriot Bikoratiyot Be-Kanon Ha-Siporet Ha-`Ivrit. 25-26

88 Fishman, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture.

Bialik.89 While Perets was venerated as a mentor, he was less forceful in his decrees and declamations and he practically dabbled in all forms of literary artistic creation and style, while being generous with both his endorsements and his political sympathies.90 In general the field of Yiddish literature seems to have been more accommodating than or at least not as normative as the goal-driven Hebrew literature of the time.91

5. Bialik’s generation

Even though Yaakov Steinberg as a young writer had never expressed himself politically it is easy to place him on the side of Hebrew literature, and in a specific camp in it, that of Bialik disciples. Like a number of other authors of the same age, among them H.Y. Brenner who was already mentioned and U.N. Gnessin, as well as the poets Y. Fichman and Z. Shneour who all received the name “the renaissance generation” or “Bialik’s disciples,” 92 Steinberg too followed a path of apprenticeship that was almost completely outdated: the path of the Hebrew poet,

89 Yitskhok Leybush Perets (1852–1915), “Yiddish and Hebrew poet, writer, essayist, dramatist, and cultural figurehead...Peretz differed from Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh (Mendele Moykher-Sforim) and Sholem Aleichem—who together form the “triumvirate of Yiddish classic masters”—in his primary relation to Polish...coterritorial culture...Peretz modeled his idea of Jewish cultural renaissance on Poland’s struggle for independence, which compensated for the Poles’ political dependency by promoting national language and culture...Peretz...took special offense at Ahad Ha-Am’s idea of a “spiritual center” in the land of Israel, asking derisively whether it was possible to have an artificial center far away from the life of the people...Peretz dominated the Czernowitz Conference of 1908, convened to raise the national status of Yiddish. Boosting the idea of multinational countries, he defended the people (dos folk) over the state, and distinctive national cultures over political boundaries. He helped stave off a radical resolution to declare Yiddish (as opposed to Hebrew) “the” Jewish national language, but hailed the creativity of the Jewish masses whose language was Yiddish.... More than any other Jewish intellectual, Peretz expressed and represented the hope that Jewish cultural leaders could take over from rabbis the function of inspirational authority in a secular age.” Ruth R. Wisse, "Peretz, Yitskhok Leybush" in YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (2010).

90 Miron, From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking. Chapter four.

91 Fishman, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture. 62

92 For a detailed discussion cf. Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim 115-433

leaving the rabbinical fold to join Odessa and the entourage of Bialik. The affiliation of all these authors with Bialik is clear: Bialik’s poetry was for them the grand hypotext for poetry, much like the Bible was for their predecessors.93 In Bialik's poetry they found the poetic norms of romantic expression: individuality, enchantment, the magical power of poetry, the redeeming power of love and the transcendence of nature; it was for them a lexical and figurative reservoir, as well as a formal and thematic model: the long narrative poem that they all emulated, the poems of lost childhood or those of nature, and national poems condemning in a pseudoprophetic voice the people and their shortcomings.94 However, as Miron writes, this group differed from Bialik in several key points.

Miron suggests the distinction between generation and period, stating that although this group of poets was of Bialik’s time, it belonged to another generation in Hebrew poetry altogether.95

This new group of poets, that Bialik was at best fifteen years their senior, and who published their first works within ten years of his first publication, were not that far removed from Bialik and his reality. But they did, as Miron explains, approach Bialik’s poetic norms from a distinctly different experiential standpoint.96 This group of poets and writers did relate to the narrative of this new Jewish bildung as if it was their own: childhood in the kheder and the yeshiva, the break with the oppressive tradition as an oedipal conflict, the encounter with the world of non-Jewish thought, poetry and art, sexuality and freedom and the need to constitute an individual subjectivity provoked by this encounter. However, they adopted it as such: a narrative of modern

93 Ibid. 162

94 Ibid. 162-65

95Ibid.115-50

96 Ibid. 151-53

Jewish bildung.97 The experiences that were foundational for Bialik were to the younger poets a generational experience of crisis, constitutive of the subject qua modernist subject. The difference resides in the fact that for Bialik and other authors of his generation the meaningful experience was the break with tradition while for the younger generation the meaningful experience was their late arrival, the secondary nature of their experience.

The secondary nature of the experience had put them in the situation Ernst Bloch calls non- contemporaneity (Ungleichzeitigkeit): “Not all people exist in the same Now. They do so only externally, by virtue of the fact that they may all be seen today. But that does not mean that they are living at the same time with others. Rather, they carry earlier things with them, things which are intricately involved.”98 The rapid development of modernity nullified Bialik’s experiences as foundational, but the experiences still maintained: “... subversive and utopian contents ... which are not past because they were never quite attained...”99 Thus the past of these poets was active in their present because its future had never gotten the chance to materialize. Following Derrida who claimed that a generation is defined by the joined mourning shared by its members, we can say that while Bialik and his peers mourned the death of tradition the younger poets of the renaissance generation mourned the death of the experience.100 This secondary position manifested itself as criticism on the validity of the narrative. The criticism was expressed through parodying the reiteration of Bialik’s narrative. This act of parody introduced a modernist sensibility, an implied critique of romanticism, while still functioning within Bialik’s poetic

97 Ibid. 306-08

98 Ernst Bloch, Heritage of Our Times (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1991), 97.

99 Ibid., 116.

100 J. Derrida, P.A. Brault, and M. Naas, The Work of Mourning(University of Chicago Press, 2003). 17- 18

system. By embedding the ‘old’ story in their new context the young poets critically examined it and displayed it as a topical backdrop to the inquiries they held dear, the topics of individualist lyrical poetry: “…life and death, love and hate, nature and man…these eternal motives of poetry…that through them became fixtures in our poetry”.101

Bialik remarked this difference between his perception and that of the younger generation. In his article “our young poetry” from 1907 he writes that the previous generations had to combat tradition in order to liberate Hebrew from the rabbinical hold, from the yeshiva and the house of study, in order to bring it into “the circle of life,” that is into the realm of art and beauty where it would have space for the “poetry of the individual”. The three young poets, Yaakov Kahan,

Zalman Shneour and Yaakov Steinberg, are already the “poets of life”. They already found “all the forts demolished” and “all the cemeteries plowed into fields” and they bring “the poetry of the harvest”.102 These poets feel at home in poetry, they have no doubt about their place in it as individuals and they have managed to break away from the clutches of tradition and embrace

European poetic tradition and they will carry with them the elixir of youth for their old nation.103

Bialik identifies the critique of his poetics that is in no way a renunciation of them. Rather it is an affirmation. The very refusal to participate in the process is an acknowledgment if its existence and validity.104 As Bloch writes, the practice of “remaining in the past” is in fact a powerful rejection of the current state of affairs: “youth that are not in step with the barren Now goes back

101 Hayyim Nahman Bialik, "Kol Kitve," (Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1947), 236-41.

102 Ibid. 239

103 Ibid. 241

104 Catherine. Belsey, "Critical Practice," (London: Routledge, 2002), 58.

more easily than it would pass through the today to reach the tomorrow”.105 As such it constitutes the radical rejection of the Diaspora that the aesthetics of the national literature dictates. In an article from 1927, “On Our Poetry and on Groups of Poets”, Bialik presents a view that ties them all together.106 He claims that every poetic period is a sphere that is best represented by a Pleiades, seven celestial talents circling a center. The seven stars were understood as being these talents rising to their zenith: Y. Fikhman,107 Y Kahan, Y. Katsnelson,

D. Shimonovitsh, Z. Shneor, even though Steinberg is the only poet mentioned by name in the text. Yaakov Steinberg is described as the poet that made Bialik feel the foreign touch, who made him feel his near removal from the center of the sphere.108 Bialik described Steinberg as the exceptional star in the constellation, the star that signals the New. He is also likened to a dark cloud against the bright skies of the time, containing within him the lightning and thunder of the time to come.109 Bialik writes that while the foreignness was present in the work of all the young poets, in Steinberg it was shining the brightest.

6. Yaakov Steinberg: the rejection of utopia.

The objective of this research is to interrogate the nature of Steinberg’s foreignness that we understand as emanating from his refusal to adopt the aesthetic guidelines of the national literature that demanded the constitution of an individual subject. Our readings of Steinberg’s

105 Bloch, Heritage of Our Times, 99.

106Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Devarim Shebe-`Al Peh, 2 vols. (Tel-Aviv: Devir, 1935). 214-21

107

108 Ibid. 219

109 Ibid.

Yiddish poetry alongside his Hebrew demonstrates that even in Yiddish he was immersed in the debate over the poetics of Bialik. In both languages the constitution of the subject through the symbol is the main item on the agenda.

Steinberg’s first book Poems was considered a great success and earned him the admiration of Bialik we have just quoted. From 1907 on, Steinberg openly attacks the poetics of Bialik in

Hebrew while in Yiddish he attempts to reconcile himself to them. He does not offer an alternative, either political or poetic to this model. Only later, from 1910 on, Steinberg would propose several poetic and therefore also political alternatives in the form of the symbolist or the modernist construction of the subject, rather than the romantic one. These two options are presented both in Hebrew and Yiddish where the symbolist position is expressed in lyrical poems that feature a subject who transcends the conditions and contradictions of his life by crafting artistic objects that are superior to life and separated from its pressures. His Yiddish chef d‘oeuvre, the long narrative poem Rusland, presents a modernist persona that is constituted by its very fragmentation and incoherence, whose subjectivity and agency are constantly questioned, for he is presented as a collage of different énoncées without a single source or authority to unite them. This research ends with a study of Steinberg’s only long narrative poem in Hebrew,

“Massa Avisholem”, which describes a hero’s arrival in Palestine. We shall claim that in the context of this poem Steinberg renounces the poetic options created in Rusland in favor of a symbolist formulation of the subject, which after his own fashion is his declaration of fealty to the Zionist national project.

It is tempting to read in Steinberg a total critique and negation of the symbol and of representation, a complete rejection of referential poetry and of the notion of utopia found in the

subject, thus making him an exemplary minor author.110 However we believe that this is not the case, that a different reading would be more precise. By the very fact that the symbol was an issue of great importance to Steinberg, we conclude that Steinberg did not oppose the idea of symbolic representation as such but rather sought an option that had something to with “the genuine notion” of the word. By “genuine notion” we allude to a strand of modernist Marxist critique of romanticism that today is central to the thinking of critical theory.111 Scholars in the early 20th century came to see the late romantic symbol as representing repressive, reactionary thought. The late romantic symbol was seen as a structure where the individual is eliminated within a dominant whole. Through the symbol individuals are reduced to complete copies of pre- fabricated universals, without the dialectical process described earlier.112 We believe that this sensation was at the core of Steinberg's resistance to the symbol. This understanding of the symbol is intimated in Walter Benjamin’s “Birth of the German Tragic Drama” as historical:

“For over a hundred years the philosophy of art has been subject to the tyranny of a usurper who came to power in the chaos which followed in the wake of romanticism. The striving on the part of romantic aestheticians after a resplendent but ultimately non-committal knowledge of an absolute has secured a place … a notion of the symbol which has nothing more than the name in common with the genuine notion”113

The early romantic symbol, in opposition to the later one, was understood as safeguarding the autonomous subjectivity by presenting it with an aesthetic experience in which the contradiction between the universal and the particular was reconciled. That symbol should

110 Cf. Hever on minor and major literature in Hebrew at the time: Ha-Sipur Veha-Leom : Keriot Bikoratiyot Be-Kanon Ha-Siporet Ha-`Ivrit. 9-46

111 Kaiser, Romanticism, Aesthetics, and Nationalism, 35.

112 Ibid.

113 Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama (London: NLB, 1977), 159.

represent a universal concept, but as a unique experience that also stands apart from it, thus keeping its irreducible autonomy. The symbol was not supposed to be non- identical to the concept. As such the symbol was a real particular standing in for it.114

The point of view of scholars such as Adorno or Lukács emanates from the fact that in the context of bourgeois culture, the meeting point of liberalism and romanticism in modern subjectivity allows the two to reside comfortably together in spite of their manifest animosity.115 The romantic antagonism between the irreducible subjectivity of the individual and society that limits his growth and freedom is at the core of the liberal psychological- realist fiction of the novel.116 The romantic notions of bildung and destiny as expressed by will and action against primordial, a-historical forces are at the very core of the liberal myth propagated by the novel.117 The solutions, of Romanticism, located in the past and in fantasy, seem to distract people rather than motivate them towards an actual struggle. It seems clear from our reading that Steinberg’s criticism of the romantic symbol expresses a similar idea: in the guise of radical transformation, the romantic symbol constitutes the subject as new while actually it is a reformulation of the same, or of something less.

This research has no intention of painting Bialik, Brenner and the poets of the renaissance generation as naive sentimental nationalists; that would be too facile. Following Ernst Bloch, we read the poetic expression of the renaissance generation as a complex and dialectical relation between the modernist, pessimist worldview that is understood as an expression of

114 Kaiser, Romanticism, Aesthetics, and Nationalism, 35-36.

115 Ibid.

116 Catherine. Belsey, "Critical Practice," (London ;: Routledge, 2002), 58.

117 Ibid.

material reality, and the romantic worldview or the romantic discourse, which is still capable of moving people, of expressing a very genuine sentiment of dissatisfaction brought about by a reality that constantly denies the individual his freedom. The romantic discourse is adopted as what has to be done, and renders the discourse of Brenner et al. as a utopian practice, in the sense Bloch gave it, emphasizing the probable but not yet realized aspect of mimetic representation:118 “The…utopian function is distinguished from mere fantasizing precisely by the fact that only the former has in its favor a Not-Yet-Being of an expectable kind...[that] psychologically anticipates a Real-Possible”. 119

Our reading of Steinberg’s position in the context of the national literature is that of a critique of the utopia. He displays deep mistrust towards the romantic symbol and ergo towards the utopia it projects through the image of the subject. The utopian energy of the renaissance generation is replaced is his poetry by spleen and suspension. We read

Steinberg’s poetics in light of Benjamin's objections to the ideas of Bloch.120 While the latter found Benjamin's writing to be sometimes weak due to his inability to connect to the

“concrete intention” of the time or to its “material tendency”.121. Bloch claims that Benjamin produces a concentric time that revolves around itself with no resolution. Bloch remarks that only the utopia can rescue Benjamin from the spiral, adding that even one-way streets go

118 Hever, Ha-Sipur Veha-Leom: Keriot Bikoratiyot Be-Kanon Ha-Siporet Ha-`Ivrit, 33.

119 Ernst Bloch, "The Principle of Hope," (Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press, 1986), I:144.

120 Soupcons, in:Gèrard Raulet, Utopie, Marxisme Selon Ernst Bloch : Un Systëme De L'inconstructible : Hommages ‡ Ernst Bloch Pour Son 90e Anniversaire, Critique De La Politique; Variation: Critique De La Politique. (Paris: Payot, 1976), 265-77.

121 Philippe Ivernal, "Soupçons" ibid., 267.

somewhere.122 This friendly critique, very similar in tone and suggestions to those leveled against Steinberg, refuses to acknowledge the profound objection to the very notion of utopia.

Benjamin formulated his objection to the notion of utopia in a most striking manner in the prelipomena to his “On the Concept of History” 123: “Marx says that revolutions are the locomotives of world history. But perhaps it is quite otherwise. Perhaps revolutions are an attempt by the passengers on this train- namely, human race- to activate the emergency brake.”124 For Benjamin the utopia is already given in every moment of history. Symbols are guided by a hidden theology that responds to Bloch’s “material tendency,” and its direction is one - to progress, which means catastrophe.125 The suspension of historical time by the event, the messianic moment, does not propel humanity into the future but rather leaves it in a permanent present. The perpetual present liberated from utopia, which means from theology, is the door through which the Messiah can enter at any given moment.

We read Steinberg’s work as attempting to perform a similar action, by no means as drastic as the one Benjamin suggested, but still an action meant to suspend the race of history that he views as rushing towards a catastrophe. Steinberg’s action is more restricted because of his intricate and peculiar persona. He does not seem to accord any ideology with much power to change the course of history and in that respect Zionism and Yiddishism are quite equal in his eyes. It would seem that he had affiliated himself more closely with Hebrew rather than Yiddish because of its baroque charm, the sense of melancholia of a deposed queen that the language carried with it, or

122 Philippe Ivernal, "Soupçons" ibid., 268.

123 W. Benjamin et al., Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings (Harvard University Press, 2003), IV: 401-25.

124 Ibid., IV:402.

125 Philippe Ivernal, "Soupçons" Raulet, Utopie, Marxisme Selon Ernst Bloch : Un Systëme De L'inconstructible : Hommages ‡ Ernst Bloch Pour Son 90e Anniversaire, 275-76.

because of the romantic superfluousness of the Talmud scholar, yesterday’s elite that suited his decadent persona perfectly. In that respect it is clear that the catastrophe Steinberg was trying to prevent was not the general one Benjamin refers to but rather a very personal catastrophe: the simple fact that his persona was the very thing everybody was trying to reform, the only one that has no place in any of the futures that may come.

7. The path leading to the abyss

The name of this dissertation is derived from a poem Steinberg wrote in 1922:

Hakhoresh: El sla’im kharka shen makharashti , Uveakharon shvilay nitsha dom: Evil hakhoresh asher yizra Bashvil hanofel el hathom126 (The plowman: The tooth of my plow grates on rocks/ and on the last of my paths it was abandoned silent/ A fool is the plowman who seeds/ the path that falls to the abyss)

Although this poem was written after the period we propose to study it is worth mentioning

here as it presents the conclusion to the journey we are about to undertake. It expresses

Steinberg’s failure, the failure that can be gauged from Bialik’s description of him: the fact that

Steinberg was a part of the effort to constitute of the new, in spite of all his efforts to suspend

the course of utopia. Given the agrarian metaphor of the poem and the fact that it was written

after Steinberg immigrated to Palestine and had discarded Yiddish, it is easy to give this poem

a Zionist reading: the path of Yiddish, the other stretch of homeland Steinberg worked, is full

126 Yaakov Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg (1957), 71.

of obstacles and leads to perdition. However the opposite reading is also possible. The

unpleasant musicality of the plow, the tool that was supposed to redeem the land of Israel and

the Jewish Diaspora soul, is indicating that this final choice, the last of his paths, is only leading

to the abyss. The intention of this work is not to resolve this ambiguity but merely to present it.

This poem is part of the cycle “On the Rock of Loneliness” written in Berlin in 1922.127 The

critic Shimon Sandbank sees this cycle as expressing, together with Steinberg sonnets,

Steinberg’s connection to symbolism and particularly to Baudelaire, due to a worldview that

ties the two poets together. 128 This worldview consists of attachment to the missed

opportunity. Sandbank recognizes this attachment in the attitude to the sexual act that didn’t

come to pass as opposed to the vilification of actual relations.129 The sexual act is, like poetry,

a natural activity, which means it is imposed on man by his urges and desires. While still a

potential, both poetry and sex hold all the possibilities within them. Once realized, however,

both turn out to be submission, excess and betrayal.130

Again we return to the question of the symbol. While the symbol can justify choices

through theological and essentialist arguments, it also covers up for pragmatic considerations

and calculations. As we will show, Steinberg's poetic practice of undoing the symbol prevents

us from reading Steinberg’s work as a painful negotiation between two binary options:

Hebrew/Yiddish, Palestine/Europe that ends in accepting necessity. Steinberg describes the

linguistic situation as free and unresolved: “People of talent in those days tried to set their steps

127 Ibid., 69-71.

128 Shimon Sandbank, "Ervat Ha'pe: Yaakov Shteynberg Ve'sharl Bodleyr " ʻEṭ ha-daʻat, no. 2 (1998).

129 Ibid.

130 Philippe Ivernal, "Soupçons"Raulet, Utopie, Marxisme Selon Ernst Bloch: Un Systëme De L’inconstructible: Hommages ‡ Ernst Bloch Pour Son 90e Anniversaire,, 274.

on both paths at the same time since at first it was not clear if destiny is toward the resurrected

Hebrew or to the renewed Yiddish”131

The understanding that Yiddish had to die so that (some) Jews might live is a pragmatic

consideration that can help clear up the path of destiny. This understanding accompanied the

discourse on Yiddish from the early days of the Haskala in Russia until Yiddish’s untimely

death.132 According to the influential editor, philosopher and critic Echad Ha’am, Yiddish was

doomed and destined to disappear. Unlike Hebrew with which the Jewish people had profound

internal and eternal relations, Yiddish was just another language of the Jews in exile.133 Bialik,

Echad Ha’am’s disciple, whose relation to the language was softer and more complex, said

similar things nonetheless:

“For me the end is evident and clear and I find in it a great tragedy; when everything’s said and done, Yiddish was a home to us all. Finally, the nation created, prayed, cried in this tongue! ...I have one consolation: that the Yiddish tongue would survive by its translation, good or bad, into Hebrew. But anything that is not translated from it into Hebrew will be lost without a trace.”134

This view of Yiddish was hinged on the fact that the Jew was viewed as modernity’s

embodiment with his capacity for intellectual agility and mobility as well as his 'natural'

resistance to the shock of uprootedness and change. As such the Jew appeared to be at home

with cosmopolitan liberalism.135 The Jew was also the modern man’s aporia as the attributes

131 Israel Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg: Ha-Ish Vi-Yetsirato ([Tel-Aviv]: Devir, 1972), 442.

132 D. Fishman, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (University of Pittsburgh Pre), 37-38.

133 Samuel Werses, Mi-Lashon El Lashon: Yetsirot Ve-Gilgulehen Be-Sifrutenu (Yerushalayim: Hotsaat Sefarim a. sh. Y.L. Magnes, ha-Universitah ha-Ivrit, 1996), 480.

134 Mi-Lashon El Lashon: Yetsirot Ve-Gilgulehen Be-Sifrutenu, 70.

135 Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener," 39.

stated above contradicted the commonplace cure for modernity: romantic nationalism and its

quest for integration, for a unity of origin, of blood and of language.136 According to this view,

which was embraced by Zionists, Yiddish was seen as a metonymy for Jewishness. Yiddish

was exile, passivity, smallness, femininity, mimicking, disorder, tradition, uprootedness, etc.

These signifiers, be they perceived as positive or negative, had to disappear from the “Zhid” in

order for him to become a modern (Hebrew) man.

Many authors of that period in Hebrew Letters, who used both languages and found

themselves compelled to pick and stick to one, displayed a work of mourning of sorts in their

writings, creating discursively a process that would make their political choice of Hebrew

acceptable, a discourse which would legitimize the ideology affiliated to it and the death of

Yiddish implied by that ideology. This process was meant to render the loss of the world of

Yiddish understandable, symbolizable; a process that would give the passing away, but also the

staying behind and moving ahead, a positive sense, in spite of the heavy sense of loss and

melancholia. This type of discourse among Yiddish speaking Hebrew writers invites questions

on the nature of mourning. Jacques Derrida talks of the impossibility of mourning, the

dialectics between parting with the dead and not letting go and of the various techniques

employed in it.137 According to Derrida the politics of friendship is based on the structural

possibility of one friend surviving the other, burying him, mourning him. Friendship is in fact a

preparation to come to terms with the loss of the other.138 The discourse of Bialik and others on

Yiddish is a preparatory funeral oration for the literary friends that Bialik believed were bound

136 Y. Slezkine, The Jewish Century (Princeton University Press, 2011), 63.

137 J. Derrida, P.A. Brault, and M. Naas, The Work of Mourning (University of Chicago Press, 2003), 6.

138 The Work of Mourning (University of Chicago Press, 2003), 16.

to die. By promising an afterlife in translation Bialik tried to lock the dead in place, so to speak,

to take care of the funeral arrangements and dispose of the corps in the most convenient and

fruitful way possible.139

Steinberg does make the sensible choice and goes with the path of the resurrected Hebrew.

However his work does not provide such absolution. As we shall see Steinberg does speak of

renouncing an old literature that is unhealthy, but he does not suggest any sort of afterlife for it

via translation or memory, as Bialik does. Rather, he replaces it with regret and remorse.

Sandbank writes that Steinberg reacts to the reality around him with expressions of ennui,

spleen and hate. For Benjamin similar feelings found in Baudelaire’s poetry are the expression

of a virulent critique against those who believe in the positive step of history, of progress. 140

These feelings are the expressions of resentment by a person caught in the one-way street of

history, with its single direction and single goal. Baudelaire pursues the faith in progress with

ferocious hate, as if it was heresy and not just a banal mistake.141 Steinberg dedication to the

national project he so consistently rejected (or maybe his insistence to reject a project he was

clearly dedicated to) comes across as a sort of redemption through sin, accept that is

Steinberg’s world there is no redemption, only sin. We shall claim that the national drama, like

the erotic or linguistic one, always involves a choice for Steinberg, a choice that is translated

into betrayal and entails a terrible loss, and it is this loss that constructs and determines the

value of that which remains.

139 Ibid.

140 Soupcons Raulet, Utopie, Marxisme Selon Ernst Bloch: Un Systëme De L’inconstructible: Hommages ‡ Ernst Bloch Pour Son 90e Anniversaire, 274.

141 Ibid., 275.

Chapter I.

Part 1. Poems: the romantic foundations.

Introduction

This chapter will briefly review the poems published in Steinberg’s first book Poems in 1905.

As we have mentioned Yaakov Steinberg was marked early on as a unique artist. His first book was received positively and even enthusiastically. Bialik praised it as well as some of his peers.

Critics considered this book as his most complete and perfected work, though he was only nineteen at the time of the publication. His later work had always been judged (negatively) in comparison to it.142 Interestingly Steinberg himself thought so as well. Except for one poem, he included all the poems of this volume in later collections, with only minor changes.143

Poems is a collection of short and longer lyrical poems that belongs thematically and poetically to the norms of Hebrew lyrical romantic poetry, i.e. the poems conform to the norms guiding the poetry of H.N. Bialik. In this early stage the poems remain well within the accepted aesthetics of the national literature. The criticism of the belief system guiding Bialik that was described earlier appears here only as subversions and parodies of the dominant model, a

142 Tsiporah Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg, 2

143 Ibid. 27

calinamen in Harold Bloom's language.144 In this book Steinberg seems to have laid the foundations of his poetic persona.145 Even though he would change and develop considerably in the years to come, as we shall see his persona maintains the same traits of reflection, reclusiveness, understatement and a piercing merciless gaze that puts everything to judgment.

These traits are balanced by strong desires, lust, and sensitivity to beauty, irony and a dose of veiled humor.146 We will proceed by outlining Steinberg’s major concerns in this book. As we shall see, much of his poetic activity to come would engage with the same concerns. The balanced and composed expression of Poems will be the very background against which

Steinberg preformed his rebellion.

I. General atmosphere:

The general atmosphere of this book is that of muted emotional excitement. The poems are sentimental, subjective utterances delivered by a single authoritative speaker. The speaker is commenting on his experience in a way that expresses both emotional sensitivity and control.

The speaker’s experience alternates between mundane reality and experiences of enchantment found in the world. The poems express a desire for unity through beauty, which is frustrated by the modern world.

144 H. Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (Oxford University Press, 1997), 41.

145 Zvi Luz, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtainberg: Monografyah ([Tel Aviv]: ha-Kibuts ha-meuhad, 2000), Biography (bio). Aharon Komem, "Shney Ekronot Yessod Be'shirat Yaakov Shteynberg," Molad, no. A (1967).

146 Ibid.

The poem “In Music” displays this position while highlighting Steinberg’s distinct qualities: the minute attention to the small scenes, penchant to lyricism and melancholy, attention to beauty and understatement.

Kimtar orey aviv nitakh al haarets, Yardu al levavi tslilay hamangina. Lahakot parparim niver’u leora, Kheresh hema olim mikol sdak upina.

Rokhfim hem baavir, rakh sheon kfaneyhem Kerakhash hakhalomoth libi mehem male; Shalev sod khayehem, katsar khag yamehem, Rokhashim hem badmama ad haor yikale

Gam som mothem shalev: shalva hema namim Et ki yikhbe zhav hashemesh bifat yama. Hamangina kaltha. Gam kol kalomothay Khadal rakhasham bi veyigvau bidmama 147 (As a shower of spring light cascading upon the earth,/ The sounds of music descended onto my heart./ Flocks of butterflies created by its light /Silently they rise from every crack and corner// They hang in the air, the uproar of their wings is soft/ As the rustle of dreams that fills my heart; The secret of their lives is peaceful, their feast of life is short ,/ They swarm silently ‘till the end of light.//The secret of their death is peaceful too: in peace they sleep/ As the Sun’s gold fades at the edge of the sea. The music is over. All my dreams as well/ their rustle ceased in me and they die away in silence)

The poem describes the effects music has on the speaker’s heart. The sound of music descends upon the speaker’s heart like “a rain of spring lights cascading on the earth”. The

147 Jacob Steinberg, Shirim (Varsha: Yavneh, 1905), Microfilm (mfl); Master microform (mmc), 16.

overflow of feelings aroused by the music is likened to “flocks of butterflies created by [music’s] light / silently they rise from every crack and corner”. The magical power of poetry to resolve or transcend reality, even for an instant, is expressed: for the duration of the musical piece dreams, like butterflies, swarming and circling in the speaker’s heart. An array of poetic devices is used to convey this transitory sense of magic: meter and alliterations create a complex musical pattern: “shalev sod khayehem, katser khag khayehem” (the secret of their lives is peaceful, their feast of life is short), that is expressed again in oxymoron and parallel sentence structures: “the secret of their lives is peaceful, their feast of life is short / they swarm silently ‘till the end of light“. The romantic figures of liminal times – dusk, dawn, spring and fall- are used as correlatives to human emotions. The experience of music is framed between spring’s sunrise and sunset: “the secret of their death is peaceful too: in peace they sleep / as the Sun’s gold fades at the edge of the sea”. The life span of dreams is as brief as a day and as long as a lifetime, tragically natural and mysterious at the same time. All of the above however is a completely subjective experience of the self of a world apart, reflected upon by the speaker.

The poet is presented as a unique person, an isolated genius burdened with the gift of poetry, misunderstood and foreign in his world:

“yomam ba’anashim bikashti merakhem Akh bodedim ha’anashim be’olamam usgurim. Ve’ilemeth hi sfath hayessurim - Velo ava ish lenakhem velo yada lenakhem Veayvo layla, halayla hadomem, Veyisokh dimematho Veyisokh shalvatho

Al libi hashomem”148 (All day I looked for a consoler among the people asked people for pity/ but people are alone and enclosed in their world./ and the language of suffering is mute-/ and no one wishes to console and no one knows how/ and the night will come, the silent night,/ and will spread its silence. And will spread its peace/ over my desolate heart. )

This romantic image of the poet is slightly displaced, turning into the skeptic solitary of an introvert individual:

“Avina lekha layla, eth tugath levavi, Hasokhekha al khay uneuray melava? Vele’eyn anashim lo ethen lera’ava Ve’im tugath kulam tugathi lo avi Ethkanes bethokh atsmi ve’eshle be’itsvoni Rak akhi halayla, zar, boded kamoni.”149 (I will understand you o night, the sorrow of my heart/ that covers my life and accompanies my youth/ I will not display before the eyes of people/ and with everyone's sorrow my sorrow will not come/ I will gather myself inwards and ponder my sadness,/ my only brother is the night, stranger, lonely as I am)

II. Skepticism and pessimism.

In the introvert persona of the speaker Steinberg displays the disbelief, the skepticism and the pessimism that were the mark of his generation. As Miron writes the poets of the renaissance used these emotional states as corrections to the sentimental romantic energy they found in

148 "Only The Night Is My Brother" ibid.

149 Ibid.

Bialik’s work.150 The opening poem of the book is the first to display an ironic and skeptic approach toward the burden of the future:

Yavou hayamim hatovim Uva tor ha’aviv habahir Vekam dor khadash vetsa’ir Akh anu lo nehene midroro. (Good days will come/ and comes the bright spring/ a new young generation will rise/ but we will not enjoy its freedom).151

There are many examples of this kind of skepticism. Most of these examples only show that

Steinberg displayed the generational characteristics of Bialik’s successors: strong affiliation to the aesthetics of Bialik’s poetry combined with slight irony towards its mission and significance.152 Steinberg's profound skepticism comes to light is in the negation of poetic norms. The romantic premises that ground Steinberg's work are questioned subtly at every turn in this book. This poetic subversion is much more powerful in places where it is not explicitly stated but rather preformed. This way it appears as a failure of the romantic poetic practice the poet adheres to.

III. Nature

One of the major norms of romantic poetry questioned in this book is the necessary connection between the poet and nature. Steinberg’s use of nature does not celebrate Nature’s might and glory but concentrates on the lyrical and the melancholy sentiments evoked or found

150 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim. 165

151 Steinberg, Shirim, 3.

152 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim. 163-65

in it. Steinberg avoids the exotic and monumental scenes of nature. Nature appears in small vignettes not as the power that propels the soul to the heights but as a correlate to the state of mind of the speaker, his alienation and gloom: “bekhalal ha’olam yith’u rukhuth erev nekhaim/ kelakhash nefesh ne’etsava” (in the void of the world disconsolate winds wander/ as whispers of sad souls). Pathos is rare in Steinberg’s description of natural scenes, and the use of understatement and allusions is frequent. The Objects he personifies and uses to represent or project emotions are imbedded in a realistic background, in which the speaker observes them, without any exceptional qualities of their own. The transition between enchantment and the mundane is not a crisis but a natural fact. As we saw in the poem “In Music” reviewed earlier, when the sun sets the music ends and the dreams die away.153

Steinberg’s relation to nature in the book transforms nature into an equally disenfranchised and alienated persona in the wide indifferent creation. In the poem “In the Evening as the Sun

Sets in the West”, the drama develops as two plains are opposed. One above: the skies with their own drama and narrative and one bellow: the forest who watches and anticipates. 154

Ba’erev bishko’a hashemesh hayama Af anan...lo nir’a barama Veulam baya’ar az haytha kharada ... Velaboker av kehe hashakhak kvar ataf Matar sagrir milma’ala be’atsluth kvar nataf

153 Ibid., 17.

154 The following scene is of course a parody of the animation of the forest in Bialik’s “The Pool”: “and in moonlit night/ when when a heavy darkness sprawls on the thicket/ and stolen quiet light filters through its lashes/ smuggling and passing over its trunks/ and weaving there in silver and sky blue/ the needlework of its miracles-” ; in: H.N. Bialik, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik, trans. A. Hadari (Syracuse University Press, 2000), 140-45.

... Ukh’ilu khvar nikhna haya’ar veyikabel Kvar alav gzar dino- ubidemama hithabel”155 (In the evening as the suns sets in the west/ no clouds... were seen in the heights/ and yet in the forest there was anxiety...by morning a dark cloud already enveloped the skies/ a slight rain from above already drizzled/ and it was as if the forest already surrendered and reconciled itself/ with the sentence- and mourned silently”)

The transformation of the sky from clear to cloudy and stormy proceeds in an indifferent manner while from the ground it is viewed as a calamity progressing: “veyis’an haya’ar bekhil uvevehala / kekhash ason karov umevakesh hatsala.” (And the forest will roar with fear and trepidation/ as if it had a disaster approaching and is seeking a rescue). The image of nature here is far from a harmonious totality. Rather it is the image of a world of classes and disassociation, a world where those who are above hurt carelessly by their routine actions those who are bellow, while those who are bellow live in fear and accept their lot, with hardly any resentment or a hint of resistance. The lyrical conventions and the language of the poem indicate that these verses are an observation delivered from a specific subject position and therefore are the description and interpretation of an impression: the juxtaposition of the heavens in which the stars burn bright in eternal peace and the rain drops lazily down, and the earth which is anxious, melancholy and submissive. This grim worldview and the fact that the poem makes no attempt to allegorize the situation, give us the feeling that the strong identification of the speaker with the scene might not be that of an active empathic participant but rather that of a voyeur. The scene above questions the role of the poet as mediator between the world and man. In another poem, “On the Bridge”

155 Ibid., 4.

the connection between the poet and nature is transformed from a powerful romantic correspondence to a very limited Baudelairean one:

Or hayare’akh mithbolel bezohar hakrakhim Ole ba’avir kol nefets shel kerakh mithbaka Hal’a mize sdot kerakh khalakim nimshakhim Ba’a me’ayn ze hemyat maym daka (The moon is mixed with the glow of glaciers/ the air is full of the bangs of ice cracking/ further in the distance smooth fields of ice spread on/ from somewhere comes the soft sound of water.)

In this romantic wide description the speaker is present as a witness. His attention is drawn to a small segment of the picture:

“Omed ani al hagesher ve’ed ro’e hineni Bamakom hahu gilday kerakh ne’ermu le’arema Rokhashim hakrakhim ume’ik haekhad al hasheni Verokhashim hamaym hamekhusim mitakhath lehema.” (I stand on the bridge as a seeing witness/ in that place congealed pieces of ice were piled/ the pieces whispers and one burdens another/ and the water teem beneath them)

This particular scene, in which the flow of the image is interrupted and the harmony of night, moonlight and white ice is broken, is the scene that the speaker identifies with. It is there that he finds correlation:

“Omed ani al hagesher ve’ed lamithkholel Gladim al libi me’ikim vethakhath hagladim Zirmey regashot khadashim vetsi’irim noladim Veshetef hano’ar bakerakh hanoshan mithbolel.” (I stand on the bridge as a witness to the event/ slabs of ice burden my heart and under the slabs/ new currents of emotions are born/ and the flow of youth is in the old ice diluted.)

This poem can easily land itself to an allegorical reading: the charged word “Mithbolel” in the first verse indicates a certain direction: the word meaning diluted or mixed also refers to the Jews that decided to leave the Jewish community and live in the cities among the gentiles. This practice, in the light of the ideas of Jewish enlightenment, was viewed as a road to perdition from which only the revived national sentiment can save them. The image of the solitary youth amidst the European architecture that is both intimate and alien to him was the canonical image of the uprooted youth who had left his parents' house and tradition. However, there is nothing in the scene that ties it to any national or social identity. The possible homophony between “krakhim”

(ice, plural. Singular: kerakh) and krakhim (metropolitan plural. Singular: krakh) supports this reading but does nothing to signal it as national in any way. It remains a general critique on the lure and danger of city lights.

The rest of the poem leaves this possible identification aside. What catches the eye of the speaker is a scene of conflict, antagonism and contradictions. The frozen image of the pile of slabs of ice is full of movement. The unusual plural krakhim, for a noun that is usually an uncountable noun, draws attention to the over-crowded and compressed state of the pile. These pieces of ice are described as “rokhashim”, a surprising verb, though not shocking, as it does mean to whisper or make soft noises but also to swarm, to teem, to creep and to express. The repetition of the sounds kh and sh resembles the sound of the breaking ice and makes this verb particularly suitable here. However the overload of images is repeated as the water also teems or creeps or expresses or whispers.

The identification of the speaker with the scene is almost complete. As the speaker declares he is a witness to the event, he proceeds by describing his own heart. The hard image of the speaker’s heart covered with congealed scabs (Gladim) is followed by the uplifting promise of

new youthful currents underneath. The last stanza is used by the speaker to pronounce an ironic observation on life, shifting the gaze back to the bigger picture. The uplifting tone is knocked back down in the last verse as youth simply vanishes into the flow of life. This stanza offers a different rhyming scheme: a-b-b-a, instead of the alternate scheme of the two previous ones. By rhyming the first line of the stanza and the last: “mithkholel-mithbolel”, Steinberg manages to close off the drama from the rest of the poem. The event, what is “nithkholel”,or occurs, is precisely that youth is diluted “mithbolel”. Thus the repetition of the verb “mithbolel” in the last verse cancels its significance implied in the first line as it cancels the optimism implied in the breaking of the ice, the coming of spring. The new will be lost in the old as it happens every year.

IV. Poetic expression

Steinberg displays his particular resistance to the romantic norms concerning poetic expression by constantly thwarting the expectations that the Bialik like poetics raises. One example of this position is Steinberg’s attitude towards poetic expression. The Promethean metaphors of fire and flame and of creation that are expected from a young romantic poet are absent from these poems. In their place Steinberg used the metaphor of the dream. In the poem

“a man might be born…” the dream is likened to subterranean springs: “vehakhalomoth tehorim zakim/ domim hem lemayaynot nistarim” (and the dreams are pure, clean/ they resemble hidden springs.) This romantic image combining nature's inner self and tradition soon takes a interesting turn: 156

...bekheik haarets

156 cf. Midrash Shir HaShirim Rabah 1, 19 “The words of the Torah are likened to water etc...”

raash az yaavor peta tsva mayanot az mithparets Mimakhvoo, keasirim Lirot khofesh beor kheres. (...in the bosom of the land/ a powerful tremor will suddenly pass/ an army of springs will then erupt/ from hiding as prisoners/ to see freedom in the light of the sun)

The dreams that were likened to the pure, clear springs are now described as an army of prisoners bursting out from oppression to freedom. The dreams burst into light; longings articulated by a horrified heart:

Ken hakhalomoth... bekhayk halev hem rokhashim kheresh Ad asher halev yithpalets, Ve’avarahu gal inuyim, Az, rak az halev yasiakh Eth hakhalomoth, haga’agu’im”157 (so are the dreams...in the heart’s embrace the whisper silently/ until the heart is in horror/ and a wave of torment passes it/ and then, only then will the heart tell/ of the dreams, the longings).

The qualification of poetry as a dream entails a number of difficulties in a new Freudian world. Not only does the dream disappear in the light of day, but also its origin is dubious and unclear. The poem “A man might be born in this land” seemingly makes a general statement: it is not impossible that a man might be born in this land. . However it is easy to see the poet-speaker in the following verses:

Yesh yivaled ish ba’arets Asher makor hakhalomoth levavo

157 Steinberg, Shirim, 25.

Al she’avar kvar ve’eyno Ve’al ze asher lo yavo (A man might be born in this land/ that dreams originate from his own heart/ of that that was and is no longer/ and of that that would not come).

The phrasing of the opening verses plays on the romantic commonplace of the originality and singularity of the thought of the genius. While ordinary people repeat Idees Recues that were taught to them, the romantic poet sees beauty and truth where no one else does. This image is problematized by presenting a rather modern, Freudian view of the psyche. The dreams of the exceptional man do not grant him anything. In fact they are buried exceptionally deep. Only a tremendous shock, when the heart bursts apart with horror, only under torture will the heart divulge its secrets. The other side of this reality of repression is no less complex. The dreams bursting out are no longer represented by the clear pure spring water of the first verses. The dreams are compared to a charging army, to escaping convicts. The image of soldiers and criminals charging from the torn open heart is a strong and strangely evocative picture that subtly questions the validity of the romantic trope.

Steinberg also identifies poetry with the sigh. The sigh that is like Bialik’s tear a powerful sign of the emotional and sincere nature of expression. Steinberg associates poetry and its involuntary genesis as expression with sadness, placing the latter as the true asset of the poet.

The sigh however is a fundamentally passive and pathetic sign that is “squeezed from the heart”.

The use of this understated trope distinguished Steinberg in opposition to the more active, ethic tropes of evocation used by Bialik and others;158 in doing so the very will and agency of the poet is questioned. For example the poem “It Must Be, Some String Broke”159 presents the mythic

158 Fikhman 1938, quoted in Tsiporah Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg. 16.

159 Steinberg, Shirim, 5.

relation between the poet and the natural world, expressed among other means by the apostrophe, in a different light than expected. 160

Eyn zot ki nitak eize meythar babria Baavir raad, rifref kol- vegaz Vekmo levav haolam lakhats peta makh’ov az Anakha khidlath kol leoznay hegia” (It must be, a string broke from Creation/ in the air a sound trembled, flattered and vanished/ and as if the world’s heart was squeezed suddenly by a mighty pain/ a voiceless sigh slowly reached my ear.)

This plastic image captures the effects of a string breaking, the quick and quickly dying vibrations of sound, and the painful silence of the broken instrument that follows. The world, creation, is placed here in a weakened and suffering position. Juxtaposing it is the poet, the speaker, who listens:

Vetsar li al tevel ha’umlala Ki mi ze shama eth ankhatha veyidlena Mitehom hakhashekha ... Ubeozney bney adam yashmiena? (I pity poor Earth/ who had heard her sigh that can scoop it up/ from the dark abyss… to sound it to the hearts of men?)

The commonplace answer to this question would be that the poet, the speaker is the one who would give voice to this sadness. However the individualistic nature of this persona turns out here to be egocentric, the irony is closer to cynicism. The poet is a medium here, not for the suffering of the world but of his own impressions in this spectacle of a mute commiseration.

V. Childhood

160 Cf. J. Culler, "Apostrophe," in The Pursuit of Signs (Taylor & Francis, 2005).

The realm of childhood, either as a personal biography explaining the sadness or as that topical realm of magic in which the soul was still pure, was very important in Bialik’s writings.

In young Steinberg’s poems this realm is either absent or subverted.161 His personal biography is never presented and his references to childhood in general we can find an almost Dickensian bleakness. In the poem “In this hour, in the dark days of autumn”, describing the hour of dusk, the world is likened to a tired child: “ukhyeled ayef beofel haleyl vehadmama/ pneyha tevel-ya kovesheth” (and as a tired child in the darkness and silence of the night/ god’s earth covers her face). The picture appears as harmonious and complete when hidden celestial harps are heard.

However the harmony is broken by the analogy between this scene and a specific perception of childhood: “ken tashir em leyalda hayage’a/ bekhetsi kol shirath eres nekhe’a”162 (so would a mother sing to her weary son/ in half voice a disconsolate lullaby). This image of a very realistic childhood, hard and disappointing stands in contrast to the magical realm one finds in the poems of Bialik.

VI. Romantic love

Steinberg’s love poems resemble the Bialik model of romantic love but differ from it in the irony they display. In his love poems the woman has the mythical function of a tool of redemption:“birgaim shel demama ubedidut...az othakh ha’isha avakesh/ Lemale reukuth levavi.” (In moments of silence and solitude...then I’ll seek you woman/to fill the emptiness of my heart). The woman is longed after and often absent: “yamim shlosha me’az lo katavth li meuma/ me’az lo yadathi menukhathi ve’eth yomi” (three days since you have not written/ since I

161 Dan Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha- Mea Ha-Èsrim, Variation: Sifriyyat Ofaqim. 139

162 Steinberg, Shirim, 8.

have known any rest or time). The duality of base corporal love and lofty spiritual love is reiterated but is left unresolved. The pan holding lust and corporal urges is weighed down when the lofty aspirations are presented as ruses in the game of seduction. The poet desires to find redeeming love, but as love itself is never presented in the poems as redeeming one could easily question that desire. In the poem “I Will Command the Dream” the speaker commands the dream to conjure up the image of the beloved because: “...nirdam yomam bi khalomi shnath kharada/ hu neor belayl sthav afel”163 (my dream fell in daytime to a sleep of horror/ it awoke in a dark autumn's night). In the dream the beloved appears watching the sunset through a window. In this heavy, emotionally charged atmosphere the speaker joins her: “veani al yadekh lokhesh lakh bekhashay:/ “hashemesh yarad” (and I by your side whisper to you secretly/ “the sun is down”).

Unlike the rest of humankind who are orphans and wandering and seeking, the beloved’s heart longs for dreams the like of which the speaker has in his heart. The speaker offers her his companionship, not entirely in good faith:

Veyoshva at atsuva umakhrisha Veynayikh dom elay tishai Veanokhi rokem resheth shel khalomoth Umetsoded libekh bakhasha’i. 164 (And you sit sad and silent/ and you silently hang your eyes upon me/ and I weave a net of dreams/ and lure your heart secretly)

The romantic individualism keeps slipping over to a sort of decadent selfishness as this self- involved streak appears over and over again. We have already seen in the love poems how the suffering of the soul is presented as currency in the libidinal economy, where the dreams

163 Ibid., 27.

164 Ibid.

conjured by the poet serve as petty solace to be offered as barter. Careful reading would show that confronted with the impossible inter-subjective interaction between men and women, the speaker would rather have his dream than an actual encounter: one example is ” In the Spring I

Dreamt the Dream of Love”:

Ba’aviv khalamthy khalom ahava ... Lo. Lo tsar li al matnath levavi hagdola Ahavath neuray she ko be’eynayikh nikla. ... Li rak tsar al hakhalom, asher khalam levavi Oto yakhlom adam rak pa’am bekhayav.”165 (in the spring I dreamt the dream of love…. no I don’t regret my heart’s great gift/ the love of my youth that was so base in your eyes…I’m only sorry for the dream/ such a dream a man dreams only once in his life…)

Another example is found in the poem “When the girl left my room...” this poem uses the same tension to illustrate a similar state of mind. The poem is divided into two equal segments.

In the first one the girl is leaving. The description is realist, loaded with details and palpable.

Minute nuances of physical and emotional behavior are registered and depicted:

Ukhsheyiats’a hana’ara mikhdri le’ita Shuv elay rosha heseva ... Venashka li az mitokh khiska vetsa’ara Nashka kheresh et raba

165 “From The Past”Steinberg, Shirim, 28.

.... Kol geva al gevi ra’ad Kmo nishmath ne’ureyha yitsa’ata (and when the girl slowly left my room/ again she turned her head to me....and kissed me then from her desire and sadness/ she kissed silently for a long time...her whole body against mine trembled/ as if the soul of her youth had left her.)

This complex and sensitive description is replaced by abstract musing once the girl had left.

The second half of the poem is marked by a transition from an imperfect temporal modality to a perfective one. The incomplete, continuous action of the first half engages the speaker and determines the description. However, once completed, the actions of the first half are removed from the second, in which the speaker sums up his own feelings in light of his expectations from the relationship and his dreams for the future:

Ukhshyatsa hana’ara mekhadri nisharti ... Im itsavon lo yeda’ativ adayn...umasarti Et atsmi beyado haraka. ... Vehayah li tsar az kol kakh al she’avar Vetsar al lo davar” (And when the girl left my room I was left...with sadness such as I have not known yet...and I handed myself to its soft hand....And I was so sorry for everything that past/ and I was sorry for nothing at all)

The romantic perception of love in Bialik’s poems did dictate this kind of gap between the dream of love and the downfall of its realization. But this is not the image that Steinberg presents here. Instead we have a disconnection between the two. One is not superior to the other; they are only disassociated. The realistically saturated language of the first half and the abstract emotional language of the second attest to the fact that for Steinberg these two experiences belong to

different realms. In the first part the speaker is present in the experienced moment but his emotional faculties cannot respond to it. The second part is all musing, with no action or agency:

“Hama libi: khalomi kvar ay’in....Ata nafshi la’osher od kala...Akh ey oshri avakesh...?” (My heart cooed: my dream is no longer.... Now my soul still longs for happiness/ but where should I seek my happiness...?). The ‘unhealthy’ element of this persona, i.e. its conflicted contradictory nature is not presented here as the problem to resolve. The speaker seems unaware of this duality. It is an implicit parody of the romantic demand for reflection and inner development, the bildung of the poet. By contrast, this persona seems to be flirting with the aesthetics of decadence and their enjoyment.

Conclusions:

Steinberg’s very nuanced parody of Bialik's norms and the exceptions they imply is masterfully crafted here. While remaining very close to the norms and delivering a beautiful and thoughtful work of art, Steinberg also mocks the expectation for identification between youth and spring, between new and good and most importantly the complex allegorical identification that gave Bialik’s poetry its exceptional power.166 The identification Steinberg presents here does not give him a better understanding of himself and of his relation to the world. Rather it fortifies his image as the odd, discordant element in the bigger picture.

166 Cf: Dan Miron, Ha-Peridah Min Ha-Ani He-`Ani: Mahalakh Be-Hitpathut Shirato Ha-Mukdemet Shel Hayyim Nahman Biíalik, 1891-1901, Mehkere Ha-Universitah Ha-Petuhah (Tel-Aviv: Hotsaíat ha- Universitah ha-petuhah, 1986).

Part 2. The Book of Satires: the romantic self and the poetics of separation.

Introduction

Less than 5 years after the publication of his first book Poems Steinberg published his second collection of poems: The Book of Satires. This work represents Steinberg’s attempt to move away from Bialik’s influence.167 The book is characterized by a sharp break from the aesthetic norms that guided the poet in Poems. The poetry of emotion and experience is replaced by the satirical poem, as Steinberg defined it. It presents a pessimist, nihilist worldview, which distances itself from the romantic duality of the mundane and the enchanted, and does not see the mimetic expression of the poet’s experience in the world as its center but rather as a starting point for generalizing reflection regarding the nature of the world.168

An important fact to note as we continue with the discussion here is that while the first collection Poems from 1905 made a significant impression, many of Steinberg's poems published in the following years did not receive the same praising acclaims and were viewed as a failure on the part of the poet. These poems were judged completely according to the romantic-realistic premises that governed literary thought at the time. They were said to be the expression of a confused mind, superficial and immature both emotionally and in respect to the control of the

167 Tsiporah Sivan, Shirat YaÀkov Shtaynberg 54., Barkai, MishkaÌm Byalikaiyim Be-Shirat Meshorim Ìvriyim Be-Reshit Ha-Meah Ha-Èsrim, 1900-1920, 61.

168 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg, 56.

poetic devices –the satire and light song; an expression of someone who had lost his way, who forgot to remember some essential truth about the world. The critics and Steinberg's peers -

Zelman Shneour or Yossef Haim Brenner - found the bitter satirical tone of the new poems to be flaws and found his limited emotional scale, his formal rigidity, the cold and decadent sexuality and the nihilism expressed in the poems very disappointing.169Later critics saw these poems as a transitional stage, adolescence, an unpleasant episode between the brilliance of youth and the intelligent severity of old age.170

However, as we will show, these works did not forget the romantic truths concerning poetic expression but are as a whole an engagement with them in varying degree of success. Steinberg's

The Book of Satires and The Book of Lonelinesses that followed it could be seen as the open stage of the conflict with the shadow of Bialik and the norms being imposed by the national literature. It is an attempt to break away from Bialik and his influence that, as we described earlier, became the sine qua non of poetic expression for the ideologues of the national literature.

The Book of Satires is still very much under the influence of Bialik.171 It is, however, a much clearer critique of Bialik’s poetics, not an implicit ironic and subtly parodying one as it appeared in Poems. It is a clear, derisive and deconstructive attempt to expose Bialik’s poetics in fallacy.

(un)successful as this attempt might be it still signals the direction Steinberg would take, attests to his discontent with the current poetic ideology, and helps explain in what way his later poetics are an answer to the questions presented in The Book of Satires.

169 Joseph Hayyim Brenner, Kol Kitve Y. H. Brener. Uniform Title: Works. 1955, 3 vols.([Tel-Aviv]: Devir, 1964), 411-14.

170 Israel Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg : Ha-Ish Vi-Yetsirato([Tel-Aviv]: Devir, 1972). 66

171 Barkai, MishkaÌm Byalikaiyim Be-Shirat Meshorim Ìvriyim Be-Reshit Ha-Meah Ha-Èsrim, 1900- 1920, 78.

I. The Book of Satires - General Overview:

The book of satires is divided into three thematic sections, books, as Steinberg calls them.

Each book deals respectively with the themes of love, of urban ennui, and of the conjunction of the two. The book displays a formal regularity: each section opens and closes with an introductory and concluding cantos framing between them a cycle of enumerated poems.

The opening poem of the book already presents a carnavalesque parody of Bialik’s mythical world, whose importance was already mentioned.172 In this poem the speaker wonders when the angel of love was created, the one who is in charge of the kiss.173 Then he tells a story, a mythology of creation:

Barishona nivra mal’akh Gdal hamida...hamemune Al hakeyva... Akharav nivra mal’akh kakhush ....hu hamemuna Al hatsnieth veha’atseveth (First an angel was created/ big of size...responsible for the stomach...after him a scrawny angel was created...he is responsible/ for modesty and sadness.)

The list continues with the angel of idea who is described as: “libo rakh uveeynav morakh”

(his heart is soft and in his eyes there’s fear cowardice), and who stays in hiding until needed by

172 Barkai, MishkaÌm Byalikaiyim Be-Shirat Meshorim Ìvriyim Be-Reshit Ha-Meah Ha-Èsrim, 1900- 1920, 64.

173 Steinberg, Sefer Ha-Satirot, Shirim, 5.

the maker.174 Steinberg here signals very clearly his distance from Bialik’s mythical world. Here the tone is nearly derisive. The simple rhymes and humored description of creation deflate the scene of any importance, as does the not so implicit identification between the Maker and the speaker that occurs in several places in the poem. The answer to the speaker’s question if found amidst a dramatic scene:

Beyn nahar haprath unhar khidekel Khag shel or hilulay boker Uvinthivath prakhim kekhulim Sar ha’olam holekh soker. (Between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris/ a feast of light, celebrations of morning/ and in a path of blue flowers/ the master of the world walks, surveys)175

As all the animals, birds and fish gather to watch him are joined by man, and more importantly, his wife: “hamkharkeret umfazezet/ umtsakhkeketh bli hafuga” (who was prancing and dancing/ and giggling without pause). This caricature, different from the women we have met before in Poems, is such a disruptive presence that:

Kivyakhol gam habore Tsakhak pithom tskhok shel kakhes Umitskhoko nivra malakh Rakh ve’anog kebath khove Hu hamlakh hamemune Al hatskhok veal ha’ahava

174 Ibid., 6.

175 Ibid.

(It was as if the maker too/ had laughed full of content/ and from his laughter an angel was created soft and tender as the daughter of eve/ he is the angel responsible/ for laughter and love)

This text is the opening text of the entire book and it is easily read as a declaration of war.

The caricatures presented in it do not only question every romantic ideal, be it the ideal of love or of the world of the myth, they ridicule them. The exiling of love to the last place in creation, an undesired reaction caused by a woman’s lightheadedness tells us a lot about this world we are about to enter, a world in which hunger and desire were created first followed by restraint and loss, modesty and sadness, where ideas are hidden, soft and cowardly. However Steinberg does even more in declaring the target for his attacks. The stanza quoted before contains two references to Bialik’s world, two very different aspects of it. The first line: “Beyn nahar haprath unhar khidekel” (between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris) is quoted from one of Bialik’s folk songs, while the last one in the stanza reads: “Sar ha’olam holekh soker” (the master of the world walks, surveys), which is similar to pronunciations found in more serious, reflective poems dealing with the world of myth.176 This surprising proximity between Bialik's popular folksong and his profound reflection on the nature of myth in this stanza is a parody that makes clear the speaker’s feelings in regard to the importance of myth: a folk tale, a made up explanation for an unanswerable question, for those who wish to believe it. This opening poem makes already displays the main argument of the book: in a secularized world, myth has no sense. In the absence of myth nothing has any meaning, not love, not art, not politics. The longing for belief is here replaced with a secularization of the world. Men struggle to understand the world but when they write its story, it is but a reflection of their twisted mind.

176 cf. H.N. Bialik “The Pool”: “There is a silent tongue of gods....and in it he ponder, the master of the world, what he ponders...” in: Bialik, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik, 145.

The Book of Satires is a programmatic contemplative work, pitting the light non-committal form of the satirical poem against the heavy themes of alienation, fear of death and disenchantment. The book thwarts emotional engagement through light repetitive meter and rhyme, producing a flat monotonous musicality. This musicality conveys a feeling of constant displacement and disappointment, as emotions and scenes do not accord with the music that is trapped inside a rigid and indifferent structure. The rhyme and meter are simple and regular: quatrains of trochaic trimeters or tetrameters that rhyme alternately: mana, the traditional rhyming scheme of Yiddish folk songs (and practically the default one for modern Yiddish and

Hebrew poetry.)177 Many of the poems are presented as a dialogue with an absent addressee, uttered by an all-knowing, world wise speaker. The poems display an elliptic structure where the

‘real nature’ of the world is pitted against an implicit ideal image of it. However, as opposed to the conventions of the satirical genre Steinberg does not propose a normative correction, a

“moral objective” that would serve to narrow the gap between the ideal and the real, but rather contend himself with presenting grotesque caricatures.178

II. The Draining of Meaning: Love, Politics, Art.

This reality empty of meaning is the tone guiding the entire book. In a move that was unexplainable to critics, Steinberg presented a book filled with aggression that was directed against the norms that guided his own poetry so successfully. The different romantic themes: love, childhood, mother, beauty, nature, and above all the belief in the redeeming power of art

177 Harshav in: Samuel Werses, Nathan Rotenstreich, and Chone Shmeruk, Sefer Dov Sadan : Kovets Mehkarim, Mugshim Be-Milat Lo Shiv`Im Ve-Hamesh Shanah (Tel-Aviv: ha-Kibuts ha-meuhad, 1977), Biography (bio), 111.

178 Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg. 71-2

appear are presented, like rhyme and meter, as formal exigencies, meant to help overcome the senselessness of being:

Ekhad ohev eth hazahav, Eth hanashim akher khomed; Eth hahevel shebakhayim Gam mishneyhem ani lomed.” (One loves gold,/ The other covets women;/ Both instruct me / In the futility of life.)179

In the different poems in the book every moment or emotion is pierced and deflated. Thus for example the opening stanza of poem no. 1 of book no. 1 reads:

Hakol ahavu...magefa Shel hith’ahavuth, shel neshikoth Akh hatsibur kvar nishtatek Ha’imahoth kvar menikoth. (Everyone loved…a plague/ of infatuations, of kisses/ but the public had grown silent/ the mothers breastfeed already).180

The poet does not celebrate here this springtime scene of love. Steinberg’s attention is drawn to the repulsive, corporal, salivating aspect of love. This plague of loving is not contrasted here with its spiritual elevated counterpart, but rather with the biological and social determinism that accompanies it in the form of birth and family. The next stanza illustrates the place of art:

Munakh kvar bekeren zavith Tof hano’ar, gam hakhatsotsra Shel ha'ahava kvar nadma Lo lekhakh ha’eda notsra.

179 Steinberg, Sefer Ha-Satirot, Shirim, 14.

180 Ibid. 8.

(The drum of youth was/ put aside. The clarion/ of love is silent now/ not for that the congregation group was destined).181

The conformity of the community silences the parade band of love and youth. These elements that were supposed to usher in the new, are dismissed as it is announced that there is nothing new under the sun: “yatsa karuz bekhol haoylm:/ hakol hevel hakol hevel” (a declaration went out to all the world:/ It’s all in vain, all in vain.) This ecclesiastic declaration implies an earlier belief that something had a meaning or purpose. Similar notions are to be found already in Poems, but here they are presented without any of the elegance and sophistication of the first book. We see that the persona in these poems is constructed around alienation and contradiction in addition to the sigh and spleen of Poems:

Akh beyn kakh vekhakh – shimamon Paska hasimkha min halevavoth Kor vedmama...shnat methuka Hane’ehavim, hane’ehavoth! (….but either way- Ennui/ joy was banished from the hearts/ cold and silence…sweet sleep/ beloved sweethearts!).182

The second poem in the book attacks the notion of political change by showing a dismal picture of the post-reaction landscape. The poem describes a complete breakdown:

Sde hakrav mekhuse pgarim Ad lemakhnak reykh tsakhana Rats venimlat mi shenasa Et hathof lifney hamakhne Akh hanakhtsir?? sam bekiso

181 Ibid.

182 Ibid.

Et hakhatsotsra shel hazahav; Beyth hamalve nothen kesef Velakeyva kashe haraav (The battle field is covered with cadavers/ the stench is suffocating,/ ran away he who held/ the drum before the camp.// the trumpeter placed in his pocket/ the golden trumpet/ the pawnshop gives money/ and the hunger is hard on the stomach.)

In this reality of bankrupt ideals, the stomach, the first angel created as we remember, takes over. Once hunger was dealt with anything can be tolerated:

Kum ekhol ve’emor: ahavti Eth hashot ve’eth adoni; Dmama gdola, Ba veholekh Leyl shel kor, leyl hatsfoni. (Get up, eat and say: I loved/ the whip and my master;/ great silence, walks around us/ a night of cold, a northern night.)

The final stanza presents a macabre scene that places the plague of loving from the previous poem as a definitely better option than struggle:

Ba’afela od lagardom Olim sridim min hatsava Libi yoets lehithahev, Gam lehakim zera, hava. (In the darkness to the gallows still/ remains of the army step up/ my heart advises me to fall in love/ perhaps plant a seed, why not!)

This disintegration into the banality of the everyday after the collapse of great ideals is expressed in several places in the book. It is this absence of belief, of meaning that is the realm of the second angel, the angel of modesty and sadness. Sadness touches everybody in a disillusioned world, where ideas have soft eyes and soft hearts. Unlike the romantic melancholia it is not a sentiment reserved to unique individuals. Melancholia, which was the founding stone

of the poet’s being in Poems, is here an affliction, which like the plague of love mentioned earlier endangers everybody:

Mara skhora yesh bakhayim Gam la’eved hi metsika Gam la’adon. Mashe’u ekhad Yesh mita’ama am benshika.”183 (Melancholia exists in this life/ it bothers the slave/ as well as the master. Something of its / taste can be found in a kiss.)

It is the melancholia of people living in an empty time:

Tik tak, tik tak...haeth overeth. Hi molida, hi mkavereth; .... Gam haraim gam hatovim Hem mimaayn ekhad shoavim, Hakol shav lemakor rishon - Tik tak, tik tak...eth kvar lishon. 184 (Tick-tock, tick-tock… Time passes/ it gives birth and it entombs […] both good and bad/ draw from the same spring/ all will return to the first origin-/ tick-tock…time to sleep.)

The role of art is to embellish this situation, make the nothingness of the everyday disappear.

However, in its infinite capacity to create, art is capable of providing grander forms of sadness, which make the speaker’s own sadness seem mundane:

“Sheva shmashoth shel itsavon Yesh beeyn sof shel yitsira,

183 Ibid., 18.

184 Ibid., 36.

Akh shemes akhath ktana Bashamayim lanu meira 185 (Seven suns of sadness/ are in the infinity of creation/ but only a small one/ lights for us the heavens.)

In the same manner love can be a release from the nothingness of the everyday. It is the opposite of romantic love, prefering form, the empty sexual game, over contant, a meaningful emotional experience:

Tmol shathithi kos shel ahava Vaethholel im bakhura Otho yom li khasru kharuzin Vehaikar hi hatsura ... Gam haesh lo es hayitsira Gam besh’atho kharuz lo va li

Az karathi shuv lannaara Venithholel ad shakhar; Yom shel batala Hayo haya li lemakhar 186 (Yesterday I drank a cup of love/ and I partied with a girl/ that day I was lacking rhymes/ and form is of the essence…the fire...was not the fire of creation…so I called the girl / and we partied ‘till dawn/ and a day of idleness- a day of rhymes/ Was my morrow).

Love is also dangerous. Light romance, folly, error and sin provide escape from reflexion.

However, unlike Baudelaire’s speaker whose mind is fully occupied by these things, Steinberg’s speaker runs the risk of his emotional envelopment growing deep, and becoming significant:

185 Ibid.

186 Ibid., 20.

Hi haytha yafa, habakhura, Ve’ani reevthi rak libsara. ... Vatehi svuathi: anashkena. Veshmu’a tova elay kluta: Yethoma he valakhma khesed, Vehi rak naara pshuta, pshuta. ... Ve’akhsav libi- khole ahava, Veim yerafe- lo bimhera. 187 (She was pretty, the girl/ and I hungered only for her flesh… and I swore: I shall kiss her./ and a good rumor came to me:/ she is an orphan and lives off charity,/ and she is only a simple, simple girl...now my heart is sick with love/ and will take a while to heal, if ever).

The woman in The Book of Satires is constantly being presented as an object, a function, and a distraction. The speaker is portrayed as a Childe Harold/Eugene Onegin type of man, cold and distant, that women fall for and he, out of sadistic cruelty or some emotional deficiency of his cold heart, does not return their love. In fact, for all his boasting and emotional detachment the speaker is always in danger of emotional attachment. The romantic description of his character receives a Quixote like quality as his made-up identity is rendered weak and vulnerable by the real life presence of a woman. The tropes used to describe erotic relations are those of fire, life and youth but they change very quickly into images of poison, death, slavery, entrapment and emasculation. The woman as a subject is not malevolent, but she is always dangerous. The false romantic promise implicit in a relation to a woman leads to hope and attachment, which in turn becomes rejection that leads to insecurity: “Miney elef nashim- akhath/ Hemyath nafshekh

187 Ibid., 34.

mevina… Gam hi tishlakh bekh eth laaga.”188 (From a thousand women – one/ understands the flapping of your soul…she too would set on you her scorn). Insecurity and rejection in turn are translated to aggressive mockery, generalized satirical statements directed at that absent figure that promised things would be different: “Marbe ahava- marbe zea/ Marbe zea - marbe rima.”189

(he who loves a lot- sweats a lot/ he who sweats a lot- rots).

The life of senselessness that is described in The Book of Satires is the life of the city with its hostility, alienation and antagonism. Thus for example in book no .2 the speaker wishes to escape the city: “Tnu li sus o kanfey nesher/ Veimalet min hakrakh” 190(Give me a horse or eagle’s wings/ and I’ll flee the city). However, this escape is in itself fantastic, driven by the wings of a myth, by the words of Bialik.191 But the speaker belongs to the urban reality that had formed him in its image, more than any myth, placing boredom and discontent as part of his character. When the speaker does get to the country he is naturally bored:

“Zimzum hazvuvim, pitput hanaaroth, Gam neshikoth yom al yom, Hoy hanikhuni levedi Veethmaker ktsat lakhalom.192

188 Ibid., 21.

189 Ibid., 11.

190 Ibid., 27.

191 “Here a clear echo is heard to a well known BBialik poems (From Winter Songs 1904) that also presents an image of going out to nature...the resemblance has two facets: linguistic similarity and a general similarity in imagery and tendency” Barkai, MishkaÌm Byalikaiyim Be-Shirat Meshorim Ìvriyim Be-Reshit Ha-Meah Ha-Èsrim, 1900-1920, 67.

192 Steinberg, Sefer Ha-Satirot, Shirim, 44.

(The humming of flies, the chatter of girls/ and kisses day to day./ Oh leave me be/ to lose myself in dream.)

The dream that in Poems was a code name for poetry and the personal inner world is here presented as being empty and misleading. The speaker’s dream goes back of course to all that he violently drained of meaning earlier. He dreams of a soft, sad, autumn night with a girl in a room, in the city:“Akhlom li eth shaon hakrakh,/ Erev sthav venaara tsnua/ Uvakhader etsev rakh.”193 (I will dream up the noise of the city/ an autumn's night and a modest girl/ and in the room soft sadness.)

The suffocating urban landscape is inspiring in its way, giving rise to some of the strongest poetic moments in the book. The sense of urban overcrowded places and their stench rises from the text in an almost baudelairean palpability:

Gam beneshikath krakhim mar Taam ra shel tit verekhov Uvivsar pilagshim baush Toem ben hakrakh taam tov. 194 (Also the kiss of cities is bitter/ with the foul taste of plaster and street/ and the rotten flesh of concubines/ is to the city’s son a treat.)

The aesthetics of the urban space gives Steinberg the opportunity to craft surprising evocative imagery: “Nithkal hashemesh beeven uvevarzel/ Nital mikhumo veisho nithraba.” 195 (As the Sun confronts stone and iron/ it loses its heat and expends its fire.) These artistic achievements do not have the effect of the artistic symbol promised by the romantic norms. Art does not create here a communion through beauty in a universal transcendent realm but rather it is presented as the

193 Ibid.

194 Ibid., 28.

195 Ibid., 29.

minimal difference that sets the poet apart from the rest of men how simply desire to buy the symbols of spring:

“Hine baim bney krakhim Venothnim baprakhim levavam Tskhok aviv befihem uprakhim al khazam, Venafsham ko yevesha vekar ko levavam.”196 (Here come the sons of cities/ and give for flowers their gold/ the laughter of spring in their mouths and flowers of their chests/ and their soul is so dry and their heart so cold.)

Muse and lover in this book are ambivalent characters, promising freedom and endangering it in the same gesture; they are also presented as antagonistic to each other and to the speaker. For

Steinberg it is as if attending to one is betraying the other, and attending to either would be betraying something of himself. The same structure is repeated and drains of meaning whatever it is imposed on, be it for artistic expression or love or politics: first hope and faith, then betrayal followed by disillusioned but paralyzing view of the world. This portrayal of love and art in conflict is of great importance to Steinberg. The speaker’s refusal to develop any sort of intimacy causes the non-committal sexual relations, which in turn bore him. Therefore he escapes to the realm of art where his refusal to give art the place of a meaningful expression produces the light rhymes that he despises. Being bored of that he sets out to find adventure and so on.

III. …Consequently It Is Mortal…

In trying to understand that gesture done here by Steinberg we turn to Valery’s words on

Baudelaire, written in 1924. This text seems to address Steinberg’s self-fashioned position identified in The Book of Satires: “Baudelaire had the greatest interest — a vital interest — in

196 Ibid.

picking out, in calling attention to, in exaggerating all the weaknesses and lapses of romanticism observed at close quarters… Romanticism is at its apogee, he might say; consequently it is mortal…”197

The attacks described earlier against the norms of Bialik’s poetry cut deep into Steinberg’s own work, causing it to bleed out all sense and meaning, leaving it an empty husk. This is the sense behind Steinberg's insistence on the formal and thematic rigidity of his poems, which was severely criticized and viewed as emotional deficiency by critics and peers such as Zelman

Shneour and Yossef Haim Brenner. These formal attributes attest to his refusal to accept the functional construction of the poem as a true expression of emotion. In this manner Steinberg manifests the artificiality of his figurative language, of his similes and metaphors; he is qualifying them as subjective and limited and not organic. Steinberg’s irony, derisive and humorless tone does not leave much of the romantic norms. His poetic practice negated the presupposition that the power of poetic expression, exemplified in the poetry of Bialik, can remedy the split in the world; bring about non-alienated existence, if only in the form of the symbol. In doing so Steinberg created a showcase of an entire bulk of his poetic corpus, a showcase of a poetic practice that Harold bloom named “Kenosis”.198

Bloom derives the term Kenosis from Paul’s description of the Christ turning from god to man. It is a term that describes the poet’s efforts to cancel within him the power of his precursor, the creating power given to him, which would allow him to be an actual continuation and not

197 P. Valéry, “The Position of Baudelaire” in Variety: Second Series ( Harcourt, Brace and company, 1938).

198 Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, 14.

merely a repetition.199 What is at question here is an effort to deal with the poet’s anxiety of influence, that overbearing weight of the precursor.200 According to Bloom the search for poetic greatness moves through the binary options of being magnificent and being cast down from heavens.201 The in-between option, being yet another poet who writes as Bialik did, is intolerable. This fear was expressed in Poems as the calinamen, the parodic containment of the melancholy of coming second.202 This fear is translated here into a fault in the poet’s vision: the sensation that the poet either sees too much or that he does not see enough.203 In our case

Steinberg sees too much of the malevolent and dishonest nature of the world, but is blind, in his own mind, to those places where art, or love, or beauty still reside. The Kenosis is a moment where the poet is defeated but this defeat is in a sense liberating.204 By reducing himself, by destroying the sense of continuation of the literary tradition he points out to the difference between repetition and event. While his actual achievements cannot be considered by him as original, but only as moments in a course of tradition, his self-destruction can be considered such an event. While he is clearly a descendent of his precursor, he is also the last in that line. With his grand gesture of abdicating his greatness, he creates a space for himself, as if to say that if he can’t be the first, he will be the last.

199 Ibid., 77-92.

200 Ibid., 80.

201 Ibid., 79.

202 Ibid., 29.

203 Ibid., 78.

204 Ibid., 87-8.

This poetic practice questions the myth of the authority and singularity of the subject, and attests to the aforementioned draining out of the poet. Bialik’s claim for individual artistic creation was that he had not won light in a windfall, or by the deed of a father's will. Whatever light he possessed was "neither hired, nor borrowed, nor stolen," but quarried from the rock of his heart.205 Steinberg’s speaker-poet is the very opposite, nothing came to him from himself. His ideas, even his words are derived from the world of Bialik, that was by then instituted as the only world permitted.

IV. Acceptance: The evil son or the denial of the essential principle

Examining the reactions of Steinberg’s peers and other critics to these two books can give us an interesting insight into the stakes involved in his poetic choices.

H.N. Bialik’s praises of Poems from 1905 were the rock upon which expectations were built in regards to Steinberg and in relation to which he constantly disappointed.206 His uniqueness was sensed from his first book, and noted to that effect by Bialik in his seminal essay “Our

Young Poetry”.207 To Bialik’s words quoted earlier we may add the warm words of his contemporary Yaakov Fikhman who praised him as a “contemplating poet”, one who sees the world as an allegory, a simile, and who is not captivated by the sights and sounds of the world.208

Fikhman recognized his “gloominess” and restrain, the understated tone that “did not declare

205 H.N. Bialik and A. Hadari, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik (Syracuse University Press, 2000). 32

206 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg. 38

207 Bialik, "Kol Kitve," 236-41.

208 Fikhman 1938, quoted in Tsiporah Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg. 16.

defeat in a high voice, as Bialik did, as Shneour did”.209 Shneour on the other hand, for quite the same reasons, found Poems lacking:

“These were not the works of a young talent that sends sparks here and there that would surprise with a new idea…a new image, a new internal rhythm that would mark…the personality of an original poet…but collected in one volume and tastefully edited they gave a passable impression. A few poems were very accomplished and Steinberg was so very young and we hoped….”210

Steinberg was very young and apparently hopes and expectations in his regard were very high, since Shneour’s reception of and disappointment from The Book of Satires was harsh, even vitriolic. The words of Shneour quoted above are to be viewed as a positive appraisal since in context they were written in comparison to The Book of Satires that was, in Shneour’s eyes, much worse: “The reason for calling these poems ‘satires’, is known only to the poet, for you will find there everything but satire…it is an act of deception…a fake…without any burning internal flame…”. 211

Brenner aired a similar disappointment. In comparison to “…that shock before the secret that grasps us, which we have met in his first collection of poems”212, The Book of Satires is: “surely and entirely fed on emptiness…its author possesses an empty soul and has no world view…rotten interiority that gives no sign of a greater spirit.”213 Brenner did contend that this emptiness is in order for the new secularized Hebrew literature that had lost the textual homeland it had in the

209 Ibid.

210 Zalman Shneour, Kitve Zalman Shneor, 2 vols.(Tel Aviv: Devir, Place: Israel; Tel Aviv., 1960). 136- 41

211 Ibid.

212 Brenner, Kol Kitve Y. H. Brener. Uniform Title: Works. 1955, 412-22.

213 Ibid.

scriptures and faith, at least until it would be able to procure a new physical one214. Nonetheless, the poems of The Book of Satires are: “...as the sons of ennui…nothing but a long negation, incurable, devoid of hope, and naturally boring.”215

Sivan notes that the negative appraisals of Steinberg's work (that persisted in the same vein until his 're-discovery' in the 1950’) were due to lack of understanding of his poetics, a disappointment in regards to his lack of fidelity to the norms of romantic poetry.216 Rejecting the expression and experience in favor of contemplation and formal rigidity was viewed as a strange anachronism.217 Still as we have mentioned before, criticism of the romantic norms instituted by

Bialik was the common practice of all these poets, which often displayed certain anachronisms in their treatment of Bialik's models.218 What then aroused their ire?

We believe that what was felt as unacceptable in these poems is Steinberg’s attempt to distance himself from his generation and their varied misprisions of Bialik’s work. In these poems the essential question of the poet, to borrow Valery’s words, is expended. It is not only how "To be a great poet but to be neither Lamartine nor Hugo nor Musset."219, but at this point it is also “neither Shneour or Fikhman or any other version of Bialik.” Steinberg here is writing not only in opposition to Bialik but also in opposition to the others that: “…followed

214 Ibid.

215 Ibid.

216 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg, 56.

217 Ibid.

218 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim. 151-53

219 Valéry, "The Position of Baudelaire".

romanticism … altered, corrected and contradicted it, and finally took its place.”220 These others naturally also include Steinberg's young self.

It is our contention that in doing so Steinberg negated some of the romantic presuppositions the poets of his generation did not only adhere to but also viewed as essential. The main one would be that of the power of poetry and the authority of the poetic subject. While Shneour,

Fichman and others criticized the exceptional experience, the genesis of the poetic genius as it is presented in Bialik, 221 they did display a necessary conviction in the ability of the creating subject to transcend the alienation of modern life through a display of his poetic power. On these scales, the pan containing the affirmation of the independence and ability of the subject would weigh down the pan containing its negation. As is evident from Miron’s readings of their works, the notion of one totalizing truth is strongly criticized in the works of Shneour and others, as well as that of the prophetic voice of the poet. Still, they do adhere to a certain poetic function, that of recuperating the magic from the disenchanted world, as translators to the scattered sparks of wonder hidden in the grime of industrial modernity. Shneour in his poem “In the Mountains”222 does not endow the mountains with any actual magical powers as Bialik would have.223 It is clearly the subjective interpretation of the viewer that sees in a geological-physical event a mythical event.224 However, in this interpreting subjectivity lies the essence of man. While

220 Ibid.

221 cf. Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam : Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim. 182-184

222 Shneour, Kitve Zalman Shneor. 51

223 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim. 194-95

224 Ibid.

“every truth is false”, it is also true that: “every soul has its own truth”.225 It is a position that in and against modernity asserts the agency of the subject. It is not a question of finding the Truth to be subjected to, but rather of having the force to express one’s humanity in an indifferent and rationalized world (through expression, emotion, beauty), the power to compel reality to accord with one’s dreams. Doubt, ennui and spleen are constant fixtures, but also the burning desire to believe, believing being not an acknowledgment of the Truth but its fabrication.

V. Political implications

These premises of romantic thought also bear with them some political implications. Within the logic of the national literature, the power of the poet to transcend and transform reality is parallel to that of the subject to transcend the conditions of his life. Both are transformative fits of human agency that relay on the capacity of human will to impose itself of the reality exterior to it by taking charge of it, interiorizing it, making it its own. Nature is to the poet as the state is to the nation (or for that matter the class to the worker), a non-alienated expression of one’s interiority or rather a promise of possibility of such an expression. The decadent, morbid, lethargic tone of these fin du cycle poets should be read as resentment toward what Bloch names

“the darkness of the lived moment”, resentment that is based on the implicit idea that integration is possible, contradictions may be resolved and are resolved in art and action.226 The constitution of cultural nationalism, of a national culture as a revolutionary device, is founded on these

225 Zalman Shneour, `Im Sheki`at Ha-Hamah (1907). 35-36

226 Levinas, in: Raulet, Utopie, Marxisme Selon Ernst Bloch: Un Systëme De L’inconstructible: Hommages ‡ Ernst Bloch Pour Son 90e Anniversaire. 319

notions, on the belief in the capacity of art to create a symbol that would be real, not as an object in a material reality but as an indication to a concrete possibility.227

Here it would seem that Steinberg, one of the three sons Bialik spoke against, takes the role of one of the four the Torah addressed. Foreshadowing the symbolist and decadent disposition he would soon adopt, Steinberg takes upon himself the role of the evil son, asking, “what are these services to you?” (to you and not to him), and by asking that he excludes himself from the public, that of the national literature, and denies the fundamental principle, that of romantic revival, pronounced in Hebrew by Bialik and carried on, continued, modified and updated by

Brenner, Berdichevsky and others.228 Still, Steinberg’s crime would not be in the questioning. In the context of modernist sensibilities doubt and mistrust are permanent fixtures. His crime is in his refusal to believe again. In order to keep the flow of time going, to maintain the wiggish fantasy of progress, another vision should replace that of precursor; a “counter sublime” that modifies that of the precursor, but is also informed by it, allows the younger poets to go forward, through the dead-end into which their poetic father had led them when he's gotten it just a little wrong.229 Steinberg, occupying the role of the antagonist, does not allow for any such poetic redemption. He is opposed to the vision of Bialik point for point; he is alien to him and other.230

227 Louis Marin, "La Pratique Fiction Utopie," in Utopie- Marxisme Selon Ernst Bloch, ed. Gérard Raulet (Paris: Payot, 1976). 241

228 Hannan Hever, Ha-Sipur Veha-Leom: Keriot Bikoratiyot Be-Kanon Ha-Siporet Ha-`Ivrit, Fetish; Variation: Fetish. (Tel-Aviv: Resling, 2007), 17.

229 Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. 79

230 Ibid., 80.

As Bloom writes: in relation to the poetic landscape of the precursor the poet becomes alienated and solipsistic, presenting himself as all knowing, but without any power.231

Brenner puts his finger on this unpleasant feature in Steinberg's work. He writes that

Steinberg’s poems are: “Pretty, poetic and becoming, but … are unable to become a “yes” and are always…nothing but a long negation empty of hope and salvation…”232 What arises from these texts is the poet’s discontent, alienation and confusion:

“Sometimes he lusts after sin …but does not enjoy it. He is always ‘afraid of death’…he always sees the ‘other side of the coin’. Also his attitude to his greater, poetic soul is bizarre: he never takes pride in it and he believes in it even less or accords it with any value.”233

Steinberg's insistence not to provide a “…content with a sense of spiritual transcendence, of redemption, of the light of life”234 counters the political function of the utopian literature, that of creating a symbol, an indication to the possibility of light where there is none.235

The Book of Satires contains very few mentions of the “national question” and the plight of the Jews. The “essence” of the Jew is mockingly described as an annoying after thought that god sought to expel from his mind so he could rest.236 The book does have one mention of Zionism,

231 Ibid., 91.

232 Joseph Hayyim Brenner, Kol Kitve Y. H. Brener. Uniform Title: Works. 1955, 3 vols. ([Tel-Aviv]: Devir, 1964), 409-14.

233 Ibid.

234 Ibid.

235 Levinas in: Raulet, Utopie, Marxisme Selon Ernst Bloch : Un Systëme De L'inconstructible : Hommages ‡ Ernst Bloch Pour Son 90e Anniversaire. 322

236 Steinberg, Sefer Ha-Satirot, Shirim, 10

which ties the ideology to the divine and to the notion of redemption, of course in an ironic, mocking fashion.237

Ana olikh eth yagoni? ... Veani shamathi omrim Al dayarey palestina: Al hayarden o bagalil Ra’a khoresh ziv hashkhina Veod zoth shama’athi... Efsher hivrik khol hamidbar Vehu nith’a velo yada238 (Where shall I lead my grief? ...I heard it said/ of the inhabitants of Palestine...On the Jordan or in the Galilee/ a plowman saw the glimmer of the divine/ I also heard […that..] perhaps the desert sand glimmered/ and he was wrong and did not know it).

This is not so much a reference to Zionist ideology as it is a question of poetic ideology.

The glimmer of the Devine is this apparition of the symbol, producing the experience that seems to reconcile all contradictions. Only that the function of the symbol according to

Steinberg is to assure that the unhappy plowman of Palestine will not know that it was the sun on the desert sand that tricked him, a game of smoke and mirrors arranged by the cowardly angel of ideas in favor of the demanding stomach. Steinberg later defines the problem in the essential terms of Diaspora and homeland. In one brief mention, cociese and precise he defines the problem as a social reality that is not grounded in the symbol or in a myth. Rather it is grounded in power relations:

237 Which is the only mention of Zionism in Steinberg’s early poetry, repeated ad verbum in “Massa Avisholem”

238 Steinberg, Sefer Ha-Satirot, Shirim, 32

Al hadneper yesh beyth dayag Uvabayth ani gar; Melo hamerkhav - galey zahav Galey mayim- galey var, ... Ani shat basira. Akharay Tsaf dag katan umithgare: Elem dal, yehudi yahir, Eth hashoter ata yare.239 (On the Dnieper there’s a fisherman’s home/ an in that home I live. The whole space- waves of gold/ waves of water, waves of crops...I am sailing in a boat/ behind a small fish surfaces, teasing:/ poor youth, vain Jew/ you fear the police.)

Brenner is aware of the political trauma foregrounding this worldview, that of the 1905 failed revolution, the disappointment from progressive politics and the violence of the years of reaction: “This poem “the battlefield is covered with cadavers” …I wonder if anywhere the horror of this moment in the northern state, was so terribly expressed- terrible in its brevity, mockery and calm!”.240 But still, Brenner insists on seeing it as something going beyond the political: “the light satire …is no longer part of the political situation but most certainly belongs to the horror of the vacuity of the everyday”.241 This insistence stops

Brenner from realizing (or admitting) what is clear in Steinberg’s writing: that in the ideology of the symbol, the “sense of spiritual transcendence, of redemption, of the light of life” the cowardly angel of ideas collaborates with the angel of the stomach, covering up the political situation, which is precisely the vacuity of the everyday.

239 Steinberg, Sefer Ha-Satirot, Shirim, 60.

240 Brenner, Kol Kitve Y. H. Brener. Uniform Title: Works. 1955, 411-14.

241 Ibid.

Part 3. The Book of Lonelinesses and the Aesthetics of Decadence

Introduction: Many, Many Ways of Being Lonely.

The Book of Lonelinesses is composed of lyrical poems, most of which were published in press as parts of two cycles “Dances” and “Times”.242 This book and the lyrical cycles indicate already an alternative to the poetics of Bialik and therefore an alternative to the aesthetics of the national literature. In these poems a decadent worldview is instituted and Steinberg attempts to put in place a different subject, based on this worldview. The Book of Lonelinesses was published one year after the publication of The Book of Satires, and it does display a sort of resolution, a transition of sorts, though hardly the one Brenner hoped for. The book’s name:

“Sefer ha’Bedidot” is a peculiar name, which Sivan understands as the Book of Solitary Units, reading “Bedidot” as the plural of “Bedida” (single unit, which shares the root B.D.D. with the

Hebrew “Boded”, lonely).243 Miron however points out that “bedida” is a rare medieval form for

“bedidut” - loneliness, and he therefore understands the name of the book as indicating to a plurality of ‘lonelinesses’.244 This study finds the latter understanding more fitting, both to the content of the book and to the decadent style celebrated in it and Steinberg’s fascination with esoteric peculiar words.245 Either way, both names indicate to the same atomized and fragmented worldview.

The Book of Lonelinesses differs from The Book of Satires on several accounts. It does not have the clear structure of The Book of Satires. The Book of Lonelinesses is composed of lyrical poems, which are unconnected as the name might indicate. Musicality, formal diversity and

242 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg. 97-98

243 Ibid. 57

244 Miron. In a personal conversation, 2013

245 Ḥamuṭal. Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel Decadeces : Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener,", 38

distinct sense of self are characteristic of many of the poems in it. However, the two books share a great deal of similarities as far as thematics, figurative language, and ideals are concerned.

It is possible to extract from the book a single impression underlining Steinberg’s experience: the profound loneliness of the critic. In The Book of Lonelinesses this experience is broken down to the many ways of being lonely: existentially, romantically, socially and artistically. In The

Book of Lonelinesses these long chains of negations are used as markers for a delicate psychological situation: the decadent position made out of the collisions between contradictory unconscious drives and desires, which are translated into a lethargic, pessimist and fragmented worldview. The kenostic, seemingly pointless deconstruction of the subject that took place in

The Book of Satires is here rendered as the representation of a subject, albeit a different one. It is a decadent subject, presented as a unity of internal antagonisms striving not for resolution but for balance. Through the presentation of this subject Steinberg’s work shifts farther away from the romantic poetics of the national literature and closer to the domain of symbolist, decadent aesthetics.

Steinberg is writing against the conception of the subject that is found in Bialik's works, the aforementioned triple faced subject.246 Steinberg’s The Book of Lonelinesses insists on depicting another subject than the romantic one. Steinberg’s subject does not have a center to speak of.

Reconnecting to that absent center, the land, and the organic metaphoric ground in which the soul of the nation has its roots cannot heal his fragmentation. The project of an alternative constitution of the self begins to acquire a distinct form in The Book of Lonelinesses. The tension created between the plurality of Steinberg’s own contradictory qualifications, which was

246 Miron, Ha-Peridah Min Ha-Ani He-`Ani : Mahalakh Be-Hitpathut Shirato Ha-Mukdemet Shel Hayyim Nahman Biíalik, 1891-1901. 29-31

perceived as a poetic and psychological failure by Steinberg's peers, is clearly presented in this book as a fundamental principle in the constitution of the subject.

I. Rejection of the national literature

The tension produced in The Book of Satires by the contradiction between the form and content of the book and the poetic norms of the time raised some expectations. The violent dissonance examined earlier had to find its resolution. Brenner signals this anticipation: “The

Book of Satires starts and ends -of course -in loneliness...it is interesting what would the promised Book of Lonelinesses bring with it?”247

The anticipation from Steinberg is articulated clearly in Brenner’s critique. This text, which was a response to Fishel Lakhover’s attack on the morose character of Hebrew poetry, gives a clear roadmap for the transformation desired from Steinberg. In this text Brenner claims that decadence and melancholia in the case of the Hebrew poetry are not a feint or a fashionable mask worn by spoiled degenerate youth. It is, on the contrary, a realistic description of the material and psychic conditions of the Jews.248 The doxa at the time was that a degenerate disease afflicted Judaism, or that Judaism itself was a degenerate disease and that decadence as a literary style was a faithful realist representation of it.249 Brenner insisted in the article that a healthy literature would not exist in Hebrew: “Until a new generation of workers of natural

Jewish labor will arise, in our little, Israeli settlement, [a generation] that would be a son to the homeland and its literature the fruit of the homeland”.

247 Brenner, Kol Kitve Y. H. Brener. Uniform Title: Works. 1955, 412-22

248Ibid.,

249 Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener," 38.

That is, the disease can find its cure through Zionism.250 However, in the meantime the national literature can indicate the possibility of a future healthy literature, through the use of the symbol. Symbolism is expected here of the poet, symbolism in its “mature” form.251 Mature symbolism was the way out of the malaise of the Fin de siècle, connecting the pessimist, world wary poet to the soul of the nation, to its mysticism. Through this poetic practice the holy communion of the nation could be evoked in ecstatic and eschatological tones, explaining the nation’s reality as apocalypse and redemption.252

It is not a simple or naive position. The prophetic voice of the young poet in the turn of the century was considerably weaker than the roaring declamations of Bialik, and there was awareness of this weakness. Renouncing its prophetic function, the later pseudoprophetic voice saw its function in the capacity to indicate a certain way of reading the world that would infuse the ruined landscape of urban modernity with some magic and beauty.253

This literary position represents one of the ways in which Hebrew and Yiddish writers attempted to access literary modernity.254Among the many models available the one championing the national renaissance overcoming the cosmopolitan decadence became the mainstream position.255 In the context of Yiddish and Hebrew literatures, which is to a large

250 Ibid., 30, 38.

251 Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener," 40.

252 Ibid.

253 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim; 223-24; Dan. Miron, "H. N. Bialik and the Prophetic Mode in Modern Hebrew Poetry," (New York:: Syracuse University Press, 2000). 23

254 Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener." 39-40

255 Hever, Ha-Sipur Veha-Leom: Keriot Bikoratiyot Be-Kanon Ha-Siporet Ha-`Ivrit. 17

degree the context of the Russian literature,256 the decadent position was a very popular but problematic one that was supposed to be resolved by the national renaissance discourse.257

The historical narrative of the Russian literature was defined to a large extent by a constant struggle between foreign influences imported from the West to reform the oriental backwardness of Russia and its Slavic identity that was deeply and mystically rooted in the orient and in the

Russian land.258 The important image of Russian romanticism was that of the superfluous man: a conflicted and torn subjectivity that is uprooted from the East by its reason and refined sensibilities but has no place in the West because of its attachment to the Slavic earth and its irrationality, desires and longing259. With decadence and symbolism this persona celebrated its deviance so to speak, describing a world of alienation, ideological, moral and societal bankruptcy, a world of atomized individuals were a selected few manage to forget the fear of death through aesthetic and corporal enjoyment260. The aestheticism and hedonism were cast as the effects of civilization in decline, which is opposed to nature, vulgarity and organic primitive emotions, all attributes of oriental Russia.261

256 ; Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener." 40.

257 Ibid. Shmeruk, "ḲEriʾah Le-Navi: MeḥḲEre HisṭOryah ṾE-Sifrut."

258 I. Kleespies, A Nation Astray: Nomadism and National Identity in Russian Literature, (Northern Illinois University Press, 2012), http://www.amazon.com/Nation-Astray-Nomadism-National-Literature- ebook/dp/B009XE6GYS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1396010519&sr=1- 1&keywords=A+Nation+Astray%3A. Kindle. Introduction.

259 Ibid. Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener." 36

260 Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel Deḳadens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener." 13

261 Donchin, The Influence of French Symbolism on Rusian Poetry.101. Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener," 13.

As Bar-Yosef notes, the concept of “renaissance literature” designated in Russian literary discourse of the turn of the century the “return” of the first generation of symbolists, who rebelled against romanticism during the 1870’ and produced the pessimistic worldview described above, to the fold of romanticism. Romanticism in this context meant the capacity to remain faithful to “the soul of the people”. 262 As Lowy describes it, it is romanticism understood in its widest form, as longings for pre-capitalist values and the belief in the possibility to reinstitute these values in the present positivist reality.263 Thus the second generation of symbolism came about in the 1890’, more ‘mature’ and less antagonistic and as such could find its place in the national literature.264 Donchin describes the way Russian symbolists dealt with these romantic demands in relation to national literature’s aesthetics. The way to reconnect to these notions for

Russian symbolists such as Blok and others was through the construction in romantic terms of the symbolist poet of the second generation: a provocative myth-maker, who in his lonesome flannery sees all the naked truths, unearthing and exposing, even creating the image of the nation from its unconscious myth.265 This narrative presents itself as a drama of repentance and rebirth, of return from “degenerate” decadence to the "mature" symbolism. It contained within it the profound disappointment from the romantic experience that was constitutive in the sentimental education of the modern poet.266 The romantic experience is however essential for the existence

262 Ibid., 14.

263 M. Löwy et al., Romanticism against the Tide of Modernity (Duke University Press, 2001).22

264 Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener," 14.

265 Donchin, The Influence of French Symbolism on Rusian Poetry. 100

266 Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener." 41

of a national literature and its rediscovery in the symbol and in myth was the cure for the pathology of decadence.267

This view of literature was imported into Hebrew literary thought by the critic Yosef

Klausner, together with the demand for a reform by way of the rejection of the cosmopolitan, degenerate, a-national culture of the Jews and its substitution by a “true” Hebrew national content.268

Brenner himself supplied us with numerous examples of this attempted return. In his novels, written from the decadent viewpoint of the "uprooted", the decadent himself does not perform the return but there is always an indication to its possibility. Take for instance the end scenes of two of his novels where Brenner paints profoundly religious images: an image of a mock Pietà in

“In Distress” and another of the holy family in the end scene of “From Here to Here”269. Both these images, delivered from the viewpoint of the erring and spleenatic narrator, allude to the possibility of redemption in the image of two luminary characters, Abraham Menukhin and Arie

Lapidos, who are powerful enough to sublate the contradictions of modern existence via their universal religious sensibility. These are two scenes that stand in contrast to the decadent backdrop of the novel as moments of integration and transcendence. They are at one and the same time alien to the story matter and organic to it, its hoped-for conclusion. As we have stated in our discussion of The Book of Satires, Brenner’s disappointment of Steinberg was due to

Steinberg’s incapacity to complete this spiritual trajectory, and to produce such indications to an even remotely possible resolution.

267 Ibid., 39.

268 Ibid.

269 Brenner, Kol Kitve Y. H. Brener. Uniform Title: Works. 1955.

The debate here is of course first and foremost poetic. Steinberg's critique of the poetics norms of the national literature is in fact a refusal to let go of a profound objection to romanticism, an objection that is essential to the symbolist position. As Anna Balakian writes, the formal attributes of symbolism are not merely poetic artifacts but are stemming from an ontological opposition to romanticism. This position is that of a radical and irreparable dissociation between subject and object.270 This sensation of being out of joint with the world was the major attack of the French symbolists against both the romanticism that preceded them and their immediate reality of stifling positivism and naturalism of the triumphant bourgeoisie271.

Baudelaire’s “Correspondences” stood as a sign for this worldview. In opposition to the idealist roots of the concept, which assumed unmediated relation to nature, the symbolist correspondences drew its strength from the distance and incomprehensibility of the world, which allowed the poet to craft his work as an object apart.272 Not a union between subjectivity and nature but rather a third position between object and subject that is informed by the impressions of the former on the latter. Rather than reconciling the distance between object and subject, symbolist poetry accentuated it, used it as a motor to produce the desired effects of mystery, contradiction, and confusion that are at the base of symbolist aesthetics.273The demand to move beyond this radical break, a demand that was common in German and Russian literatures that

270 A. Balakian, The Symbolist Movement: A Critical Appraisal (New York University Press, 1977). 34- 35

271 Ibid. 5

272 Ibid. 34-35

273 Ibid. 49

understood this rift as foreign influence and degeneration of the national spirit,274 would be in fact the demand to cancel a very valid and unresolved criticism of romanticism.

II. Steinberg’s subject

The subject Steinberg tried to produce In The Book of Lonelinesses is a person who was familiar to the reader from such works as Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground or

Hamsun’s Hunger. It is “...a sick man...a spiteful man... an unpleasant man”.275 These are the traits of the person we saw before in The Book of Satires, however in this book the character is somewhat rounder, as Steinberg attempts to endow it with psychological plausibility. This psychological plausibility is founded on the joint effect of two factors. The first one is a certain causal logic explaining the psychological constitution of the subject. The second factor is the affiliation with a different notion of beauty and the sublime.

The psychological plausibility is grounded in a logic that was already presented earlier: it is the image of the poet trapped in a contradictory constellation of forces, spiraling and conflicted without resolution: the hurt of love is covered up by the work of poetry and a decadent life style;

The decadence and the work of poetry installs in the speaker the sensibility that sets him apart from the masses; The poet’s desire for acceptance and escapism pushes him to produce light rhymes that is turn produce a notion of senselessness and death that again can find its expression in art- expression and not resolution of conflict as even the institution of literature cannot promise anything more than the existence in memory as a relic.

274 Ibid. 10. Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener."

275 F. Dostoyevsky, A.R. MacAndrew, and B. Marcus, Notes from Underground (Signet Classics, 2004).

What makes The Book of Lonelinesses different is that the generalized complaint against the nature of the world from The Book of Satires becomes in this book a personal outlook of a single and singular individual. It is decadence’s parodic defiance against romanticism: the gaze of the

Genius is unique and revealing and the genius suffers from the social tension between him and the masses, except that the personal bildung of the genius together with social antagonism poisoned the genius’s mind, rendered him bitter and venomous, solipsistic and spleenatic. The speaker’s vision is therefore introvert, marred in despair and depression, given to extreme and contradictory moods.276 Above all this vision is very personal. It cannot be shared or used as guidance.

The new subject is announced from the first poem of the book. The poem describes the existential and artistic loneliness that sets the poet apart from his community of reference. The poem, “Opening”, seems like the type of generalizing, world-embracing statements that we have met in The Book of Satires, only without the satire, without any irony. It is no longer a question of the adolescent ressentiment towards some higher power, faulting the existing reality for not according to some unspecified positive model. On the contrary, this is a resigned image of a very sober mind:

“Gamadim yaronu vakhutsuth vegeim basether mithanim: halvavoth hagedolim nithroknu yithmal’u halvavoth haktanim277 (Dwarfs are singing in the high street/ and proud men torment themselves in hiding:/ the big hearts are empty/ the small hearts are full)

276 Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel Deḳadens : Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳi, Brener." 17

277 Steinberg, Sefer Ha-Bedidot: Shirim, 5.

Through the language of the poem we can easily spot a single subject position from which these things are said. The opposition of dwarfs and proud men, high streets and hidings draws a picture in which the speaker observes from a higher position the maddening crowd. The poem presents the impressionistic vision: The speaker in his hidden place of torment is watching what seems to be a carnival, marked by the foul odors of the debauch marketplace:

Verey’akh shel kdeshoth bakhutsot Verey’akh shel zahav balvavoth Hashvilim hatsarim nashamu, Homoth hadrakhim harkhavoth (And the smell of temple whores in the streets/ and the smell of gold in the hearts;/ the narrow alleys expire/ the wide roads bustle)

The construction of this stanza gives away the presence of an individual subjectivity expressing these impressions. The repetition of “and” in the beginning of the first two verses adds the smell of prostitution, exploitation and greed to the sound of the dwarfs singing invading the speaker’s hideout. The surprising image of the alleyways expiring the odors into the excited wide roads gives away the fact that we are dealing here not with the generalized criticism of The

Book of Satires, but with the worldview of a single person. This individual is given away twice as a person who can see: first, he is found in a precise geographic vantage point that allows him to see alleyways and boulevards meeting; second, he is also in a vantage point that allows him to see it as an artistic symbolic representation, i.e. a poet. The image created in this poem and guiding the rest of the book is the canonical image of the romantic, standing alone before the landscape, immersed in his own impressions and singularity. It is here however that the aforementioned hidden parody and irony of the poem come to light. After marking an existential difference between the speaker and the crowd, it turns out that like in many other poems, what

Steinberg portrays as a noble choice is actually a reality imposed on him:

Gam eymath hamoveth hithnadfa Milev hakhenvanim hayege’im; Panim el panim yedaber Hamoveth im habodedim hage’im (The horror of death had evaporated as well/ from the hearts of weary shopkeepers;/ face to face death/ only addresses proud loners)

What sets the speaker apart from the dwarfs and shopkeepers is that he is afraid of dying while they no longer feel so. They are able to go about singing and fornicating, as dwarfs do, whereas the speaker is paralyzed, tormented in hiding with only death to converse with. It is a complaint we heard often in The Book of Satires. The striking difference here is that the inner world behind the voice speaking these condemnations and decrees is acknowledged. Whereas in

The Book of Satires exposing the inner world of the speaker was a rare occurrence and a moment of crisis, in this book the subject and his emotional involvement is at the center of the scene.

III. A World of Pain

This emotional involvement is explained as the result of a profound disappointment, a romantic one. The fourth poem describes that romantic loneliness, the loneliness of abandonment:

Haytha bthula li sheyad’a Livro tskhok vegil menshika Pa’am yats’a velo shava- Vehabdidut li hetsika278

278 Ibid., 9.

(I had a maiden that knew/ how to create joy and laughter from a kiss/ one time she left and didn’t return/ and I was annoyed by loneliness.)

The abandonment is a severe emotional shock: "haya olam tov limkhetsa/pith'om pa'ar li et tehomo" (there was a world half good / that suddenly gaped its chasm at me). While the poem presents the shock as an event of revelation that showed (or reminded) the speaker of the real nature of the world, it is also presented as the speaker’s revelation, leaving the readers the freedom to decide if this is a Gogol like realistic depiction of a sick mind or an actual statement on the nature of creation. The emotional shock, regardless of its meaning, is repressed and sublated through the poetry: “Ani tarud kol hyamim/ Leerog mitve paz ulekhasoth/ Al kol hasodoth hane'elamim (I'm busy all day long/ weaving a cloth of gold to cover/ all the hidden secrets.) This situation of hurt creates the grounds for the emotional unavailability of the speaker and his aggrandized image as untouchable titan.

The third poem “The Hunter”279 describes this loneliness of love: “Gan nafshekh yada’ati, gam bsareykh/ Mathkhil hadavar lesha’amem” (I knew both your soul and your flesh/ this thing is getting boring). The speaker claims that after knowing his lover’s body and mind, she bores him. However, if we read carefully we see or can suspect that rather than bored he is intimidated by his partner’s sexuality: “bulmus tayve bedamekh/ velahavekh eyno mekhamem.” (A rage of lust in your blood/ and your flame does not warm). The choice of words here is important: the

Hebrew word “Bulmus” derived from the Greek “boulīmia” (ravenous hunger) paints the feminine lust as dangerous and devouring. This description stands in contradiction to the image of the weak flame. It would seem that this description foregrounds the disinterest of the speaker, the aristocratic detachment with which he judges the rage of lust directed at him. We come to

279 Ibid., 7.

doubt this description as we read on in the poem: “omnam gam ishi lo tama/ akh lama lekhiskekh afkira?” (It's true my fire did not burn out/ but why should I abandon it to your desire?). He’d rather verse his fire into dreams and rhymes. The image dominating this poem is that of a lonely hunter standing over the flow of life to fish treasures. While at first the speaker’s findings are described as rubies, later on he refers to them as “gold and silver fish” and finally his honesty gets the better of him:

Ish tsayd anokhy. Me atsud Benefesh ko tslula ko raka? Shalom. Beyamim akhurim Holekh ani lifros khaka.” (I am a hunting man. What shall I hunt / with such a clear and tender soul?/ farewell. In murky seas/ I cast my fishing-pole)

This stanza exposes the fallacy behind the speaker’s statements. His declaration: “I’m a hunting man,” echoes two biblical references: the first is the reference to Nimrod from genesis

10:8, 9 “And Cush begat Nimrod.... He was a mighty hunter before the Lord”, the second one is from genesis 25:27: “And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and

Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.” Both Nimrod and Esau are very problematic characters, Nimrod’s name is taken to represent rebellion against god (from the root M.R.D :

“rebelled”) and Esau is the red haired brute who fathered the Edomites, i.e. the Christians, the enemy of Israel, that is to say the enemy of Yaakov. Steinberg signals in this fashion the artificial nature of his act, how alienated he is from it. The opposition of “clear tender soul/ murky seas” stresses even further the opposition between Jacob the tent dweller and the ocean of life, and by doing so also attests to the magnitude of the emotional distress so casually described in the first stanza of the poem.

IV. The genius

This reality of romantic hurt and distance is the psychological-biographical reasoning for the aggrandizing gesture so frequent in the work of Steinberg. However with this aggrandizing gesture problems become bigger with a new set of conflicts and contradictions. For example in the poem “I am from a family of excellency”. The first half of the poem, four stanzas, describes the artistic prowess of the speaker:

“Ani mimishpakhath geonim/ Venezer malkhuth al mitzkhi;/ Zhav khalomothay lo yu’am, / Lo yamuth ra’ayoni hanitskhi.“(I am from a family of Excellency/ and a royal crown rests on my forehead/ the gold of my dreams will not grow dim/ my eternal idea will not die).

The honorific “Gaon” (pl. Geonim) meant in Modern Hebrew “Genius”, the quality so dear to the romantics. Originally it was a title accorded to the heads of the great Babylonian academies, and later to honorable sages, indicating to the noble linage of the speaker.280 In the bible however it stands for pride, excellency, but also arrogance: “The Lord God hath sworn by himself, saith the Lord the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces”.281 This proximity between noble linage, the genius and the sin of hubris is strengthened as the speaker claims to reign over the kingdom of dreams and to have access to secret knowledge: “Le’eved li sar hahazaya / Hu lakhash asabim limdani,/ Hu masar li et sod hahavaya.” (My slave is the master of hallucination/ he taught me the whisper of herbs/ he gave away the secret of being)

280 A. Berlin, The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion(Oxford University Press, 2011), 283.

281 Amos, Bible, King James Version,, (S.l.: s.n.), http://www.columbia.edu/cgi- bin/cul/resolve?clio8977206.001

The use of the noun “slave” and the verb “masar”282 stress out the involuntary and immoral aspects of the situation, a very different situation from the ‘normal’ investiture by of the romantic poet. The knowledge the speaker acquires is presented as mystical and profound but at the same time as questionable. The rhyme “hahazaya/hahavaya” (hallucination/ being) as well as the almost identical orthography of the two words, tie these two terms together, signaling an identity between them. The poem is constructed as an opposition between the speaker and his royal crown on one hand, and the crowd of dwarfs, beggars and slaves on the other; but in reality the poem demonstrates the lack of such opposition between them:

“Veulam bekhol otsroth nafshi Rak evyon ani beyn evyonim.... Beyosher uve’ahavath hakhaym Katonti mikton ha’avadim” (And yet with all the treasures of my soul/ I am a beggar among beggars.... in honesty and joy of life/ I'm smaller than the smallest slave).

Given the description of the speaker as poor and dishonest, the coupling of being and hallucination receives a different color, one similar to that of Knut Hamsun’s hungry and delirious hero. The speaker’s delirium produced his arrogant behavior that separates him from society and earns him its antagonism.

The speaker describes himself as a conflicted and antagonistic personality:

“Vekhutspath dor atid belvavi Usheyrim shel kdusha atika Gam ohav gem eth’av hamenukha

282 Masar: Handed over, delivered denounced. “Denunciation (heb. mesirah)... Denunciation [is] the most heinous crime in the Jewish community and the informer (malshin or moser; delator) its most despicable character” Berlin, The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, 209.

Habedidut li tove vemetsika. (And the irreverence of a future generation in my heart/ and the remains of ancient sanctity/ I love but also hate rest/ loneliness is good for me and troublesome.)

It is a person who is in a state of emotional paralysis, who is overwhelmed by grief: "Hayagon hagadol im simkha/Le’ekhad belibi nitsmadim.... Hayagon im eymath hamaveth/ Le’ekhad belibi nitsmadim." (The great grief together with joy/ are joined as one in my heart.... grief together with the horror of death/ are joined as one in my heart).

Grief over what? The answer to that is intimated in the poem: “Haoneg lo nithan bayetsira/

Veosher bayoffi eyn konim” (pleasure is not given in creation/ and happiness cannot be bought with beauty). It is the sense of rejection that comes from the feeling that the speaker’s treasures, which are valuable to him, are worthless to another person. There is nothing in it that can buy what the speaker desires. Beauty and happiness, like all other thing Steinberg desires are devalued by him. Pleasure and happiness are defined respectively as something that is given and something that is bought.

V. The myth of art: the gates of beauty have closed/ the gates of obscenity are opening

This state of loss of self-worth and rejection leads the speaker of the poems to reject in his own turn society’s values. Through this rejection Steinberg’s presents his counter-sublime- the aesthetics of decadence:

Nisgaru sha’ary hayofi Sha’ary hatum’a nifthakhim: Makhar hagever et nafsho Lakdeshoth haorvot badrakhim

100

Mutsag hakheshek bashvakim Venimkar nartikim nartikim Midor avotheynu shekhat’u Nakhalnu rak shemoth atikim,

Hava veershom basefer Maasey haadam beyn dori Gam libi mithkhalel umazkin Holekh vepokheth gam ori 283 (The gates of beauty have closed/ the gates of obscenity are opening/ the man sold his soul/ to the temple whores haunting the roads// Desire is displayed in the markets/ and is sold by the purse/ from the generation of our sinful fathers/ we only inherited old names// Let me write in the book/ the deeds of a man of my generation/ my heart, too, grows hollow and old/ my light is slowly diminished)

In this poem the demonic persona of the decadent is assumed and the poetics of decadence is opposed to that of romanticism, at least in content if not in form: the choice of obscenity as the counter-sublime to beauty, the cold and detached attitude replacing love with sex. The second stanza attempts to achieve a symbolistic effect: the suggestive image of desires sold by the purse284 in the market becomes modern, dehumanizing and disassociated as we realize that one of the old names inherited from the sinning fathers is “Kdeshoth”, the priestesses-prostitutes of the bible. The last stanza enforces that image of modernity by placing the speaker and his pessimistic experience as representative: it is an experience of decline.

VI. A Promise against Death

283 Steinberg, Sefer Ha-Bedidot: Shirim, 53.

284 Nartik: purse, but also vagina.

101

It is through this experience of decline that Steinberg finds a way out, a sort of resolution, a symbolist one. Other than the sentiment of rejection the emotion that runs through the poems is that of fear of death. As Ernst Bloch claims the promise embedded in utopia is a promise against death.285 The dissociated modern man is promised a certain way of becoming, of coming into being in the progression of utopia, in the labor of constructing the future homeland all mankind is striving for.286 In the national literature this positive drive of becoming in the future is combined with the past of the nation and the universal transcendence of art, the few things that overcome the ephemerous nature of life.

As we have seen so far, Steinberg doesn’t really go for that kind of salvation. The second poem of the book “Monument” addresses the loneliness of the artist. In this poem Steinberg uses the notion of a world literature as a substitute for an afterlife: “anokhi meth-verekhushi od yishtamer/ vedor vador beshmi hatov yithyamer”287 (I am dead and my property will be preserved/ and many generations will take praise in my good name).

The poem presents a harsh political and historical reality that is a determined natural process during which nations expand over deserts and seas while others vanish out of existence: ““yavo yom venishkakha hasafa/ sfat shiray ha’atika vehayafa” (a day will come and the language will be forgotten/ the ancient and beautiful language of my poems). This process is described in romantic terms in sweeping gestures and with a gothic scenery: “vehalakh imam shmi bekerev amim/ me'ever lemidbaryoth uleyamim.... venikbar shmi bekivroth bney hamelakhim…” (And my

285 V. Geoghegan, Ernst Bloch (Taylor & Francis, 2008). 41-43

286 Levinas in: Raulet, Utopie, Marxisme Selon Ernst Bloch: Un Systëme De L’inconstructible: Hommages ‡ Ernst Bloch Pour Son 90e Anniversaire. 325

287 Steinberg, Sefer Ha-Bedidot: Shirim, 6.

102

name went with them/ over deserts and seas...and my name was buried in the tombs of sons of kings…). The speaker will be saved from this process: “ve'akhay hamfuzarim vehato’im/ yavi’u et harekhush leveyn hagoym” (and my scattered and erring brothers/ will bring the property to the nations). It is not a complete salvation as the merciless flow of time affects everything:

“Velo laad mazkereth li hetsavti Ki yavo yom venishkekha makhshavthi Venikbar shmi bekivrot bney mlakhim Mistarerim gam elim venishkakhim.288 (And the monument I have placed is not for eternity/ for a day will come and my thought will be forgotten/ and my name would be buried in the tombs of kings/ even gods reign and are forgotten)

When read as an allegory for Steinberg’s times this poem appears as a travesty. The reality of colonialist expansion, destruction of social fabrics and the disappearance of cultures is dressed in grotesque orientalist gowns and presented as a noble archaic process. In an elegiac tone the speaker accepts his own demise and that of his nation as a necessary outcome of history: “...yehi shem ami az kvar zikhron kdumim/ kezikhron kol hagoyim ha’atsumim” (let the name of my people be already an ancient memory/ like the name of all the great nations). It seems that there is almost a sense of merciful release here. But as is the case in Steinberg’s poetry every single impression is undone. What will remain of the speaker is property, material objects whose relation to the speaker is unclear. World literature is more of a collection than a community, where the property would reside, decontextualized and uprooted, together with other goods from different times and places. The act of delivering these goods to the nations is minimized but we can gauge its importance.

288 Ibid.

103

The expression used to describe the act of transmission: “scattered and erring brothers” presents a suggestive image that could be read in different ways. Steinberg here uses a rhetoric device frequent in the writing of SH.Y. Abramovitsh and Sholem Aleichem: the literal translation of an expression from one language to the others, thus immediately inflating the meaning on a Yiddish expression or deflating the Hebrew one of its meaning.289Steinberg takes the common Yiddish expression “Tsezeyt un tseshpreyt” (spread and scattered), used to describe the state of the Jewish people in Diaspora, and transforms it. The rendering “akhay hamfuzrim vehato’im” (my brothers scattered and erring) elevates the everyday expression, giving it a different resonance. The fact that this expression can be found in An-sky’s “The Oath”, the anthem of the Bund movement290 as well as the homonymy that exists in Hebrew between errance and error creates here a dramatic retarding element in the flow of the poem. When the speaker says: “venosfa sgulath libi lesgulotham” (and my heart’s virtue was added to their virtue) it is unclear if he talks of inclusion or effacement. But at the same time it doesn’t matter since everything is transient. Gods, languages or nations, everything passes.

It is here however that Steinberg finds a formula to overcome his ‘fear of death’: “akh zahav khalomi ya’amod lemishmeret/ kakh kayam barak hasapir bli hamisgeret” (but the gold of my dream will remain as a vigil/ thus the glow of sapphire exists without its frame). Something does remain, property remains. The poems as material objects might survive, not as memory but as

289 Menakhem Perry, "Thematic and Structural Shifts in Autotranslations by Bilingual Hebrew-Yiddish Writers: The Case of Mendele Mokher Sforim," Poetics Today 2, no. 4 (1981).

290 “Brider un shvester fun arbet un noyt/ Ale vos zaynen tsezeyt un tseshpreyt,/ Tsuzamen, tsuzamen, di fon iz greyt,...”(Brothers and sisters in toil and struggle/ All who are dispersed far and wide/ Come together, the flag is ready) Sh. An-ski Di Shvue, published in Der idisher arbayter (The Jewish Worker) 1902. An-ski among other things was an ethnographer who collected folk tales and customs of rural Jewish life, which were published extensively in Russian. Safran, Gabriella. "Rapoport, Shloyme Zaynvl,” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. (2010).

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relics. The image of sapphire works well with the general romantic orientalist atmosphere, the speaker’s dream is to be found in the ancient tombs, an object encapsulating in it an age of heroes, like Priam’s treasure from Hissarlik. This could be read of course as another ironic twist, the modern age, in Steinberg’s eyes, being as far removed from the epic as possible. In the poem the frame surrounding the sapphire could be read as being the ancient beautiful language or the speaker’s own ephemeral existence. Either way the essential, the idea, can outlive them both. In that form the poem, the crafted idea, can offer liberation from both the fear of death and from the chaining of the poet’s singular sensitivity to a national, historical or linguistic milieu. As such it is an opposition to the romantic norms of the national literature and its demand both for the expression of a singular coherent individual voice and for the anchoring of this voice in a historical-national background.

This is perhaps the most important idea exhibited in The Book of Lonelinesses and the one that will be carried on by Steinberg in his later poetry. We have observed Steinberg resistance to the demands of the national literature in discussing the book of Satires, the kenostic approach meant to empty these demands of sense and meaning. But the image of the artist in The Book of

Lonelinesses is more complex and nuanced then its depiction in The Book of Satires. The denigration of the myth of art, so evident in The Book of Satires is to be found here as well, as we have shown. It differs from The Book of Satires is that the key romantic concepts are not demolished here as they were in the previous book. Love, dream or art are constituted here as objects apart, unconnected and yet intimately related to the speaker. The constitution of these objects as separated from the subject and separate from each other supports Steinberg's vision of many different yet related lonelinesses. The relation to these objects is no longer the rejection of imposed (and false) idees recues but it is the relation of a craftsman to the object of his labor,

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from which he is of course alienated, but over which he acquires a degree of mastery and control.

The image of the artist is here supplemented, not only with a plausible psychology but also with another myth. The myth of Prometheus, which Steinberg never adhered to, is here replaced by the myth of Hephaestus. The deformed blacksmith of the gods, suffering while hiding in his cave, under his volcano, who crafts wondrous objects for the gods who are so different from him and so indifferent to him, a man who is scorned and betrayed by Aphrodite, serves as a much better myth of poetry for Steinberg, one that is compatible with the angry and hurt persona

Steinberg presented.

VII. The hermit-jeweler: a new self

In the poem “Kether Malkhuth” 291 (royal crown) that was published in the cycle “Dances”,292

Steinberg exposes this complex new vision. It is a long poem written in wide uneven meter that presents a dramatic dialogue between the poet who is immersed in the labor of art and his shadow, the desiring, life-loving aspect of his personality: “poresh ani le’alyathi beleyloth habdidut veyotser;/ oreg ani eth khalomi - vetsili me’akharay roked/ loeg li....” (I retire to my attic in nights of loneliness and I create/ I weave my dream - and my shadow behind me danced/ mocks me). The poem is almost entirely dedicated to the declamations of the shadow. He attacks the poet, telling him that his fascination for gold and sapphires robbed him from life: “loeg lakh brak otsarkha.... dmama venaphshekha reyka ki falta et kol ham’avim/ tshuka besapir nithgalgela, hirhur betharshish nithaben.” (The luster of your treasure mock you...silence and your soul is empty as it discharged all desires./ Passion was transformed into sapphire, reflection

291 J. Steinberg, Kol Kitve YaaKov Shtaynberg, 43-44.

292 The poem was republished as part of the cycle “Evenings” in the 1923 collected poems edition. Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg. 98

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was fossilized in emerald.) The shadow advises him to run away from the treasure before:

“lela’ag zehavkha velerakhash vilonay argaman/ tamuth moth nazir ve’aman.” (To the scorn of your gold and the rustling of crimson drapes/ you shall die the death of a hermit and an artist)

The shadow claims to know the secret of the artist, he had witnessed it unseen: “malkath hanezirim, habediduth, nakhalatha lekha he’evira/ nakhlath kol boded ba’olam sapirey khalom umakhshava” (the queen of hermits, Loneliness, handed you her realm/ the realm of every loner ever- sapphires of dreams and thought). This poetic investiture made the poet decide that he must have a crown: “...zer zahav li hava!” (I shall have a wreath of gold!) This crown is the crown of creation: “ ateret yotser” (a creator’s crown). It is the dream of his dreams. Loneliness, the queen of hermits, betrayed him: “ulay be’alyath hashaken, nazir kamokha, az malkha.” (Maybe in the neighbor's room, a hermit like you, she reigned then). But even so he must finish the crown. He creates the crown: “beyn khayey hazayah vegesisa/ lema’am dor akharon lo yishkakh shemelekh, hanazir, hayitha” (between lives hallucinating and dying/ so that the last generation will not forget that you, hermit, were a king.). However this work is impossible: “karov leyofyo hakether vekhlomkha lesofo od rakhok” (the crown is nearing its beauty and your dream is still far from its end). The shadow cautions the poet that the mysterious wizards that aided him in his work are not trust-worthy and like Loneliness they will trick him before the work is done. The shadow’s advice to the poet is simple:

Napets kether hamalkuth, naptsenu leresisey negohoth Ad melo alyathka bnoth-shmashoth.... Hafker zehavkha lanzirim haomrim laholelut hevel Tse be’od yomkha veshev betsel ilan bakhama... Vebarekh et birkath hakhaym.

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(Smash the royal crown, smash it to glowing bits/ until your room fills up with the daughters of suns....forsake your gold to the hermits who say to debauchery - vanity/ go out while the day is yours and sit in the shade of a tree in the sun/ and bless the blessing of life)

If the poet’s heart is already too far gone, then the shadow suggests: “Bekhar arema shel zahav ushkhav al hazahav hakashe/ Lemarshoteykha hatsiga et ateret hapaz hamelutasha-/Shkav vehe’asef el zahavkha.” (Pick a pile of gold and lie down on the hard gold/ present by your head the polished golden crown/ and be gathered to your gold). This poem presents the commonplace opposition between life and art, an opposition that was present as well in many of Steinberg’s poems. In this poem however, art seems to get the upper hand in spite of the shadow’s harsh condemnations. The title of the poem “Kether malkhuth” refers both to Rabi Shelomo Ibn

Gabirol famous liturgic work of the same title and the cabalistic perception of the spheres,

Malkhuth (monarchy) being the lowest one and kether (crown) the highest. The poem however, in opposition to the devotional or holistic vision of the referred texts, presents a fragmented, sick and solipsistic view of the world. The poet’s reality is that of dying and hallucination, loneliness and loss. The poet is torn between boredom and dreams. On the other hand, the language of the poem, in spite of the shadows best efforts, does describe the quarters of the artist as a place of

“beauty, wealth, pleasure, with all things in order and measure”.293 The luster of gold and sapphires and the crimson drapes are on par with the sun and the vanity of debauchery. The experience of art is presented as an enchanting and mysterious, drug infused experience, a profound experience mystically and psychologically:

Akhen beleyloth hayetsira amdu aleykha ashafim la’ag al shfatam akhzari veyadam bama’agl kishfa

293 Robert Lowell, "The Voyage, and Other Versions of Poems by Baudelaire," ed. Charles Baudelaire and Sidney Nolan (London: Faber, 1968).

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Yadam beorma aleykha khalomoth uvsamim nifnefa , Lema’an lo ti’af bamelakha” (Indeed in the nights of creation wizards stood upon you/ cruel mockery on their lips and their hands enchanting in a circle/ their hand cunningly waved towards you dreams and perfumes/ so you will not grow tired in your labor.)

And above all, there is the crown. The shadow claims that even complete it does not represent the poet’s dream. But even so, the crown is nearing its completion, the last generation will marvel at its beauty, the last of the artists will be blessed by it and every stone in it will be a legend handed down as legend to children. The shadow says to the poet that if his heart is already embalmed (“Im khanut levavkha”), he can find rest on the gold. When we consider that meaning of embalming is preserving something organic from decay after death, we can imagine that this is not the worst thing that can happen to Steinberg’s speaker, particularly given the psychological state described in The Book of Lonelinesses, the endless chain of betrayal, scorn, abandonment and loss that the speaker recognizes as life. Steinberg is here substituting desires and dreams with one object nearing perfection. An object that stands as a sign for the unfulfilled wishes and longings, wasted talent and a promise of someone, now long gone.

Conclusion

We believe that The Book of Lonelinesses is a development, thematically and ideologically, which is consistent with his other works. Steinberg displays in all his works a connection and a stable reflective current revolving around the questions of romantic norms of poetry.294 We believe that it is best to treat the three books of Steinberg as constituting a development of the same set of ideas, expressing Steinberg's ever-growing critique of romantic poetics.

294 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg. 60

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The transformation presented in The Book of Lonelinesses however was not the transformation desired from Steinberg by his critics. As we have mentioned before, the disappointments were grounded in a clear normative expectation regarding what is aesthetically desired and accepted in the Hebrew canon. The work Steinberg was doing, producing a decadent modernist subject, was clearly in contradiction to these expectations. Very few saw it as a productive time for poetic path finding. In fact we found only one positive contemporary evaluation of Steinberg’s move towards poetic separation. The critic Benshalom stated: "the ideas expressed in this period.... are not new. There is here a mix of Ecclesiastes, Epicurus,

Horatio, and Omar Khayyam. But even so there is much originality in Steinberg's poems.... there is great depth and reflection in the poetry of Yaakov Steinberg".295

Several critics did notice what Steinberg was attempting to do and found it amateurish and clumsy.296 Shneour called it: "a little factory in the flavor of Europe, peppered with kisses and threepenny witticisms".297 Other critics conflated Steinberg poetic persona with that of the poet and understood the poems as a confused expression of a conflicted psyche. Sh. Tsemakh writes that there are two Steinberg’s fighting for dominance, each expressed in a different poetic style.

While the criticism is framed in a psychologist-therapeutic jargon, it is the normative policing attitude that is most apparent: the Bialik-like expression of the first book and the unique expression of the mature poetry of the 1920' are grouped as one style, which is described as

"correct", while Steinberg’s “other style” is nothing but "deception and denial". Similarly another critic, Yaakov Kupelevitch uses even starker terms to account for Steinberg's otherness:

295 Benshalom 1923, quoted in: Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg. 60

296 Ibid. 106

297 Shneour, Kitve Zalman Shneor. 138-43

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"a straight line connects the Steinberg of 1904 and that of 1918, but that Steinberg of the middle is a Dibbuk possessing the single body, a barrier between its inception and final form".298

The refusal to engage Steinberg’s work in poetic terms, the insistence to view it as a teleological narrative of maturing, even years after the publication of these books had an effect that is evident in Steinberg’s later editorial decisions. Steinberg planned to publish a collection of all his Hebrew poems, a plan that was delayed by the First World War and his immigration to

Palestine. When the book entitled Poems appeared in 1923 Steinberg basically eliminated these two books. Many poems were omitted from that edition and the remaining ones were arranged differently.299 The first segment of The Book of Satires retained its structure with the name

“Satires from 1907” while the remaining poems from the rest of the book were grouped in a cycle named “From the City”. The Book of Lonelinesses was dismantled completely and the poems that did enter the 1923 book were spread among the poems of the cycles “Dances” and

“Times”, in the context of which these poems were initially published.300 While many of the poems were omitted following the harsh criticism Steinberg received, the remaining poems maintain the same line of development identified here - from the satirical questioning of romantic poetics to the constitution of an alternative in the persona of the decadent, introvert craftsman. This persona seems to indicate that inside the confines of the national literature, with its natural and universal pretensions, an actual experience such as his cannot be freely expressed.

It will always sound wrong. The violence assuring that people conform will always be presented as caring and reforming and any resistance or question will be viewed as pathology. It is not

298 Benshalom 1923, quoted in: Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg. 5

299 Jacob Steinberg, Shirim(Lipsiyah: A.Y. Shtibel, 1922).

300 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg, 98.

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surprising therefore that his Hebrew poetry from 1920’ on, which the critics approved of, expressed the angry silence and reserve of those healed from their misgivings.

Chapter II. Yiddish Poems

Part 1. Poems 1903-1909: negotiating the romantic self.

Introduction

The interest of this chapter is Steinberg’s poetry written in Yiddish and its relation to

Hebrew poetry. The examination of the Hebrew and Yiddish texts produced at the same time, is extremely instructive. The interrelations between the two languages in Steinberg’s work are fascinating in that they shed light on his positions on the question that guides this research, i.e. the poet’s capacity to produce the imagery necessary for the establishment of the future state of the Jews.301 As we have mentioned earlier the relations between the

301 Hever, Ha-Sipur Veha-Leom: Keriot Bikoratiyot Be-Kanon Ha-Siporet Ha-`Ivrit, 11.

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languages are reflective and complementary. Very similar poetic concerns guide the work in either language, while the differences between the languages highlight different nuances in this ongoing internal literary debate. We view Steinberg’s second “wave” of poetry in

Hebrew, his attempt to break from Bialik’s models and norms that we discussed in the previous chapter, as a reflective and contemplative correction to the ideological, political, and poetic premises of his time: those of the national literature. In Poems, Steinberg’s first book, we can find the “degree zero” of his work, the starting point for future reflections, that

“simple” amalgamation of romanticism and modernism that characterized his ‘generation’.302

From there on Steinberg would develop a critique of the demands of romantic ideals while affirming a decadent, pessimist worldview. As we have stated in the previous chapter the national literature preforms its function through the symbol. The foul taste of inauthenticity and atomism that accompanies the institution of capitalist liberalism as the sine qua non of modernity finds its correction as a moment of revelation, of an exalted experience of beauty produces both a sense of a distinct sense of self and of affiliation to something bigger.

Romanticism’s effort at unmediated emotional expression puts in place devices that make these notions appear, not before us, but from within us as true and natural. Romanticism’s critiques, symbolism and the different modernisms that opposed it and its myth of expression, question the validity of these devices by pointing at them critically and marking them as such.303

302 Dan Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha- Mea Ha-Èsrim, Variation: Sifriyyat Ofaqim ;; 139. (Tel Aviv: Àm Òved, 1987), 174-86.

303 A. Balakian, The Symbolist Movement: A Critical Appraisal(New York University Press, 1977), 32- 33.

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Following the work of Miron we claim that Steinberg’s poetry is exactly such a modernist critique.304 In reading Steinberg’s poetry, Hebrew and Yiddish, one can locate a structure in which Hebrew functions as a reflective correction to the positive utopian drive of the national literature. In Hebrew, as we’ve shown in the previous chapter, Steinberg rejects the rule of the symbol and puts in its place the allegory, as Benjamin describes it, the reflective opposition to the symbol. While the symbol assumes unity and fullness of being, a harmonic and immediate representation that reconciles contradictions the allegory moves in time, exposing its own materiality and the splits and contradictions of history.305

This act of ressentiment should be read against Steinberg’s Yiddish poetry. There he presents a parallel trajectory; in it Steinberg conjures the desired state of being: an expression of a coherent normative modernist subject according to romantic-realist conventions. An examination of Steinberg’s poems shows us that his Yiddish poetry remains very close to the romantic norms that were described earlier, attempting to produce a totalizing emotional effect, in opposition to his Hebrew poetry from 1907 onwards. Like Poems that earned

Steinberg the admiration of Bialik, these Yiddish poems are romantic and filled with bittersweet veltschmertz. They are delivered by an authoritative speaker, a subject whose psychology revolves around questions that figure strongly in Bialik’s work: love, childhood, an irreducible sense of self that is confronted with a disenchanted world, etc. These poems clearly aim at achieving strong emotional effects, the like that Brenner and Shneour wished to find in The Book of Satires. These effects are achieved through the capable use of several

304 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim. 215

305 T. Eagleton, Walter Benjamin: Or, Towards a Revolutionary Criticism(Verso Books, 2009), 23-24.

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poetic devices: music, figurative language that incorporates the interiority of the speaker’s psyche with the exterior world through a clear correlation between tenor and vehicle, a sense of magic and more.

In Yiddish Steinberg allows himself to approach and examine different aspects of Bialik’s poetics that did not appear in his Hebrew books. Even in Poems, as we have shown earlier,

Steinberg backed away from the public role of the poet. He did not assume the romantic role of the prophet or the publicly engaged intellectual and in their place he puts the introvert, understated persona of a sentimental yet skeptical poet. In Yiddish however, Steinberg dares to approach these topics as well as others, such as the myth and its role as a psychological reality. He formulates these subjects according to his special understanding mixing romanticism and modernist skepticism.

This was due perhaps to the diminished presence of Bialik in the field or perhaps it was thanks to the alternative, symbolist father figure that could be found in Y.L. Perets’ circle, which young Steinberg frequented. The important fact is that in Yiddish Steinberg does attempt to master several aspects of Bialik’s legacy, aspects whose absence from the Hebrew was read as an inexplicable lacuna. This poetic practice persisted in Yiddish for a few years after it was became an object of severe criticism in Hebrew, in The Book of Satires. The overlapping of these different poetics does create a vertiginous duplicity in his work but at the same time it is very instructive as to the process Steinberg underwent in his poetic development. In that sense the Yiddish poetry is a missing link between the beautiful poetics of Poems in 1905, and their violent rejection from 1907 onwards. In the coming pages we will review the poems published between 1903 and 1909 while focusing on these elements

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that Steinberg repressed and denied in his Hebrew poems, that is mainly the public and political role of the poet and the place of myth.

I. Go Man, Go Search for Light

The first poem we were able to locate,306 “The Skies Are Hanging with Clouds”, published in the Polish Social Democratic Party of Galicia “Yiddishe Folkstsaytung”307 on October 21

1903, already present a different poetic outlook then the one we saw in Poems:

Es hot zikh der himel mit volkens batsoygn Shvarts is in droysen un finster is dort... Un ven ikh zol hobn oykh edlershe oygn Vos s’tut zikh in gas- nit gezen volt ikh fort! (The sky seem covered with clouds/ it is black outside and darkness in there/ and even when I’ll have eagle’s eyes/ what takes place in the street - I still would not see)

The speaker’s solid inner world is transmitted through his point of view, which is demarcated by the different special planes: the sky above that marks itself with clouds, the outside, which is dark and black, the inside where the speaker is located, and the street he cannot look beyond, not even if he had eagle’s eyes. The position of the speaker is one of paralysis: he wishes to go outside but he wants to be sure that a transcendent realm, a land of light, is found just beyond human vision, hidden by a dark wall. The speaker is waiting to hear a voice in his heart that will tell him: "gey mentsh, in dem fintstern droysn...gey mentsh, gey zukh likht- vest farlorn nit vern...” (go man, in the darkened outdoors...go man, go search for light- you will not be lost). Only after knowing and hearing these things will he stop being

306 Israel Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg: Ha-Ish Vi-Yetsirato, 414.

307 J. Steinberg, "Der Himel Iz Mit Volkens Batzoygn," Yiddishe Folkstsaytung October 21st 1903.

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afraid of the dark. However, on the verge of leaving his own heart will contradict the biblical appeal of the voice in his heart and informs him: “nar, kayn ort is nito….nor khayshekh iz do”

(fool, there’s no such place…only darkness here).

This poem, with all its romantic veltschmertz, falls short. It does not display the intellectual sophistication found in its Hebrew counterparts. The polyphonic confusion of the voices in his heart and of his heart is not developed. The last verse is a reiteration of the second verse of the poem: “shvarts iz in droysen un fintster is dort” (it is black outside and darkness is there), this time delivered as the heart’s direct speech, needlessly accentuating the fact that the scene described is a subjective projection of the speaker’s feelings. no other distinction is made between the two voices, the one of his heart’s and the one in his heart, even though they are presented as conflicting. The critical edge reflecting a bit of Freud, a bit of Schopenhauer given to similar utterances in Hebrew, does not manage to express itself here. However, this poem does have a different sense of magic. If in Poems magical moments were found in the everyday and natural occurrences and were by definition transient,308 here reality is described in mysterious terms that are not in any way controlled.

The poem uses intelligently the different layers of the Yiddish language: only one word of loshn-koydesh, the Hebraic component of the Yiddish lexicon, is to be found in the poem.

Significantly it is the word “khayshekh”- darkness. The Hebraic word is contrasted with its

Germanic synonym “finster” that appears numerous times. This contrast amplifies the poem’s mystical, ominous atmosphere. Similarly while in Poems these moments seeing afar and beyond the immediate reality were always qualified as a dream or hallucination, here the vision is again uncontrolled. No line is demarcating the impressions of the poet from the

308 Tsiporah Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg, 41.

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reality he expresses. This presence of magic allows the speaker in the Yiddish poems to present and negotiate the role of the prophet. Through the role of the prophet Steinberg can also formulate a position on the public role of the poet.

II. The public role of the poet: The pseudoprophet

The poetics of Bialik features strongly in the theme of the prophetic poem, which centers on a direct dialogue (or the absence thereof) between the poet (as a secularized sacred person) and the divine (The realm of aesthetics).309 This theme constitutes an important part of the discourse on nationalism and romanticism in Polish and Russian poetry, and therefore also in

Hebrew and Yiddish.310 Inspired by the poetry of Lermontov Bialik made the pseudoprophetic tone a cornerstone of his poetic persona, and therefore instituted it as a major subject for parody and critique for the generation after him. Steinberg, Shneour and others used this theme to illustrate their modernist difference from their master.311 In opposition to

Bialik’s public invectives of the prophetic mode, the declamations of a messenger of God to an unresponsive community, the poets of the renaissance depicted their prophetic personae as private, skeptical, weary, and distant.312 This presentation was in accordance with the image of prophet as it arose from the Russian poetry of the 1880’s, for example in the poetry of S.Y.

Nadson (14 December 1862 – 19 January 1887) a Russian poet of Jewish origin who was

309 Dan Miron, From Continuity to Contiguity : Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2010) Chapter Three; Miron, "H. N. Bialik and the Prophetic Mode in Modern Hebrew Poetry," 14.

310 Ibid.; Shmeruk, "ḲEriʾah Le-Navi : MeḥḲEre HisṭOryah ṾE-Sifrut." 279

311 Ibid. 282; Miron, The Prophetic Mode in Modern Hebrew Poetry. 24-25

312 Ibid.; Shmeruk, "ḲEriʾah Le-Navi : MeḥḲEre HisṭOryah ṾE-Sifrut," 281.

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immensely popular among Jewish youth in Russia.313 His individualist pessimism, expressed in a lachrymose sentimental tone gave the young poets under Bialik the disengaged tone they needed in order to confront him.314 The critique is directed here towards the public role of the poet/prophet and the demand for his participation in the national project.

In most of the Yiddish poems studied here, the themes of public engagement, social injustice and change appear as a subtle presence in the general atmosphere of malaise they describe. In other poems, these themes figure much more prominently. These topics are treated with a degree of irony and doubt that is typical of the Russian symbolist poetry.315

The speaker doubts the chances or the possibility of social change but the crux of the matter resides in his splenetic person, in his inability to believe. This position is very different from the position found in Poems where the aristocratic disdain of the subject placed the problematic of change and hope in the falsehood of these very notions. Steinberg will repeat this approach of disdain much more forcefully later on in The Book of Satires, while the

Yiddish poems still hold to their softer position. In the poem “This Day I Have Suffered So

Much”, published in march 1905, Steinberg writes:

Kh’hob hayntiken tog azoy fil geliten Es vilt zikh mir betn es vilt zikh mir shelten Un itst bay der nakht her ikh klogen dos harts mayns: Umzist bist farsholten fun gor ale velten.

313 Ibid. 280; Miron, The Prophetic Mode in Modern Hebrew Poetry. 19

314 Shmeruk, "Ḳeriʾah Le-Navi : Meḥkere Hisṭoryah ve-Sifrut," 281.

315 Esther Nathan, Ha-Derekh Li-"Mete Midbar" : `Al Poemah Shel Byalik Veha-Shirah Ha-Rusit([Tel Aviv]: ha-Kibuts ha-meuhad, 1993). 12

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(This day I have suffered so much/ to me it feels like blessing, it feels like cursing/ and now in the night I hear my heart crying:/ in vain. You are damned in all of the worlds)

The reason for his damnation is made clear: “du host nisht di mentshn kayn “bruder” gerufen” (you did not call any man “brother”). As the others dance around altars and warm their hearts in the fires of faith, he is alone and cursed. God has many worlds for those who believe in him and, more importantly, actively look for him. Faith as a whole is something desirable. This is the parodic pseudo-prophetic position described by Miron and Shmeruk.316

We can compare this sentiment with the poems of Zalmen Shneour, who was one of

Steinberg’s most vicious critics even though, or perhaps because, he was named an heir- apparent in Bialik’s “Our Young Poetry”, together with Steinberg. Take for example

Shneour’s poem “And If a Line of Gold Descended…”: “be your prophecy a lie- but a consoling lie…may my heart but swallow your words…may my heart only believed in you!”.317 The sentiment here is similar to the one expressed in Steinberg’s words quoted earlier. Faith is important; it is needed to light up this world, even if the poet, decadent and skeptic cannot feel it. This formulation of the relation to faith is very different from

Steinberg’s own treatment of the question in Poems or later.

Another important distinction between the Yiddish and Hebrew poems regards the role of the poet in the public sphere. Through the distinction between personal and general fate

Steinberg interrogates the role of the poet. We can illustrate the differences between the two

316 Miron, The Prophetic Mode in Modern Hebrew Poetry. Shmeruk, "ḲEriʾah Le-Navi : MeḥḲEre HisṭOryah ṾE-Sifrut." 284

317 Zalman Shneour, `Im Sheki`at Ha-Hamah(1907), 35-36.

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positions by examining Steinberg’s poem from February 1905 “The Sun of Spring Will

Rise”, published in “Di Yiddishe Tsukuft”:

Afgeyen vet di zun fun friling Naye vinten velen blozen Nor di zun vet geben leben Af mayn keyver nor di grozen

Ney feygl velen zingen Damols zeyer lid in zumer Zvishen boymer af mayn kever Vu ikh ligen vel a shtumen

S’vet a dor a nyeer leben Un er vet mayn keyver vaykhen Oder glaykhgiltik tsutretn In a yontef tog a raykhn (The sun of spring will rise/ new winds will blow/ only the sun will give life/ to the grass upon my grave// new birds will sing/ at that time their song in summer/ between the trees on my grave/ where I lay silent// a new generation will live/ and it will avoid my grave/ or indifferently step/ over it in a lavish holy day. )

This poem is similar to Steinberg’s Hebrew poem from 1903 “Good days Will Come”, which was the opening poem of Poems.318 The major difference is that in Yiddish a personal sentimental lachrymose tone replaces the public tone that loads the Hebrew poem with such irony. Counter intuitively it is the personal tone that allows the poet to remain within the public domain. As the Hebrew questions the situation at large, the Yiddish only interrogates the individual’s place in it. In this respect it follows the model of Bialik’s allegorical

318 Jacob Steinberg, Shirim, 3.

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expression in which it is precisely the personal singular sensitivity of the speaker that connects him to the public-national domain.319

This distinction between the Yiddish poem and the similar Hebrew one can be gauged by the use of the first person singular in Yiddish as opposed to the plural in Hebrew. In Hebrew it is the public tragedy of a generation whose life was spent for in quest of a future it would not live to see: “for the grand future’s building / we laid the foundations/ crushed under heavy burden-/ but we will not see its glory.” In Yiddish it is a very personal tragedy of one spent life: “nor di zun vet geben leben/ af mayn keyver nor di grazen” (the sun will give new life/ only for the grass over my grave). The rhyming scheme found in the Hebrew: maab, mccb, mddb is in Yiddish replaced by the typical mana rhyming scheme. In this manner, the poem loses the anaphoric ironic edge the Hebrew poem has: “good days will come…we will not enjoy [the] freedom…the dream of distant futures…we will not know its meaning… the grand future’s building….we will not see its glory”. The Yiddish does make it sound as if the world is changing, not merely continuing after the death of the poet: new winds will blow, new birds will sing and a new generation will live. This subtle message is transmitted through nature’s filter, giving the change a more pastoral, cyclical character. The speaker’s bitter tone for not participating in the transformation is as natural as his passing away. The lyric elegiac tone puts the emphasis on the personal loss of the individual in an otherwise natural progression of time: “Ney feygl velen zingen....Vu ikh ligen vel a shtumer ....S’vet a dor a nyeer ... er vet mayn keyver vaykhen/ Oder glaykhgiltik tsutretn /In a yontef tog a raykhn”

(new birds will sing…where I lay silent…a new generation…will avoid my grave/ or walk

319 Dan Miron, Ha-Peridah Min Ha-Ani He-`Ani : Mahalakh Be-Hitpathut Shirato Ha-Mukdemet Shel Hayyim Nahman Biíalik, 1891-1901, 31-32.

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over it indifferent/ in a lavish festive day.) This is very different from the doubts that accompanies the uncertain labor for a promised distant future we encounter in the Hebrew.

IV. All the Grace, All the Sorrow

As we have mentioned earlier, Steinberg’s Hebrew poetry changed significantly from

1905 onwards, by breaking away from the sentimental lyricism of his first book. While one can locate similar changes in his Yiddish poetry, the overall break that occurred in Hebrew does not take place in Yiddish. In 1906-1909 Steinberg publishes several poems in which questions regarding the premises of the romantic poetic ideology are questioned, but always in a milder tone, and remaining solidly inside the domain of these poetics.

The years 1906 -1907 are a period of relative bounty. Steinberg publishes the epic poem

“The Sad Love”,320 and the long poem “In a Sledge”.321 These poems as well as “Happiness” and the poem “I Live Like the Grass” were collected in Steinberg’s Yiddish book Collected

Writings.322 We were able to locate in the Yiddish press three other poems: “Evening”,

“God” that appeared both in Dos Yidishe Folk323 and “the Jewish Maiden” in Der Veg.324

Another cycle: “Love” appeared in the collection “Shtime” published in 1907 by the famous

Vilnius Rom Publishing House.325 In 1907 Steinberg published in the Yiddishes Vakhenblat a

320J. Steinberg, "Di Troyrike Libe," in Gezamelte Shriftn(varsha: Velt Bibliotek, 1908).

321 "In Shlitn," Falksshtime, June 26th 1907.

322 Jacob Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften, Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library (Varsha: Velt bibliotek, 1908).

323 J. Steinberg, "In Ovnt," Dos Yiddishe Folk, June 7th 1906; "Got," Dos Yiddishe Folk, June 20th 1906.

324 "Dos Yiddishe Meydl," Der Veg, June 9th 1906.

325"Libe," in Di Shtime : Zamelbukh(Vilna: Romm press, 1907).

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number of works: “An Enchanted Room”, “Enough”, “Confession”, “Poems”, “The Last

Wish” and “My Youth”.326

These poems present a decadent-like worldview: like in Poems the romantic frame is supplemented with skepticism, pessimism, eroticism, etc. In that respect, the Yiddish poems seem to be ideologically a continuation of the state of mind found in Poems. While displaying attributes of decadence, these poems are holding on to the integrity of the poetic symbol. They adhere to the romantic notion of poetic expression, unlike the deconstructive attack on it that was developed at the same time in Hebrew. We can view this structure at work in the poem “the Jewish Maiden”:

In mayn lebens-veg dem shvern Vos iz bazeyt mit dare blumn ... Shtel ikh op zikh oft dikh ontsukukn Du sheyne-reyne Yiddishe meydl. In dayne oygn ligt der gantser khen Fun undzer folk dem altn In dayne oygn ligt der gantser tsar Der gantser umet fun zayn lebn Un..zayn umendlekhes farlangn Tsu a nayer velt a frisher Ligt in dayne oygn ... Dem mentshens goyrl iz mir tunkel

326 "In a Farkishufte Shtub," Yiddishes Vakhenblat, February 1907; "Genug!," Yiddishes Vakhenblat, March 1907; "Vide," Yiddishes Vakhenblat, April 1907; "Lider," Yiddishes Vakhenblat, June 1907; "Mayn Yugent," Yiddishes Vakhenblat, October 1907; "Di Letste Farlangn," October 1907.

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Un zvishen toyt on leben ze ikh Rengln zikh mayn folk.... Nor es treft momentvays Az ikh bagegen dikh un ver Vi du Yiddish meydl, rayn Vi du tsuzamen shtark un mild Nor ikh muz antloyfn ... Fun dir vi bald do nemst dayn veg: Dayn veg iz zikher un iz lang, Mayn veg ikh veyss im nisht. (In my hard road of life/ that is strewn dry flowers... I often stand and watch you/ you beautiful-pure jewish maiden// in your eyes lies the entire grace/ of our people the ancient/ in your eyes lies the entire sorrow/ the entire sadness of his life/ and.... his endless longings / for a new fresh world/ lies in your eyes.... Man’s fate is for me in darkness/ and between life and death I see/ my people struggle... Only it so happens momentarily/ that I meet with you and am/ like you, jewish maiden, pure/ like you both strong and mild// only that I must run away, immediately run away/ from you as soon you take your road:/ your road is sure and long, my road - I do not know it. )

The image of the girl in the poem is that of a source of solace. In this poem erotic and national identifications are linked. Steinberg is using here several of Bialik’s tropes: it is the

“beautiful-pure Jewish maiden” who holds in her eyes “…der gantser khen…der gantser tsar” (all the grace, all the sorrow) of the old nation. The maiden is a character with pathos, whose tenderness, strength and courage move us. As such she holds the allegorical place signifying the nation, allowing the already removed speaker to identify with the nation through the sentimental and erotic relation to the girl. Steinberg is also using another one of

Bialik’s tropes: the pseudoprophetic condemnation of the loss of way. Steinberg’s parody of this trope is expressed by the fact that it is the nation who is still full lust for life and longing

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for a newer better world.327 In this poem we can see Steinberg’s own version of the prophetic mode in poetry: in opposition to Bialik’s celebrated stance it is the speaker who is described as being in the wrong. The poem describes the Jewish people in an hour of need but their road, the road of our Yiddish Jeanne d’Arc, is true and long. It is the speaker who does not believe in god or gods and man’s destiny is covered in darkness in his eyes. In opposition to

Bialik’s speaker, in Steinberg’s poem the speaker is the only one who cannot see the divine light. The maiden was able to find the certitude of faith and the calm of happiness, but the speaker is too far-gone, and he cannot see the light. The hardships of his life are blinding him.

This poem is one of the very rare examples where a national issue is presented openly in

Steinberg’s poetry, even if only in the symbolic manner quoted above. ‘The national question’ however does not figure in this poem as an issue to resolve and is not interrogated, but is merely present. The reason is that is used here as a prop. It is s device bringing to the fore the tension between the forming decadent persona of the speaker and the romantic norms of his poetry. It serves to depict him as damned, an outcast. The Jewish maiden takes her road but the speaker must run away. The poem indicates a possibility of redemption that is unavailable to the speaker. The important fact is that his damnation does not come from the romantic genius unsupported by society. It is a very personal damnation that originates from the speaker’s "hard road of life”, that is his personal biography.

V. Assuming the Decadent Position

327 As opposed to the people’s indifference to the poet’s plies in Bialik. Miron, The Prophetic Mode in Modern Hebrew Poetry. 5.

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Another topic that the Yiddish poems shed light on is the process Steinberg underwent in order to assume his decadent persona. The contradictions arising from profound differences between the decadent position and the romantic norms are present in almost all these poems.

Steinberg strives for resolution in several ways. The first way of dealing with the romantic- decadent contradiction is the effacement of the decadent sentiment and its burial in a flow of romantic sensitivity. This method is used in many of Steinberg early Hebrew poems; however those who were successful also contained a degree of self-irony, which similarly to the case of the mystical, contain the flow of emotion and is controlled it.328

In the poem “Enough”329 we can find an example of the treatment of the romantic- decadent impasse. The poem presents the pessimist worldview and defines the poet as its prophet. The important fact here is that the speaker does not rule out the possibility of faith, as it happens in Hebrew, but rather defines for himself a place of an Other on its margins.

The poem describes a world of simple, superficial pleasures, of which the speaker wants no part. He declares:

Genug: ikh vel mayn harts itst shtendik farshlisn Un lozen di shtromn fun leben zikh flissn Un lozen khalometh arum mir zikh veben Un lozen zikh yogen di mentshn nokh glik Un lyeben un shaltn un zukhen das leben Ikh hob far der velt itst gelozt nor mayn blik

328 Many of the poems that were not collected in the first book Poems, display this very flaw: an uncontrolled, uncritical flow of emotions. Cf. Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg : Ha-Ish Vi-Yetsirato; Jacob Steinberg, Cohen Israel Shirim, Sipurim, U-Mahazot Asher Lo Nikhlelu Be-Khol Ketavav, Sifre Nefesh; Variation: Sifre Nefesh. ([Tel Aviv]: Agudat ha-sofrim ha-`Ivrim be-Yisrael ve-hotsaat Devir, 1976).

329 "Genug!."

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Un vel ikh far myeskeyt di oygn farmakhn Mayn harts vet nisht veynen, mayn harts vet nisht lakhn (enough: I will lock up my heart now forever/ and let the storms of life flow/ and let dreams weave themselves around me/ and let the men hunt for happiness/ and love and curse and search for life/ all I have left for the world now in my gaze/ and I will close my eyes to ugliness/ my heart will not cry. My heart will not laugh.)

Contrary to what is stated in the poem “the Jewish Maiden”, here the speaker parts with the people in anger. He does not wish to share their fate and his inclusion in it seems to threaten his individual identity: “Un say vi say iz mir tsu karg ayer freyd;/ Un tropens glik konen nisht leshn mayn fayer/ Vos burnt oys mayn aynzams harts shtilerheyd.” (Either way your joy is too scant from me/ and drops of happiness cannot put out my fire/, which burns away my unique heart in silence.) The cheap pleasures of the plebs are of no interest to him.

These drops of pleasure cannot put out his fire, the fire that together with his longings are dearer to him than anything else. He is left with one wish:

Ikh vil shafn valten un kaven gezangen Mayn tayve...mayn viln...mayn umet... Mayn shtoltser gedank vos er zogt: ze un shvayg Zey ale ikh vayz zey dem dor nisht dem kaltn Ikh vel zey af shpeter in lider bahaltn (I want to create worlds and to forge songs/ my lust...my will...my sadness...my proud thought that says: see and be silent/ all of them I will not show them to the generation the cold one/ I will for later safe keep them in poems)

Only, he knows that the next generation will be the same as the last. It will not understand his poems: “ikh vel far im zayn a geblibener tsaykhn/ fun narishe teg- fun a dor a vaykhn” (I will be for it a remaining sign/ of foolish days- of a weak generation).We can see here the condemnation of the community, too involved in the everyday to heed the message of the

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poet who sees all and is silent. Two things are significantly different here from similar pronunciations found in Hebrew: in contrast with the nihilism of The Book of Satires here the poet has a message to deliver. It is unclear what the content of the message is, other than affirming the speaker’s own unique singularity, but a message exists, waiting to be properly formulated and received. At the same time the speaker signals to a fact that is hardly ever mentioned openly in Hebrew: that he is an integral part of the community. Even if he managed to move away, he would still be counted among them, once the weight of time and perspective crushed the differences between them.

This theme of the contrast between the profound experience of the poet in the world and the superficial, pleasure-driven nature of man is repeated in a number of poems published at the time. Steinberg’s view of pleasure, his famous hedonism, was usually contrasted with his reflective, brooding side. However, unlike the productive structure of contradictions that

Komem and Miron find in his Hebrew works, where his reflective and emotional sides contain and balance each other,330 in the Yiddish poems before us it is a contradiction that is not resolved or even interrogated, but is just presented as a cosmic state. Thus for example in the poem “In a Sledge”, Steinberg uses trochaic meter and alliterations to create the feeling of the speed and sounds of a sledge on a joyride one sunny winter day, whichis the opposite of the dark world of poetry and reflection:

Dos vet zayn haynt a shpatsir: Vays der erd, der himel blo S’kritst der shney un s’shneydt di luft Vos mir kelt- di zun iz do!

330 Aharon Komem, "Shney Ekronot Yessod Be'shirat Yaakov Shteynberg," Molad, no. A (1967).; Dan Miron, "Beyn Mukdam Leme'ukhar Beshirat Ya'akov Steinberg " haaretz, january 18 1963.

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S’shteyt a shlitn far der tir S’klingt dos glekl: din din din Kum mir zetsn zikh arayn Fir undz forman gikh ahin ... Oysgelozter vert der vint Un es glantzt der shney un blitst Un der shlitn kritst and roysht- Kh’vel a kush dir geben itst (Today there will be a trip/ the earth is white the sky is blue/ the snow scratches the air cuts/ what is the cold to me - the sun is here// a sledge stands before the door/ the little bell goes; dii din din/ come we’ll sit ourselves inside/ take us foreman quickly away...the wind is unleashed/ and the snow glitters and sparks/ the sledge scratches and is loud/a kiss I’ll give you now)

In this poem the speaker escapes his home and abandons his poetry - dusty scrolls containing whole worlds, in which his sorrow, that a woman cannot possibly understand, will live for future generations. Instead he goes on a joyride with a young maiden. Similarly to

The Book of Satires love and erotic amusement stand in opposition to poetry that has its source in sadness. However, the line between these two realms is constantly transgressed in

The Book of Satires, as love is defined as a source of sadness. The mocking and slightly heavy-handed tone of the Hebrew does manage to get across a more complicated idea than its artistically superior Yiddish counterpart. In this poem the woman remains a pause, like a day out on the sledge. There is no representation of another subject in this poem, nor of the dangers such a subject might present. The woman is qualified in essential terms as the opposite of the speaker. The figurative language of fire and flame, describing love in the poem, stands in contrast to the gothic world of artistic creation with its locked gardens, tombs and monuments, darkness and cold. The poem does have a dose of irony to it, as it is a

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mediated experience, a poem written from a distance. The poem participates in the dichotomy presented in it. The joyride out of town is needed in order to reflect on poetry, and the loneliness of writing is needed to mediate the experience of life. But this irony is not developed it is merely presented. What is in one a dialectic process is in the other a cycle of transitions between fixed binary states. The world of poetry and the world of enjoyable objects are separated, and one has no part in the other.

VI. “If You Are Loved by the Prettiest of Women...Know, It Can Also Be Different”: The

Question of Romantic Love

The topic of romantic love was an important question for Steinberg as we have seen before. Love was one of those promises for salvation he had to destroy, to expose in all its fallacy. As our reading of Steinberg’s work so far had shown he was not very successful at that, nor did he seem really convinced that that was the case. Unlike politics or even art, romantic love and all the intersubjective encounters and troubles it promises, still remained the biggest and most unresolved issue in his poetry. As we have seen in The Book of

Lonelinesses, The sense of hurt and the sense of pleasure were mixed for Steinberg in the experience of love and they both remained uncontained and unresolved. The Yiddish poems however present a surprising development in this regard.

Similar to previous examples Steinberg presents the gamut of opinions he has on the subject in different poems in Yiddish. Some of the Yiddish poems suffer from the problem we have been noticing so far: the contradictions that Steinberg places are not worked into a system that makes use of them, but rather are presented as a simplistic “on the one hand...and on the other”, which changes from poem to poem. In the poem mentioned before, “The

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Jewish Maiden”, the beloved is clearly presented as the last connection between the speaker and his nation. In “in a sledge” that was mentioned above, the woman is a momentary and uncomplicated source of joy and divertissement. In the poem “joy” she is the opposite: a consistent and complex pestering presence that constantly wants what the speaker had promised her, which is the possibility to sit at his feet and enjoy his greatness. This is exactly the thing he cannot allow, as all the worlds he would create for her and all the heavenly choirs he would summon for her, will all be just a reflection of his twisted mind, that has no space in it for another subject.

However, the cycle “Love” presents a different, mature and surprisingly nuanced depiction of a romantic and erotic reality. The strength of this cycle is perhaps due to its composition. The cycle is composed of four unrhymed poems discussing the topic of love from various angles. Like many of Steinberg’s poems, it presents a series of dramatic vignettes, all together building up to a romance-like narrative.331 This structure allows

Steinberg to present the different moods as a dialectical progression of emotional development. In the first poem, very much like in the poems just discussed, the speaker is telling how he dreamt with the moon about a woman

Kh’hob akegn di blaser levone gekholemt Fun a froy vos vet gebn mir glik, Vos vet gloybn mir geben un makhn Mir tsu a held. Ergetts vayt hot a klogende shtime gezungen, Un ikh hob nisht di verter gehert, Tsulib vos? S’redn ayns ale hertser,

331 Dan Miron, "Al Hanovella Hashirit Shel Ya'akov Steinberg," Ha'aretz, april 8th, april 12th 1963

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Ven zey tuen gut vey. Zol di froy fun mayn troym su mir kumen un fregn, Vos ikh leyd un mayn harts nokh vos benkt , Kh’volt shtil nor gevaynt un on verter, Vi a kind. 332 (I dreamt across from the pale moon/ of a woman that would give me happiness/ that will give me faith and make/ of me a hero.// somewhere far a weeping voice sang,/ and I did not hear the words,/because of what? All hearts talk as one,/ when it hurts them well.// if the woman of my dream comes to me and ask,/ why I’m suffering and what does my heart long after,/ I will only silently cry and without words,/ like a child. )

In spite of the strong romantic image in the poem, the situation here is closer to those we know from Poems. The mystical aspects of this emotionally charged scene are checked by its qualification as a dream. The poet does not ask the moon or endows it with any qualities. He stands across from it, separated but inspired. This qualification amplifies the emotional intensity of the poem. The poet addressees are either inanimate or absent. The apostrophe, the figure of poetic power allowing the poet to call inanimate object, is not executed but internalized. This muted apostrophe gives the scene a feeling of depth that doesn’t create communion between the speaker and the moon or the woman. Rather, it produces a sense of acute loneliness. Interestingly the woman in this poem can give him happiness, make him a hero, and bring him faith. In fact it would seem she can liberate him from poetry: “Kh’volt shtil nor gevaynt un on verter,/ Vi a kind.” (I will only silently cry and without words,/ like a child.) The second poem has a tone that is familiar to us from The Book of Satires. Set in the boredom of autumn, the poem places love and physical lust as devices helping to escape depression:

332 Steinberg, "Libe," 90-92.

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Es baygen zikh troyrik di beymer A blat nokh a blat falt arop Nisht shtel zikh baym fentster un trakht nisht A troym nokh a troym flit avek ... Der iker: du zolst zikh nisht nemen Der foylkeyt fun herbst in di hant

Dayn harts un dayn yugent farleb du Un zet on dayn blik un dayn blut; Dikh veln dan libn di geter Un vest zikh dan liben aleyn Un ale onkreftike, alte- Un ale, vos foyln on mut .... Tsi vet zey der aybiker treystn, Ven undz vet farvign di lust? Ikh veys nisht ...es faln di bleter Es klapt afn fentster ser vint. (the trees are bent over with sadness/ A leaf after leaf fall down/ don’t stand by the window and don’t think/ a dream after dream flies away...the main thing: don’t surrender yourself/ to the hand of the sadness of Fall// you love your heart and your youth/ and marvel at your gaze and your blood/ then the gods will love you/ and you will love yourself// and all who are powerless, old- / and all that fall without strength...will the almighty comfort them/ as we are rocked to sleep by lust?/ I don’t know, the leaves fall/ the wind is knocking at the window)

The big difference this cycle presents is that here the inexplicable mood swinging from yearning to the epicurean hedonism that bothered the critics, is anchored in a narrative. The juxtaposition of the vignettes places these images in a causal continuity and therefore describes and validates a peculiar psychological state.

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The third poem supplements the epicurean position with an attack on the myth of romantic love from an ecclesiastic point of view:

...oyb dikh libt fun di froyen di shenste Oyb af day harts klapt a harts a getreyes Vays az gekont zayn hot andersh Tsufelik nor bistu gliklekh ... Freg nisht, vos fryer iz geven un vos shpeter Vet a mol zayn un vet kumen in lebn; Makh tsu di oygn un lib zi, Kush zi, di froy dayne, lustic. (...if you are loved by the prettiest of women/ if on your heart beats a heart that is true/ know it can also be different/ it's only by chance that you are happy...do not ask what happened earlier and what later/ what will sometime be and what will life bring/ close your eyes and love her/ kiss her, your wife, with lust.)

It is one of the few times in which we see a generalized condemnation of life in Yiddish.

So far it was the speaker how held the blame for not believing or belonging. While the nature of the world here seems hostile and arbitrary, conjugal relations are presented as the sensible choice in relation to the romantic dreams: “vays den der nakhtingal ...zukhn/ zvishen di gertner dem gortn dem grinstn...?” (Does the nightingale know...to look/ among the gardens the for the greenest garden...?) The fourth part addresses the beloved, and in a surprising fashion describes the inter-subjective relations between them:

Zogst as zvishn mir un dir Hot geefent zikh a opgrunt. Blumen hobn mir a sakh, Lomir tsudekn dem opgrunt

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Un mir veln vi a mal Tantsn vild un tantsn freylekh; Shlingt der opgrunt undz arayn Vet es umgevart zayn, freylekh (You say that between me and you/ a chasm has opened./ we have plenty of flowers,/ let’s cover the chasm// and we will like once/ dance wild and dance happy/ and if the chasm swallowed us/ it would be unexpected, happy)

Love is being presented in this poem in a multifaceted way, which is surprisingly neither derisive nor naïve. The conflicting feelings and desires are presented as a viable and personal psychological position. Love has a selfish, egocentric side, but the need is real. It is only a buffer from the cold and loneliness of the world outside, which is a hazardous one. Love itself is not destined or predetermined, but sorely needed nonetheless. And yet, as we have seen in the Hebrew, the fear that even this functional defense against the cold could open up and develop to something more profound and more dangerous is present. Only that in this cycle, rather than avoiding the danger of emotional attachment all together, Steinberg proposes, perhaps for the only time in his career, to dance right off the edge.

VII. Written on the Ground with One’s Own Blood: “The Sad Love”.

An important cornerstone in Steinberg’s writings is his epic poem “The Sad Love”.333 The long narrative poem exists for Steinberg almost uniquely in Yiddish. In Yiddish he composed three such poems: “The Sad Love” (1907), “The Smile” (1911) and “Nothing” (- 1912). He published another piece named “the last one- a fragment of an epic poem” (1911) as well as the narrative poem Rusland, in book form. Even among those "The Sad Love" is remarkable as it adheres very closely to Bialik’s model of the epic poem. The only other example like

333 "Di Troyrike Libe," Dos Yiddishe Folk 1907.

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that is in his only Hebrew epic poem “Massa Avisholem” published in Palestine in 1915, a significant fact in its own right, to which we will dedicate a chapter later on.

The tradition of the romantic narrative poem traveled from Wordsworth, Blake and Byron through Pushkin and Lermontov into Hebrew and Yiddish poetry. It became one of Bialik’s most significant contributions to the development of Hebrew and Yiddish literature.334

Through it- and in opposition to the rationalist and classicist epic poems written in Hebrew up to his day335- Bialik managed to institute the notion of personal bildung as a modern epic, the practice of reflection on the apprenticeship of a young man, his key experiences in childhood as the code to his adult self.336 Bialik’s epic poems established the notion of myth in Modern Hebrew literature, a notion central to romantic poetry, where the myth is the emotional and urge-driven embodiment of psychic reality.337

The models Bialik instituted in narrative poems such as “Dead of the Desert”, “My

Poetry”, “The Talmud Scholar” and others were emulated and developed by most of the young renaissance poets.338 While parodying Bialik's models and criticizing his guiding premises, poets like Shneour and Shimonovich nonetheless adhered to the structure as a whole, accepting it as a form of totalizing representation of an expressive subject, using its

334 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim 187;

335 Miron, The Prophetic Mode in Modern Hebrew Poetry. 21-22

336 Judith Bar-El, Ha-Poemah Ha-Otobiyografit Bi-Yetsiratam Shel Hayim Nahman Byalik U-Vene Doro (Yerushalayim: ha-Universitah ha-`Ivrit, Place: Israel; Jerusalem., 1983), Thesis/dissertation (deg); Microform (mic).

337 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim, 192.

338 Ibid., 187.

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tropes, figurative language and formal characteristics in their own work. The structure of an influential epic poem such as "The Dead of the Desert"339 became a formal topos for the poets of the renaissance generation.340 This structure presents a poem that is unrhymed but set in a broad stable metric scheme, describing silent frozen figures in a mysterious moonlit scene, until the figures break free and roar or cry or laugh.341 That in turn is translated into an address in the first person plural, in short uneven verses, which are, in contrast to the descriptive part, rhymed. The address is a cry of revolt against some oppressive other marked by the second person plural that usurped the figures’ power in the past and is threatening to do so again. As the address ends the figures return to their petrified slumber and the verses return to their descriptive rhythm, forming a cycle.342

The epic poem “The Sad Love” was first published in 1907 in the Warsaw Zionist Yiddish daily Dos Yudishe Folk and then included in the collection collected Writings. The poem is written according to Bialik’s models, but we can see in it the mixture of two epic genres used by Bialik. The poem is constructed according to the model of “Dead of the Desert” described earlier but its content and rhetoric devices it follow the model of Bialik’s autobiographical poems: critical moments of the speaker’s biography are examined from a distance and are presented as answers to questions, not as a narrative causal continuation.343 The events

339 Hayyim Nahman Bialik, "ḤAyim NaḥMan Byaliḳ, Shirim," ed. Dan Miron and Uzi Shavit (Tel-Aviv: Mekhon Kats le-ḥeḳer ha-sifrut ha-ʻIvrit, Universiṭat Tel-Aviv :, 1983).

340 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim, 187.

341 Ibid.

342 Ibid., 187-88.

343 Bar-El, Ha-Poemah Ha-Otobiyografit Bi-Yetsiratam Shel Hayim Nahman Byalik U-Vene Doro.

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described are informed by a social-national stratum, which is in turn criticized and informed by the said events.344

The events appearing in “The Sad Love” correspond not only to the dictates of the literary taste of the time, but also to Steinberg’s own biography. While in the Hebrew poetry the poet’s biography is always a mystery here the case is different. The episodes from this poem appear also in his stories that were written at the same time and accepted as biographical.345

Steinberg displays his nuanced sensibility to literary form and effects important changes to both genres, creating a reflective work with depth and meaning.

The poem opens with a description of the hero. It is the summary of the persona we have seen so far in Steinberg’s Yiddish poems: a superfluous man, world wise and weary, given over to pleasure. He differs from the Hebrew persona of the time in that he is affiliated with a collective: he is burdened by the inherited sadness of his nation, which makes him feel old and spent. Another difference is that his sensual side is emphasized but is not presented as empty and deceiving. He takes pride and values his art very highly:

Ikh bin yung; ikh hob dem bekher fun fargenign Biz’n grund nisht oysgetrunkn; myne oygn Hobn zikh in got’s velt nokh nisht ongezetikt; ... Ikh hob mayn yugent troym nokh vebn nisht geendikt... Nor ikh trog in zikh a troyer on a nomen, Vos ikh hob fun mayn alteren geyarshent; Nor ikh fil mikh...opgelebt shoyn;

344 Ibid.

345 Komem, Darkhe Ha-Sipur Shel Ya`Akov Shtainberg, 457-58.

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Vi mayn folk dos alte un dos opgelebte.346 (I’m still young; the cup of pleasure / I have not yet emptied; my eyes / are not yet sated with god’s world...i have not finished weaving the dream of my youth...except that I carry within me a sadness with no name/ which I inherited from my elders/ except that I feel...dying already/ like my people, old and dying)

After this opening the poem passes to describe a state of hallucination, an involuntary remembrance of past scenes, images and voices, in shorter rhythmic verses:

S’shteyen af far mir geshtaltn Libe, tayre- un lakhn Mit a kol fun a gelibter, Gut un zis tsu mir;- Vayter kumt ir mikh dermonen Libe teg un libe ovents ... shtey far mir mayn shenes maydl! Mir aleyn dertsayl ikh troymen Biz du flist avek tsuzamen Mit der blaser nakht.347 (Images present themselves to me/ loved, dear- and laugh/ with a voice of a beloved/ good and sweet to me.// come remind me/ days of love and loving evenings...stand before me my beautiful maiden/ I will tell myself of dreams/ until you flee away/ with the pale night )

The poem itself tells in long lines, in white verse and epic meter about the attempt of a young man to enchant a pure beautiful Jewish maiden who is supposed to save him from the man he had become. The poem is delivered in first and second person singular in present and future tenses. The speaker is addressing the beloved, telling her of his actions and feelings.

346 Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften, 56.

347 Ibid., 56-7.

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The poem takes place mostly at night, under a mysterious moon. In the first canto the hero asks his beloved, the “pure beautiful Jewish maiden”, to love him and tells her of how he will come to her, spy on her and enchant her by revealing his inner world:

Hab mikh lib du sheynes reynes Yiddish maydl! Shtilerheyd kum ikh tsu dir af der nakht, lang vel ikh shteyn far dayn fentster... S’vet mayn neshome arayndrinngen shtil Durkh di farhangene shoybn tsu dir ... un vet zikh Dreyen lang far dayne likhtike oygn Vi arum likht flit a zumer feygele lang; ...un vos dayn harts redt fun mir - vet zi hern , Nokhdem vet kumen tsurik zi tsu mir Vet mir dertseyln di bsoyre di gute: Rayn is dayn ir harts un is nokh farshlosn , Efenen vet es zikh dir un dayn libe .- Bald gey ikh dan un klap on in dayn tir. .... Shtil vel ikh redn , un goldene netsn Vel ikh farshpreytn... far dir ...shtil vestu hern . Dayn kinderish blik Vet a farvunderter kukn af mikh Un af mayn sheyne fakishufte velt348 (Love me oh beautiful, pure jewish maiden!/ I will come silently in the night to you/ long will I stand in front of your window... My soul will forces itself silently/ through the hanging shades...and it will / circle a long time before your bright eyes/ as a summer bird flies around the light;...and what your heart says of me - she will hear-/ after that she will come back to me,/ and tell

348 Ibid., 57-8.

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me the good news:/ her heart is pure and still locked/ it will open for you and your love- / than I go and knock on your door... I will speak silently and a golden net/ I will spread...for you...silently you will hear. Your childish gaze/ would fall on me full of wonder/ and on my beautiful enchanted world)

After this scene the speaker leaves the maiden’s room. Alone she would feel some of the speaker’s enchantment. She doesn't know that he had left an angel behind, the only one he has left from his childhood. The angel will surround her bed with camps of images.

Makhnes-vayz veln geshtaltn ersheynen, Flien arun dayn geleger... Ot vet a kindish gezikht tsu dir shmeykhln Kukn af dir mit farkholemte oygn Vest ober zeen in zey troyer on sof: Glaykh vi dos harts fun’m kind zol shoyn filln , Vos iz a kindheyt on shpiln ... In a farshimelten gloybn fun alte Zvishen farkhayshekhte gezikhter ....mayn kindheyt iz dos. (Camp-like images will appear,/ around your bed...and a childish face will smile at you/ look at you with dream filled eyes/ but you will see in them sadness with no end:/ like a heart of a kid would feel/ what it means [to have a]childhood without games...in the moldy faith of the elders/ among darkened faces...this was my childhood )

There are two interesting facts to note here: first the speaker cannot disclose his biography directly and needs the intervention of a mystical being, like the muse. The second is that the biography outlined here is in no way consolidated. It is fragmented, made of separate camps of images. The logic behind the constitution of this persona is not developmental but cumulative.

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However the biography outlined here is the canonical one, found in the works of Bialik and others.349 It is a story of hard childhood among hard bitter men, the experience of leaving the rabbinical fold, the shock of the big city, etc.:

Mer hot di zun nisht gevolt zikh im vayzn, ...Ayner aleyn hot dos yingl gezesn In dem farkheyshekhte kloyz un gekholemt... S’drimelt der omed, di falm fun ner tomid, Unter dem parokhes shloft got un zayn toyre, S’shloft oykh zayn gloybn in harts bay dem yingl Bald vet oykh er, der letster antloyfn...350 (the only one and alone the youngster sat/ in the darkened house of study and dreamt...dreaming are the lectern and the flame of the everlasting candle,/ under its curtain God sleeps with his torah/ his faith is also asleep in the youngster’s heart./ Soon he, the last one, will escape as well, )

After leaving the tradition the speaker finds himself outcast as a sort of Cain:“zat vet nisht vern dayn harts un dayn beyzer/ Unruhik-kranker gedank vet dikh shlepn / Iber der erd...dos bin ikh in mayn yugent. “351 (Your heart will not be sated and your angry/ restless-sick mind will drag/ you across the earth...this was me in my youth.) This succession of scenes and images does accumulate into a “familiar image”. It is the speaker, as she knows him: “Oygn mit lust tsu dem lebn un lipn/ Mit a farbiterten shmaykhl vos lakhn / Zikh aleyn oys un di velt

349 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam : Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim. 201

350 Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften, 59.

351 Ibid., 60.

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vos arum zay.”352 (Eyes with lust for life and lips/ with a bitter smile that laugh/ at themselves and the world around them)

It is an image of a brother from a faraway land who would take her to places only he knows and is willing to go to. As they walk the town and lay on the grass the next day, the beloved would look for a soul in his eyes, but she will not find it. His soul wandered off to the heights and the distance, looking for happiness among snow-clad mountains. The soul never returned, as there was nothing that had called her back. In opposition to the void in the speaker’s heart the beloved’s heart is free of guilt and full of angels that sing:

“Dayn harts iz umshuldik nokh us es hobn Dikh nisht farlozn nokh ale malokhim Velkhe baglayten di kindheyt did gute - Kh’her zayer shire... Biz mayn farshtoysene neshome vet tsyen zeyer gezang un vet rufen tsurik zi... Hob mikh lib du sheynes reynes Yiddish maidl” 353 (Your heart is still free of guilt and / all the angelshave not forsaken you yet/ those who accompany the good childhood-/ I hear their singing...until my dusty soul their song/ will reach and it will call her back... Love me, oh beautiful, pure Jewish maiden)

In the second canto the speaker tells the beloved in her darkened room his history, how he became so bitter, how he wanted to become a slave to his passions but hunger and poverty got in his way:

Kh’bin mit a harts vos farlangt heyses leben

352 Ibid.

353 Ibid., 61.

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kh’hob mayn farlangn tsum har gevolt makhn- ober mayn goyrl hot oysgelakht..mikh. Hungeric bin ikh tsu broyt geven...”354 (I had a heart that desired a burning life/ I wished to make my desires the master-/ but life mocked...me/ I was hungry for bread)

The speaker describes how he suffered from hunger for bread during the day and from hunger for god during the night. He tells her how he found her, his new goddess. She is supposed to heal him from his “foolish longing”. In the dark he promises her he would build a pavilion for their love, away from the conflict and injustice of the public square. There he would make her nights sweet, he will let her drink from the cup of pleasure, he will teach her the language of the body and of plants and trees. Their idyllic passionate exchange is disturbed by a storm, first an actual one and then a figurative one, a political storm. The speaker would guide her through the storms of feast of destruction:

Un az a shturm vet af dem vald zikh a varf tun un rayssen mit a fargenigen a beyzen di tsvaygen...... ikh nem dikh, Kh’fir dikh avek in’m andern shturm, Vos dreyt di mentshn and rayst zey un varft zey Ayner tsum tsveytn... (And when a storm/ will blow over the forest and would tear/ with angry pleasures the branches...i will take you,/ I will guide you away in another storm/ that spins men and tears at them and throws them/ one at the other... )

354 Ibid., 62.

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In the third canto the narration is interrupted by an address in short verses, an address of mythical demonic creatures, the winds of creation, that threaten to take him away from human companionship to the heavens where he belongs:

Dikh umatum veln Di vintn gefinen Un velen fartrogn Af aybik dayn glik ... Nem, loz dayn gelibte Un gib dikh undz iber; Mir trogn un brengn In undzer velt dikh; ... Du vest mit undz flien Un shveben in khvalies Fun likht un vest kukn On benkshaft arop

Vu s’paynign ale Zikh elent, un zukhn Umzist zikh fargenign, Umzist zikh a frayd”355 (The wind will find/ you anywhere/ and will carry away/ your happiness for good...come, leave your beloved/ and give yourself over to us/ we’ll carry you and bring you/ into our world...you will fly with us/ and float on waves/ of light and you will look/ down without longing// to where everyone’s pining/ alone and search/ in vain for pleasure/ in vain for a joy)

355 Ibid., 67-69.

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The poem ends with a return to the wide descriptive meter. The vision ends and calm returns upon the couple. The hero says he would throw all his pearls and treasures in the grass, that he would like to spend his youth, his life and soul under the tree until morning:

Kh’vil ale goldene hofeningn mayne Iber dem gorten tsushpreytn, un ale Veln zey glantsn biz tog in’m groz; Kh’vel biz beginen kidh kushn - biz morgn Loz mayn neshome a laydike vern ( I wish to scatter all my golden/ hopes in the garden and all/ will glitter in the grass until day comes./ I will kiss you until daybreak - until tomorrow/ let my soul be vacant)

Biography and myth

In this surprisingly complex poem Steinberg presents and subverts both of Bialik’s poetic models mentioned above: the mythic and the biographic. The poem conflates two important concepts of the romantic narrative poetry: the first being the bildung of the individual personality as an epic journey of apprenticeship, the second is the palpable presence of myth as an emotional, passionate reality.356 By parodying these two concepts, Steinberg outlines the subject that he is trying to create.

Miron writes that Steinberg’s Hebrew epic poem “Massa Avisholem” is steeped in the language and imagery of Bialik’s poems of the house of study and this generates the parodic

356 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim.

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distance that constitutes the persona of Avisholem as "other".357 “The Sad Love” is an earlier attempt at producing the same dynamics and as such it is a fascinating addition to the existing debate on Steinberg’s Hebrew poem. The character of avisholem in the later Hebrew poem is closer to the speaker of “The Sad Love” than it is to the persona appearing in Steinberg’s later Yiddish novel Rusland. And indeed some of the subversions of Bialik's biographical model found in “Massa Avisholem” appear already in this poem. For instance, the poem does not deal with a delineated, formative moment in childhood, but rather with a dramatic moment in the speaker’s adulthood. The necessary biographical elements are presented as flashbacks of different sorts.358 Other elements that exist in the Hebrew poem are clearly corrections to the model presented here. The earlier “Sad Love”, unlike “Massa Avisholem” written in 1915, is still found deep within the romantic norms of the national literature.

Therefore Steinberg does present in this poem a lyrical, confessional, first person narration, and attempts to connect the past of the speaker to his present, to create a double perspective containing and comparing the person he was the time of writing and the person he had been before.359 The two narrative poems resemble each other the most in that they both criticize directly Bialik’s conception of Biography. As Miron writes, the notion of biography for

Steinberg is different from that of Bialik.360 Steinberg’s hero is a balanced and stable person, possibly too stable, all the events of his life are found in equal distance from him, as he

357 Ibid., 201.

358 Ibid., 213; Bar-El, Ha-Poemah Ha-Otobiyografit Bi-Yetsiratam Shel Hayim Nahman Byalik U-Vene Doro, 189-90.

359 Ibid.

360 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam : Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim, 208.

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examines them from the perspective of his solid present. This present is marked by a principle that constitutes the self: survival and displacement.361

The text displays this principle through the parodic distance created by using imagery derived from poems of Bialik such as “Alone”.362 Steinberg criticizes Bialik’s ‘outdated’, pre-Freudian and non-decadent notion of psychological bildung, of sensuality and myth. “The

Sad Love” creates a parody of the drama of leaving the house of study, which appears in

Bialik’s "The Talmud Student" from 1901 and in other poems. The experience of leaving the fold of rabbinical scholarship was for Bialik a major cataclysmic event, parallel in importance to the discovery of nature or of poetry and its magic; two things that just barely manage do fix the tear in the heart caused by the loss of tradition.363 As Miron writes, when

Steinberg adopts this model it is a parody that dislocates the crisis of faith, transforming it from a foundational experience to a generational one, one event among many.364

Steinberg uses the typical image of the Jewish house of study as it is found in Bialik:

“Shtil kukt di vinter-nakht durkh di tsvelf fentsters/ in’m beys-midrash dem pusten arayn./

361 Ibid.

362 “All gone with the wind, all swept away by the light/ a new song filled with song the morning of their lives/ And i...was quite forgot / Alone under the wing of the Divine Presence” in: H.N. Bialik and A. Hadari, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik (Syracuse University Press, 2000), 23.

363 Miron, Ha-Peridah Min Ha-Ani He-Àni: Mahalakh Be-Hitpathut Shirato Ha-Mukdemet Shel Hayyim Nahman Biíalik, 1891-1901 64-65; Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha- Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim. 214

364 Ibid.

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Shtil iz in kloyz un es rirt zikh kayn zakh nit” 365(The winter night looks in through the twelve windows of the dusty beys-midrash/ The cloyse is silent and not a thing moves).

Steinberg gives here the opposite state of mind of the one that is found in Bialik when he discusses a similar scene: “All gone with the wind, all swept away by the light/ a new song filled with song the morning of their lives/ And i...was quite forgot / Alone under the wing of the Divine Presence.”366 Unlike Bialik who stays alone with the Divine Presence as she hides in a desolate corner of the study house, Steinberg’s hero is drawn by the light and is gladly carried away by the wind: “Bald vet oykh er, der letster antloyfn. / veystu vuhin du vilst flyen, yung harts?”367 (Soon he, the last one, will escape as well. / do you know where you wish to fly, young heart?). Of course he doesn’t. He is only escaping without ever moving towards anything. The appeal of foreign ideas and beliefs, implied in the light and wind that carry people away seems to have its sway over the speaker here. Light and wind seem to symbolize everything that is the opposite of the speaker’s environment; the moldy darkness of the house of study, the burden of tradition, the mediated, impersonal, textual religious experience and the death like state of the spirit. The problem is that in that kingdom of light he meets a reality of hunger and strife, exploitation and violence, that would have surprised him less had he read anything but Bialik before leaving the house of study.

The sense of anger at Bialik for the false promises implied in his poetry is further emphasized as the first scene of seduction in “The Sad Love” corresponds very clearly with a

365 Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften, 59

366 Bialik and Hadari, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik, 23.

367 Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften, 59.

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number of Bialik’s poems. In the poem “Tonight I lurked” Bialik writes: “Tonight I lurked by your chamber. / I saw you, desolate and quiet”.368 As we have mentioned earlier, Steinberg’s hero hides under his beloved’s window, but whereas Bialik’s indifferent lover: “didn’t see… that like a frightened dove in your glass/ my soul struggled and flapped.”369 The soul in

Steinberg’s poem is there to scout. The situation here is diametrically opposed to the one found in Bialik’s poem. The vulnerability of the speaker and the humiliated position of a person who lays in ambush to watch how his beloved does not see him, is here replaced by the very same figure, now representing the patience and cunning of a master hunter. In the beloved’s room Steinberg’s hero will spread for her a golden net and weave a beautiful world of dreams: "Dayn kinderish blik/ Vet a farvunderter kukn af mikh / Un af mayn sheyne fakishufte velt"370 (Your childish gaze/ would fall on me full of wonder/ and on my beautiful enchanted world.) Here we can see another subtle jab at Bialik’s poetic persona, at its attitude to feminine sexuality. Bialik’s poem “Just One Ray of Sun” speaks of the encounter between perceived beauty and dark menacing sexuality in the most moralistic and repressive terms:

Only one ray of light pierced you And suddenly you rose and grew And your sweet flesh ripened And like a heavy bunch of grapes you matured

And only one night's storm passed you And it laid to waste your bud and bloom

368Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik, 47

369 Ibid.

370 Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften, 57-8.

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And carrion dogs knowing your beauty Smelt from afar your corpse371

Steinberg presents here, through very similar images, an opposing approach to sexuality.

The beloved is called pure, child and sister but the excitement she feels is sexual and similar in tone to that found in Bialik’s poem: "Ober dayn brust vet zikh hoybn...Vi plutslung/ volstu gefunen di zakh, vos gebenkt/ hostu dayn ugend di gentse nokh ir."-(Your breast rises…as if you suddenly/ you found that thing that you/ longed for your entire youth).372 The metaphoric night’s storm in “The Sad Love” does not lay to waste the bud and bloom of the beloved but rather: "Yede nakht vel ikh a yugnd a gantse/ Af dayne lipn in kushn farbrenen;/ S’vet dayn harts lign af mayns un beyde/ Velen zikh sod’n fun glik" (Every night an entire youth / I will burn from your lips with kisses; / Your heart will lie on mine and we both/ Shall whisper of happiness). Surprisingly, it is the speaker who is touched by a ray of sun that steals his purity and fills him with longing: "S’veyst shoyn farlangen dos harts fun dem yingl./ Tsi a farblondzsheter stral fun der zun...Hot im der sod fun’m leben dertseylt??373(The heart of the youngster knows longing already/ had a wandering ray of sun...told him the secret of life?)

The reflection over the images from the past accounts the psychic state of the speaker.

This is Steinberg’s important critique of Bialik’s biographical model. The key for the personality of the speaker is not found in one formative event but in his way of regarding the events of his life. The parodic outlook creates the distance from all things and assures the

371 H.N. Bialik, 1901 in: Bialik and Hadari, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik, 48.

372 Steinberg, "Di Troyrike Libe."

373 Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften, 59.

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balance the speaker needs. However this balance comes at a price: alienation, uprootedness, and loneliness.374 His constant litany over his envy of those who can believe only attests to this worldview. He longs to feel belief and to feel the sense of direction and community it creates but basically all things are equal to him. He does not look for an answer to a crucial existential question in a world without god, as Bialik does, as he knows the answer: the world is false and empty of gods or temples.

Steinberg creates here a theatrical Mise-en-scène in which the failure in achieving the goal of a biography (in Bialik's sense) is the dramatic achievement of the poem: the fragments of the past do not come together in one coherent subjectivity from which poetry emanates naturally. The speaker remains in the state of antagonistic fragmentation from which poetry is a very dubious salvation. It is dubious because Steinberg’s poetry is anchored in the romantic world whose expectations create the contradictions that tear his life apart. The disappointment from childhood, god, the wind and the light created the need for this balanced structure but in spite of the disappointment the expectations and the emotional need for faith or love are still there. The encounter with them, with the possibility of another failure in the image of the girl and the erotic, emotional and national salvation she offers is very threatening for the speaker. It is the moment of the encounter with the myth, the deep denied layer from which dreams and poems come:

Zest vi es rirn zikh shotens arum undz? S’nemt mikh a troyer arum... Bay yede boym steyt a malakh a shvartser; ze vi zey rirn zikh ale pamelakh ,-

374 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim, 209.

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...herst vos zey zingn?”375 (you see how the shadows move around us?/ sadness embraces me...by each tree stands a black angel;/ see how they all rock slowly,...you hear what they sing?)

It is in the poem that the light and the wind return in their ominous form. The light and the wind turn the discussion back to the question of myth presented by the resemblance to

“Dead of the Desert”. Formally the poem resembles the structure of Bialik’s epic poem described above: it opens with wide descriptive dactylic tetrameter whose object is the speaker; shortly after that it passes on to a short address uttered by the speaker in trochaic tremeter, surprisingly placing the speaker himself in the place of mythical figures and making their pain, that ought to express itself suddenly, violently, both personal and lyrical. the address in this form will return later on in the poem. This time, and more closely connected to the model of “Dead of the Desert”, the address is uttered by mythical beings, the winds.

However they are not the representatives of a repressed collective in revolt and the address is not directed at their oppressors, as Bialik’s model dictated.376 These are the mythical winds of creation and they address the speaker, wishing to lure him away from the attachment he is developping to the pure Jewish maiden and to carry him to the heights of creation that befit him:

Dort shpinen di geyster Dos glik far di tsukunft ... Zey flekhen di krantsen

375 Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften, 67.

376 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam : Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim, 188.

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Far groyse neshomes Vos ligen bahalten Nokh unter got’s shtul:

Mit tayere shteyner Bazetsen di croyn zey Vos s’vet a mol trogn der mentsh af der erd377 (There the spirits weave/ happiness for the future...they twine wreaths/ for great souls/ that lay hidden/ under God’s stool// with precious stones/ they set the crown/ that one day will carry/ man on the earth)

The function of this mixture of genres is to collapse into each other both models that are present in the mind when reading this poem: the frozen ossified landscape, with its mythical figures is in fact the psychic landscape of the speaker, with his passions and desires that are constantly represses by “…a malevolent ‘you’ that wishes to freeze the figures and thus enslave them and paralyze their primordial power…”378 That malevolent “you” who is in part society and in part the nature of the world, is also none other than the speaker himself. He has a need to keep things at a distance, to minimize their emotional effect. Therefore he presents a persona of an artist, who still wishes to believe he is tied to his past and to the people, through the maiden. Nevertheless the speaker’s loneliness is as natural to him as it is natural to an eagle or a summit.379 He mistakenly places loneliness alongside his sadness, which he inherited from the sadness of his fathers, from the old sadness of the nation, but in fact it is a

377 Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften, 69.

378 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim, 188.

379 Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften. 64

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buffer against this sadness, a much needed protection zone, which is threatened by the alluring promises of romantic poetry.

Miron describes the importance of “Dead of the Desert” in that Bialik created in this epic poem “a descriptive realization of a central philosophical-psychological premise of romantic and symbolist poetry: that the myth is real”.380 The myth is real as a profound and faithful representation of psychic reality in its deepest reaches. This approach was not current in

Hebrew literature before Bialik’s time.381 The sentimental or rationalist understanding of myth of the Haskala or the pre-Zionists Hibat Zion poets was replaced by Bialik with a frame placing myth as a real part of psychic life, thus allowing him to create a more profound, disturbing and realistic expression of modern Jewish psyche and its unconscious drives.382

Miron brings as example two works of Shneour and Shimonovitsh, in which this concept of myth is reworked.383 In the examples presented by Miron: “Sphinxes” by David

Shimonovitsh and “Song of the Falling Rocks” by Zalman Shneour, both poets maintain the epic structure of the poem, its grandiloquence, but transform the myth from a felt reality to a perceived one. In Shneour's poem it is a scientific allegory- a figurative, imaginative interpretation projected onto natural phenomena, while for Shimonovitsh the myth is a dream, an interpretation of reality in symbols.384 True to Valéry’s description of poets

380 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim, 189.

381 Miron, "H. N. Bialik and the Prophetic Mode in Modern Hebrew Poetry," 20.

382 Ibid.

383 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim, 193.

384 Ibid., 194.

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following a romantic giant they attempt to control and contain the explosive energy released by Bialik’s poetry.385 While succeeding in that they also lose the profound psychological resonance that Bialik’s poem had.386

Steinberg in his Yiddish poetry in general and in “The Sad Love” in particular is able to contain a complex and nuanced concept of myth, which is closer to Bialik’s own. While being consistent in his understated tone, the gothic atmosphere of his poem maintains the myth as a real and palpable force in the life of the mind. The model of Bialik is grounded in a slippage between reality and myth, interiority and exteriority; the scene of the mighty fossilized figures, Bialik’s 60,000 lions coming to life, corresponds to the speaker’s state of mind, it is not a representation of it. In Steinberg’s poems the same slippage is maintained, even if the description is closer to the conventions of decadence and modernist psychological realism.387 The text gives ample reasons to view the poem as a mimetic depiction of a sensitive mind that is ‘losing it’ under the pressure of life, a familiar topic in the Russian literature of Gogol and Dostoyevsky, a form of narration practiced by Knut Hamsun.388 The fact that the poem is presented in the beginning as a dream-like memory allows for more leeway in accepting the fantastic elements in it, but still, the reader must decide if this is real.

Is this a metaphoric depiction of a natural event or a realist depiction of an unnatural mythic

385 P. Valéry, "“The Position of Baudelaire” " in Variety: Second Series (Harcourt, Brace and company, 1938).

386 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim, 194.

387 Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens: Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener." 17

388 Hamsun being an author that Steinberg admired and often quoted in his stories. He eve named one “Hunger” as a tribute to the Norwegian author. Cf. Komem, Darkhe Ha-Sipur Shel Ya`Akov Shtainberg. 443

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one? At the end of the day however, as with Bialik, it does not matter. In the scene of the storm in “The Sad Love”, when the couple hides under a tree and a minyan of dark angels appear as if in prayer, it doesn’t matter if they are really there or if they are projections of his tired mind. Or rather, even if the vision of the storm at the end of the poem is a post-traumatic slippage from the other storm and its hellish reality it is nonetheless absolutely real. These are images that express the reality of Bloch’s “darkness of the lived moment” in the most palpable way, a moment of horror where Okhrana spies, informants and "agents provocateurs" render impossible the distinction between true and false, and bacchanalian scenes: “dort vestu zeen, vi es tantst di shtarke/ Af di gefalene shvakhe un yogn / Aynem der tsvaytn un veren tsutrotn,/ Zingendik nokh dem gezang fun nitsokhn"389 (There you will see how the strong/ dance over the fallen weak and chase/one another and are crushed still singing the song of victory).

Steinberg arrived here at a poetic style capable of creating powerful symbols that indicate to a possibility of a different poetry. This poetry will be different from the engaged, intimate, and very hurtful poetry that the couple meets in the storm: "Kh’vel in’m shturm

...dikh...lernen/ yents groys gezang vos ikh hob in mayn yugnt/ gut shoyn gekent, vos der mentsh hot geshribn/ iber der erd mit zayn aygenem blut"390 (I will in the storm...teach you/ every great song that in my youth/ I knew so well, that man had written / on the ground with his own blood).

389 Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften, 66.

390 Ibid.

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This Poetry is also different from the sentimental naïve one of the angels that the speaker can hear from the hearts of pure beautiful Jewish maidens. But this is not a concrete possibility for the speaker. The winds offer the speaker beautiful worlds, mighty castles of clouds from which he would look down without longing at a pining, alienated world. They offer him a part in the future, to sit with the spirits and weave dreams “for other days”. In fact they offer him kingdom come, or oylem ha’be, the next world, in other words, death.

The poem “The Sad Love” captures a series of antinomies in a way that suspends their contradictions and organizes them harmoniously as the image of the psyche of the speaker.

The poem does not offer any resolution of the conflict presented in it. The psychological reality expressed in it is static, a delicate balance in a painful impasse. The Jewish maiden’s existence that Steinberg constructs as an ersatz for divinity is not a solution but a long lost innocence that the speaker labors to destroy by showing her the ‘real world’. The speaker stands away from real life of hardship and pain barely balancing the drives of death and pleasure. However the speaker presented in “The Sad Love” is a major step in the direction of freeing himself from the influence of Bialik and developing his own voice. Considering that this text was written in 1907, at the same time as the poems of The Book of Satires, the achievement is even more impressive. It is a finer and more nuanced attack on the poetics of

Bialik and the governing taste of the national literature. Steinberg is not there yet but the epic poem before us is a major step in this way.

Conclusion

The poems written between 1903-1909, in Hebrew and in Yiddish, display similar concerns in regards to the dominant romantic norms. They go about expressing them in very different ways.

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The development of poetic expression in Yiddish is much more consistent and stable. Steinberg did not feel the need to stage the same angry rejection of Bialik’s poetics as in Hebrew. This is perhaps because the field of Yiddish literature gave a wider berth, aesthetically and ideologically, to writers and was less under the dominance of Bialik and of the critics who imposed his poetics as norms, or because the major battles were already being fought in Hebrew.

However, even without the harsh tone of the Hebrew books Steinberg does succeed in formulating a consistent and relevant critique of the romantic norms. Steinberg displays the critique in his Yiddish poems through his constant failure to transcend the solipsistic state of the decadent. This failure shows how for him the road to Canossa of romanticism, which the poet must undertake in order to belong to the renaissance literature, is blocked in Yiddish as well. In opposition to the situation in his Hebrew poetry of 1907-1910, the poet is barred from returning to the fold of romanticism not because his efforts at creating beautiful symbols fail but precisely because they succeed.

According to Bialik’s model the poet was supposed to present here his triple-faced self:391 He was supposed to mediate this event as something of both personal-psychological meaning and allegorical-national significance via the poetic function that would connect the event to the transcendent aesthetic realm.392 The poet was supposed to frame the event, through the poetic elevation of the matter, as connected to the apocalypse and to redemption, to the myth of the nation as well as to its telos.393 In fact what transpires in the poems we have studied so far is

391 Miron, Ha-Peridah Min Ha-Ani He-`Ani: Mahalakh Be-Hitpathut Shirato Ha-Mukdemet Shel Hayyim Nahman Biíalik, 1891-1901, 30-31.

392 Ibid.

393 Ibid.; Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens : Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener." 42

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quite different. Unlike Bialik’s famous bird, that connects to the identity of the poet, clarifying the poet’s role in the national endeavor and his relation to his brothers who are working the land in Palestine,the strong images that Steinberg produced do not offer such a solution.394 these are opaque and suggestive images, contradictory and alluring, images that might be magical but as such it does not retrieve any charm to the world but rather, in a momentary apparition of beauty, takes all semblance of reason and purpose from it. Steinberg’s successes in imagery and music in the poems of 1903-1907 did not make the construction of the national subject easier for him. On the contrary, his artistic talent, when directed to the task, only set him further apart. Steinberg met in Yiddish the same poetic ceiling he had encountered in Hebrew a few years earlier: the impossibility to express within the poetic confines of the renaissance literature his own objections to its romantic premises. This impossibility leads to the production of similar poems, all demonstrating their limitations. It is true that the unattainability of the ideal, and even more so

- the failure to achieve it was for romantic poets a fundamental value.395 For the romantic poets - and this is where they differ most from Steinberg - the crisis was real and not just an effect due to a different worldview.396 Steinberg’s figurative language solidify the persistent feeling that the renaissance, the rebirth of a national subject through its mystical communion, has very little to do with human agency. This rebirth is depicted as a miracle, an act of magic that suddenly occurs as the symbol flashes before our eyes in its totalizing brevity. However, for Steinberg the production of the symbol is not a determined natural process, a connection through language

394 Bialik, "ḤAyim NaḥMan Byaliḳ, Shirim."; Miron, Ha-Peridah Min Ha-Ani He-`Ani : Mahalakh Be- Hitpathut Shirato Ha-Mukdemet Shel Hayyim Nahman Biíalik, 1891-1901. 31

395 Isaiah Berlin, "The Roots of Romanticism," ed. Henry Hardy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013).

396 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim. 214-215

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between the soul of the poet and that of the nation. Rather, it is a ritualistic compulsion; a repetition, a predetermined ordering of fetishized objects that produces certain effects; intoxicating effects, which for Steinberg are not satisfactory, are not potent enough. It is a profoundly paradoxical situation that implicitly expresses the critique that is explicit in

Steinberg’s Hebrew poems: the awareness of the materiality of the process prevents the miracle from happening.

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Part 2. Yiddish poems 1910-1914: the decadent persona

Introduction

This part of our research will discuss the poetic development that occurred in Steinberg’s work in the years 1910-1914. A change is evident in Steinberg’s prose as well from 1910 on.

The stories and poems Steinberg published in Yiddish between 1910 and his immigration to

Palestine show a deep shift in the conceptual framework of his writing.397 As we have shown in chapter II in Hebrew Steinberg directed his attention from 1906 onward to a deconstruction of the poetic norms and devices inherited by him and his peers, and to an attack on Bialik, the

Father who had instituted through these norms the romantic worldview through his poetry. The poems, which were collected in The Book of Satires were stripped of all their musical charms, demonstrating how without the magical coating of poetic effects the poetic norms are just a structure hiding the emptiness of modernity. While in Hebrew Steinberg was composing the nastiest parts of The Book of Satires, in Yiddish he was still immersed in the internal debate over the limits of Bialik’s poetics in such complex works as “The Sad Love” or the cycle “Love”.

However, neither the deconstruction undertaken in The Book of Satires produced the desired results nor the engagement with the romantic norms and demands that that was carried on in

Yiddish. Both turned out to be a poetic dead-end.

Steinberg’s way out in the Yiddish lyrical poem, very much like in The Book of Lonelinesses was through the rejection of the demands of the national literature and an affiliation with a

397 Cf. Komem, Darkhe Ha-Sipur Shel Ya`Akov Shtainberg. 463

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different poetic persona that opposes it: the sickly, foreign symbolist.398 It is a persona that does not excuse its “failures” but rather assumes them, proposing an alternative to the poetics of the national literature: the loneliness of the artist is embraced as the feature distinguishing him from the masses; it is now a rare feeling to revel in rather than a character flaw. Art is strictly a sublimation here and not transcendence. It is an exquisite pleasure, stronger than sex and better than faith but not ontologically different from either. The decadent persona that was supposed to be healed is now liberated from the confines imposed by the national literature.

As we recall, Brenner disapproved of Steinberg’s tendency to “always see the other side of the coin”, meaning that every emotion or idea is immediately countered by its opposite, producing poems that “are simply boring”.399 On the other hand the important Yiddish critic

Baal-Makhshoves commented Steinberg’s poetry for exactly his ability to put opposing concepts into play.400In the difference between Brenner's negative appraisal of Steinberg and Baal-

Makhshoves' praise resides the poetic change that allows Steinberg to move out of the impasse he encountered.

Yiddish resolved: the development of a decadent self

Between 1910 and 1914 Steinberg published twelve stories,401 three narrative poems, a novel in rhyme402 and a dozen lyrical poems in Yiddish. The majority of his works was published in

398 Hannan Hever, "Between Approval and Negation of the Diaspora in ‘Abshalom’s Journey’ by Yaakov Steinberg," ʻIyunim bi-teḳumat Yiśraʾel: meʾasef li-veʻayot ha-Tsiyonut, ha-Yishuv u-Medinat Yiśraʾel 22 (2012): 241.

399 Brenner, Kol Kitve Y. H. Brener. Uniform Title: Works. 1955.412-22

400 Steinberg, Rusland a Poeme.

401 Komem, Darkhe Ha-Sipur Shel Ya`Akov Shtainberg, 638-40.

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the Yiddishist Der Fraynd where Steinberg was employed.403 These texts are considerably different from those Steinberg published earlier and they display a level of maturity and complexity that did not exist in Steinberg’s earlier work. In regards to his prose work, Aharon

Komem notes that the stories published in those years show a significant shift from a classical understanding of tragedy, in which the crisis is resolved, to a modern, Chekhovian understanding of tragedy where the tragic does not reside in the crisis, which cannot be resolved, but rather it resides in this very impossibility and in the need to accept and interiorize it.404 Poetically the shift is marked by an emphasis on the texture of text, careful attention to details, and a style of writing that is opaque and at the same time suggestive.405 It is a principle that Komem calls elsewhere “the poetics of antinomies”.406 The poetic of antinomies is a structure that derives its power from the careful balance of contradictions, which takes place both on the thematic level: love, death, hope, despair etc. and on the figurative and formal level: sentimentality and reflection, expression and containment.407 It is through this structure that the libidinal and the rational in the work of Steinberg are combined.

Steinberg’s poetry shows a similar change. This change is most evident in the development of a new poetic persona. Between 1910 and 1914 Steinberg composed several works depicting aspects of the poetic persona that would suite him. Several cycles of lyrical poems are used as

402 Steinberg, "Der Shmeykhl," Der Fraynd 1912; "Gurnisht " Der Fraynd 1912; Steinberg, Rusland a Poeme.

403 Scott Ury, "Fraynd, Der,” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (2010).

404 Komem, Darkhe Ha-Sipur Shel Ya`Akov Shtainberg, 31.

405 Ibid.

406 "Shney Ekronot Yessod Be'shirat Yaakov Shteynberg," Molad, no. A (1967).

407 Ibid.

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playground for poetic mood and form; three narrative poems are used to examine notions of narrative and drama, as well as distance from the Bialik’s model of epic narrative. These experiments are conducted in parallel to the composition of the poetic persona appearing in the novel in rhyme Rusland, his most complete work in Yiddish, and the last he’d ever write. As

Miron writes it is an image of a balanced individual that keeps all things at an equal distance from him.408 This balancing act is in fact organized around the renunciation of magic and mystical transformation: the poet no longer expects that a miracle would close the minimal distance between him and experience. Rather, all his energy is invested in maintaining this distance. The speaker in Steinberg’s poems stands in a present time that is constructed on the one hand against a terrible loss of something essential, albeit false, in the past, and on the other against the demand to think up a future. Consistently and most importantly, the one thing that disturbs his equilibrium is the presence of a woman whose subjectivity and corporality turn his mind away from all its to-be-or-not-be's towards more pressing matters.

I. On the Road

Steinberg’s new persona is presented at the earliest in three Yiddish poems published in 1910:

“Always Beautiful”, “God Does Not Abandon His Children” and “On the Road”. In these poems

Steinberg expresses a resigned attitude towards the questions that seemed so important earlier.

The poems, published in Avrum Reyzin’s prestigious Eyropeishe Literatur, 409 display the light tone we have encountered in The Book of Satires, and a similar epigrammatic structure, where

408 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim. 208

409 J. Steinberg, "In Veg," Eyropeishe literatur 1910; "Shtendik Sheyn," Eyropeishe literatur 1910; "Got Farlost Nicht..." Eyropeishe literature, 1910.

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significant existential questions are presented as non-relevant through a light rhyme and a witty answer:

S’loyfen teg un s’gayen yorn- s’vert nisht erger, s’vert nisht besser nor dem toyt shvartsn sheliyekh sharft pamelekh shoyn zayn messer.”410 (Days run and years go by/ nothing’s worse and nothing’s better/ only death’s black envoy/ already sharpens his dagger slowly).

However, these poems also take a certain inward turn: the reality previously attacked is now developed as an artistic object. The disenchanted world, the bankruptcy of mores, the social antagonism and emotional hurt, all the elements that sought their correction via the symbol in the poems discussed earlier, are now viewed as elements of life, biographical or character traits to be described and rendered as artfully as any other facet:

shtendik sheyn zet oys dos leben dam vos hot di sheyne oygn ikh hob umet fun tzen doyres fun mayn mamas brust gezoygen411 (Life seems always beautiful/ for he who has beautiful eyes/ I drunk the sorrow of ten generations/ from my mother’s breast.)

Momentary transitory pleasure is no longer at odds with meaningful life. It is now the only meaningful thing in life: “shayn un shener vert mayn leben,/ fray un freylikh vert in hartsen/ … biz mayn letsten shlof dem shvartsen.”412 (Pretty and prettier my life will be,/ free and joyful in

410 Ibid.

411 "Shtendik Sheyn."

412 Ibid.

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the hearts… until my last dark sleep). As it happens in The Book of Satires, all lofty inspirations are brought down and ridiculed. The desire for something more, something unattainable and mysterious that was a driving force for the poet in the earlier poems is now reduced to a simple hunger to be choked:

kh’hob gevolt a mol shtoltsiren in gtrakht fun groysse glikn itster zukh ikh broyt un vasser nor der hunger tsu dershtiken”413 (I wanted to take pride/ in thoughts of great happiness/ now I look for bread and water/ just to strangle the hunger).

The third and most successful poem of this series is “On the Road”. In this poem we can see the decadent aesthetics developed beyond satire and into meaningful poetic expression. Through its musicality, rhyme and meter Steinberg captures an extreme mood of melancholia without deteriorating to sentimentalism. The first part of the poem freezes a moment in motion: the travel, the minutes before dawn. While the figurative language of the poem freezes everything just before the moment of transition, the poem’s musical flow creates a sense of movement that is broken by the repetition of the first verse in each stanza:

I. kh’for fartog mit mide ferd Alts iz umatik farklert Khmure shteyen hoyle boymer Gro der himel khotsh es togt S’veynt mayn harts un clogt: Vayter shlepstu zikh, du troymer.

413 Ibid.

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S’shvebt an’umet af der erd Kh’for far tog mit mide ferd

Kh’for far tog mit mide ferd Shvayg, mayn harts, mir iz bashert: Dort vu ale zukhen ru Kon mayn blik nisht zoymen lang Epes besser tut mir bang Kh’vayss nisht vos dos iz un vu; Epes besser bin ikh vert Kh’for far tog mit mide ferd414 (I travel before dawn with tired horses/ everything is gloomy bright/ clouds stand hollow trees/ the sky is grey, it's nearly day./ my heart cries for me and weeps: drag yourself further, you dreamer!/ gloom webs itself over the earth/ I travel before dawn with tired horses//I travel before dawn with tired horses/ be silent my heart, this is ordained/ there where all look for rest/ my gaze cannot stay long/ something better brings me sorrow/i don’t know what this is or where;/ something better I deserve-/ I travel before dawn with tired horses)

This contradictory depiction of movement in the poem opposes the world in stasis, which is not the sought-for-rest, to the labored movement, which is not in itself freedom. The dark nightmarish images: the tired horses working their way through the cobwebs of sadness in the pre-dawn grey as well as the peculiar use of language and the lethargic and melancholic mood indicate the adoption of decadent aesthetics without the apologetics required by the national literature.

The second part of the poem is, by contrast, full of strong feelings, almost hectic. It describes in a very suggestive manner what seems to be a train ride. Parallel and in opposition to the first part it is now evening, just on the verge of turning dark:

414 "In Veg," 28.

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II. S’loyft der tsug un shit mit funken Nor es blaybt di harbst nakht shvarts; S’hot di fintsterish fartrunken Gor di velt un gor mayn harts. Kh’for un s’vert mayn umet gresser; Vos? Vuhin? Iz den nisht besser Tun a shprung in shney un regen, Glaykh der fintsterish akegen!

Host gefilt a mol di payn Shtendik bayz un aynzam zayn, Dos vos lebt un gor di velt, Zun un stern, likht un kelt, Sheyne froyen, kluge mener; Vos iz mies un vos iz sheyner, Un di nakht itst un dem zug- Hoben faynt... Genug, genug!415 (The train is running and scatters sparks/ but the harvest night remains dark/ it is the darkness that drank/ all my heart and all the world./ I travel and my gloom grows greater/ what? Where to? Is it not better/ to spring in snow and rain/ indifferent to the darkness ahead// You have once felt the pain/ always angry and being alone,/ that which lives and all the world/ sun and stars, light and cold, / pretty women, smart men;/ that which is ugly and that which is prettier/ and the night now and the rain -/to hate.... / Enough, enough!)

The running train that spreads sparks lavishly and the monstrous image of the darkness drinking life out of the speaker and the world correspond to the emotional turmoil of the speaker as melancholia over his departure collide with resentment, loneliness and the engulfing hatred he

415 Ibid., 29.

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feels for everything. The suicidal urge at the end of the first stanza is supported by the escalation at the end of the second stanza that renders the speaker’s hatred as pointless as the sparks spread by the train against the darkness. The last verse in the poem “...Genug, genug!” (Enough, enough!) can be read as directed to the world, in line with the suicidal tendency and the hate,

“Out, out brief candle” of sorts. However, the verse’s function in the poem indicates that the opposite is true. The dangerous eruption of emotions is expressed by the eighth verse “Hoben faynt...” and the surprising oblique rhyme with the first verses: “...di payn” (the pain) and

“...aynzam zayn” (being lonely). The meter and the rhyming scheme, as well as the speaker’s mental stability that for him is the key for his survival,416 are reestablished through the rhyme

“...genug/..dem tsug”, which demonstrates the power of form and poetics as sublimation. The need of young poets to control the explosive energy bequeathed to them by their romantic predecessors is expressed here not through gestures of distance and disbelief; the kenostic behavior described in chapter II is here replaced with a compulsive attention to form, whose goal is to demonstrate the containment of emotion rather than its expression.

II. A Great Black Sleep

In a cycle of five poems published in “Yiddishes Vokhenblat” on March 1912 we can observe the decadent poetic persona in a more elaborate and sophisticated fashion. In this cycle the traumatic separation indicated in the poem “on the road” is already a fait accompli. For the speaker in the poems the past is locked behind and the present is a desolate empty place. In this emptiness several interesting elements play a role in the poems: the first is a possibility of politics, that unlike the earlier poems, and in accordance with the new vision of poetry we have

416 cf. Chapter II; Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam : Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim.

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described, is not presented as revelation and transformation but as labor, as a reality that the poet chooses to decline or reject. The second is a possibility of a different poetic affiliation than the affiliation with the tradition of the national literature. The affiliation in question is, as we have mentioned, with the French symbolists. The second poem in the cycle functions as marker indicating the right atmosphere and the desired poetic mood: it is a translation by Steinberg of

Paul Verlaine’s poem “Un Grand Sommeil Noir...”,

Un grand sommeil noir Tombe sur ma vie : Dormez, tout espoir, Dormez, toute envie !”

Je ne vois plus rien, Je perds la mémoire Du mal et du bien... O la triste histoire !

Je suis un berceau Qu'une main balance Au creux d'un caveau : Silence, silence ! (A deep black sleep/ descends upon my life:/ sleep, all hope,/ sleep all desire!-I no longer know anything./ I am losing any memory/ of good or of evil...oh, woeful tale.-am a cradle/ which a hand is rocking/ in the hollow of a grave:/ silence, silence!)

The poem describes the spleenetic state of mind found in the cycle, the heavy, depressed, indifferent attitude to the world that brings about (or is brought about by) the loss of narrative, of ideology, of memory or future. The translation is less than adequate but very interesting:

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II. (Fun Verlaine) Af dem gantsen leben Falt mir on a shlof Drimelt ayn farlangen Shvayg mayn harts nisht hof

Kh’ze nisht vos es tut zikh Ikh vays nisht optsuteyln Tsvishn guts an shlekhten Troyreik tsu dertseyln

Glaykh vi emets vigt mikh Dort baym grub un vil Varfn mikh in opgrund: Shtil zol zayn, nor shtil (Over my entire life/ sleep drops over/ dram on longings/ be silent my heart, don’t hope.// I cannot see what is happening/ I don’t know how to distinguish/ between good and bad/ sad to say.// it is like someone rocks me/ there by the grave and wishes/ to throw me in the chasm/ let there be silence, only silence )

In places where the translation differs from the original we can sense Steinberg’s difficulties in distancing himself from the Bialik-like poetics as well as certain heavyhandedness in using his new poetic devices. We find moments where the tone of Verlaine is replaced by emotional intensification that disrupts the measured air of the poem. For example he translates: “be still, my heart, don’t hope!” whereas the original is simply: “sleep, all hope”. Steinberg localizes the poem by using the traditional rhyme of Yiddish folk song: mana. He thus loses both the rhythmic sophistication of the original as well as the symbolist stance against roots in tradition or folk. He

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explains and simplifies some of the poem's imagery thus displaying a profound lack of understanding of the function of the symbol in symbolist poetry. The last stanza is rendered by

Steinberg as: “it is exactly as if someone rocks me/ there by the grave and wants / to throw me in the hole/ let there be silence, only silence”. In Yiddish Steinberg produces an effective but simple simile that transforms the powerful image in French into a narrative. Subjectivity, agency, representation and other myths turn Steinberg’s translation into an allegory as the speaker’s situation is likened to that of a person rocked by someone who wants to throw him in the hole.

Nothing could be farther from the original where a frozen picture is presented of the speaker as a cradle- and not the person in it as might be inferred from Steinberg-held by a mysterious hand at the edge of a grave, a hand that neither wishes to save him nor to destroy him; it is an image completed by the onomatopoeic music of the stanza, mimicking the repetitive sound of the cradle. The transformation of the poet’s subjectivity into a contained image, an exquisitely crafted object of art, does not occur in Yiddish. It is, however, a translation, a form of writing that responds to different norms and demands of fidelity, which original writing is not subjected to.417 Steinberg’s attempt at a Yiddish rendering highlights the French original as an aspired poetic horizon, which unites the decadent persona with symbolist aesthetics. It is a horizon that is approached w in the rest of the poems of the cycle and yet is not attained. It is interesting to note that Steinberg did a similar experiment in Hebrew with Verlaine’s poem Colloque sentimental.

The poem appears in the collection Poems from 1923 as an original.418

The four poems of this cycle all exhibit an atmosphere of depression, weariness and boredom that is covering up for intense emotions. The poems present the Steinbergian “other side of the

417 cf: Antoine Berman, La Traduction Et La Lettre, Ou, L'auberge Du Lointain, Réédition. ed., Ordre Philosophique (Paris: Seuil, 1999).

418

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coin” but as a contained and balanced system: the disappointment in the falseness of love and of ideals is contained in the platitude of the spleenatic emotion that in turn is disturbed by the constant presence of eroticism and love. In all four poems the speaker stands at some point in the present after having lost something meaningful in the past, and he is reluctant to consider the future. The past is described as loud, hurtful, colorful and intense; the present is its opposite point for point while the future is just absent. The first poem showcases this structure: it tells of the death of love in everyday terms that do not include any transcendence but still describe it as the catastrophe that grounds depression. In a series of broken utterances a dramatic narrative is insinuated: the speaker tells in past tense how love ended and in present tense of the indifference and ennui of life. The dramatic event is expressed in the parallel structure of the first verse of the poem: “zi hot fargessen mikh ikh hob fargessen zi...” (She forgot me, I forgot her). This verse appears to be a balancing act but could also be read otherwise. Given that post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) “she forgot me, I forgot her” constitutes a causal narrative. The two first stanzas describe the drama: “mayn leben geyt in benken iber un in mih”

(my life continue in longing and in labor). What is he longing for is left unclear. All the more so as in the next verse Steinberg alludes to his attacks on and separation from the romantic poetics of the national literature: “ikh hob der velt nor veltlekh bavayzen:” (I have shown the world to be only worldly). A gesture that might be the root of the end of love: its constant disenchantment.

The colon at the end of the verse is followed by a seemingly unconnected utterance: “ikh hob di kraft, mir felt di ruykeyt fun rizen“ (I have the power, the restfulness of giants pleases me), that might be read as the egotistical ground for the disenchantment mentioned above: the

Baudelairian boredom that: “...would murder for a moment's rest, and willingly annihilate the earth”.419 The symbolist tendency toward confusion and opacity is evident as the fragmented

419 Baudelaire Charles, "To the Reader" in: Charles Baudelaire, Robert Lowell, "The Voyage, and Other

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utterances stand in opposition to the merciless ordaining power of the narrative that forces them into a causal logic. This causal logic produces an interesting reversal here. In Bialik’s poems, and in Steinberg’s rendering of Bialik’s tropes and figures, the female presence represents the lover or the mother or the Shekhine, the Divine Presence, - and by allegorical extension the spirit of the nation or anything else that’s missing. The habitual image, however, is that of the speaker debating his relation to the female presence: he longs to leave, he wishes to find his way back etc. The rendering of the trope in this poem shows that the discourse expiating guilt is actually covering up hurt. The poem, in its narrativity, places the female presence as a subject: she is the one who forgot first. Romantic love is not presented here as being as banal as the unmediated relation to the Divine. On the contrary, the relation to the Divine is presented as being as complex as an intimate relationship with another subject.

The second stanza builds upon this confusion. The stanza, which opens with the same verse:

“she forgot me, I forgot her” then continues with a confusing image: “di fligel grob ikh ayn in mist un krikh;” (I burry the wing in the trash and crawl away;) The wing buried in the garbage, which in Bialik is the broken wing of the Divine Presence,420 or of the lover who should be a substitute for everything: “Take me under your wing, be my mother, my sister. Take my head to your breast, my banished prayers to your nest”,421 is here the poet’s own. The hurt caused by love that rendered the world so empty for the speaker also crippled him. Bialik described

new bird” that soars high, his wings touching the superior air and he sees“״ Steinberg as a

Versions of Poems by Baudelaire," ed. Sidney Nolan (London: Faber, 1968), 13-14.

420 "Alone" in: Bialik and Hadari, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik, 23.

421 Ibid.,

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afar...”.422 But the image in Steinberg’s poem is more reminiscent Baudelaire’s image of the albatross: “...... How comical, how ugly, and how meek / Appears this soarer of celestial snows!”.423 The rest of the stanza supports this ridiculed image of the poet: while crawling in the garbage he seeks for grains and friends in the pile, every once in a while taking a short fly and exclaiming:”umzist shoyn alts/ umzist.” (All is already in vain/ in vain).

The second half of the poem is a display of emotional frigidity: the strong spirit is silent in this cold generation; 'who would like to put his heart in ink?' The speaker asks. This emotional frigidity is broken by a muffled expression of rage in the third stanza, as the speaker claims that only great love can fool (farnaren) the great spirit of the disillusioned, disenchanted poet into the:

“... kenigraykh fun likht un dort farshbaren” (...the kingdom of light and trap him there).

In the fourth stanza, politics come into play. The speaker states casually: “Un ikh? Ikh leb on ir” (and me? I live without her) as a response to a question that wasn’t posed. The poet, who was forgotten by his love and forgot her in turn, is not in the kingdom of light, and without her he has no interest in it. Silent men wish to bring him in to their “Bund dem shtilen” (their silent bond).

The reference to the Bund socialist movement is clear here as is the witty reference to Zionism:

“di tsukunft iz tsu vayt, tsu umetic der haynt” (the future is too far, too sad the present), Haynt of course being the moderately Zionist Yiddish daily that was putting the Yiddishist Der Fraynd,

Steinberg’s own employer, out of business.424 The silent Bund of the silent men is not ridiculed or presented in terms of faith and redemption. It is ruled out on practical grounds. 'What’s

422 Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Devarim Shebe-`Al Peh, 2 vols.(Tel-Aviv: Devir, 1935).

423 "The Albatross" in: C. Baudelaire, M. Mathews, and J. Mathews, Flowers of Evil: A Selection (New Directions, 1955).

424 Nathan Cohen, "Haynt,” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe(2011). Scott Ury, "Fraynd, Der," ibid.(2010).

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missing from my life?' The speaker asks and naturally doesn’t answer. How could he when she forgot him and he forgot her? Either way, he concludes, whatever shines will satisfy me.

The other poems in the cycle present short dramatic vignettes of everyday life. These vignettes seem to be realistic: a man observing his wife reading the newspaper and is wondering what became of their youth or a man watching his wife sleep. However, these prosaic realist situations are charged with meaning, their mundane vocabulary reverberates with associations:

Farvos fargeyt di yugent zun Un geyt nit af shoyn mer? Farvos hob ikh a mol gelakht Un leb itst kalt un shver ... Es iz a vinter-nakht . Do leynst. Ikh kuk af dir un trakht ; Ikh trakht: ven hot di shtume ”tsayt” Dayn tayer harts farmakht? (Why does the sun of youth sets/ and doesn’t rise again? / why did I once laugh/ and now I live cold and hard?...this is a winter night. You read./ I look at you and think;/ I think: when did the silent “Time”/ closed off your dear heart?)

The figurative sun of youth is contrasted with the actual winter evening, rendering both terms concrete and suggestive at the same time. Similarly “di shtume “tsayt””, the silent time that wore them down and closed her heart shut might be the chronological passing of minutes or the newspaper she has in her hand. Equally, the last poem of the cycle presents a vignette of an ordinary evening that is charged with drama and tension:

Vos mir regn vos mir kelt- Ikh bin der gliklekhster mentsh af der velt

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Oygn tsu oygn un vareme reyd S’klapt nor di zeyger tik-tak shtilerheyd ... Shlofst shoyn? Shkof ruyk , ikh zits un ikh vart Kh’hob nokh di tir vos tsum gas nisht farshpert. Ah, s’hot entplekt zikh dayn tsertlikhe brust Kh’stey un es klapt mir dos harts un es glust. (I don’t care about rain or cold- / I am the happiest man in the world// eye to eye and warm conversation/ only the clock tick-tocks silently...you sleep already, sleep in peace, I sit and I wait/ I have not yet closed the door to the street// ah, your tender breast is exposed/ I stand and my heart bits and lusts)

The beating hearts of the two lovers are confused with the ticking of the clock and the speaker's tender gestures seem mournful. The speaker sits and waits by his sleeping lover as if in a vigil. Across from him is the door to the street, which he did not yet lock. The lure of the door and the street is countered by erotic temptation as the end of the poem frames the speaker between the door and his lover’s breast. Everything is charged with meaning but signifies nothing, all possibilities hang on the balance within the structure of the poem with no resolution.

Musically the poem enhances this unease. While the musical and formal perfection of the symbolist poem is absent here Steinberg creates in these poems a light casual rhythm and a simple rhyming scheme that stands in opposition to the heavy, complex emotions expressed. It is a musical expression of the persona described earlier, which places everything at an equal distance.

From these examples we can clearly see the poetic solution Steinberg devised for the contradictions the national literature placed him in. This solution, combining the irony of The

Book of Satires with the musical sensibility of the Yiddish poems served to produce for

Steinberg a poetic persona that stood apart from the demands of the national literature, without

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completely separating him from it. The gesture towards other poetic traditions opened up directions and possibilities for Yiddish poetry as European poetry, and therefore did not strike such an awkward note against the harmony of Yiddish Letters. It did however stand in stark contradiction to the Hebrew national literature. The Hebrew literature was directed to the future, to a utopian transformation that would negate the present conditions.425 Steinberg performs here two cardinal sins: he does not negate negate the Diaspora and he refuses to recognize the course of history. The affirmation or even insistence on the part of Steinberg, that only the present matters, that the past is no grounds for a future, constituted what is perhaps the most meaningful criticism of Zionism in his writings, and a viable alternative to it in Yiddish

Conclusion

A shadow hangs over any evaluation of Steinberg’s Yiddish poetry, the shadow of history. As we know, shortly after the publication of these poems Steinberg would immigrate to Palestine and would never write in Yiddish again. The persistent and nagging feeling is that there should be an explanation for this event in his poetry, in its style and acceptance. However such a simple explanation is very hard to find. As we can learn from Baal-Makhshoves' evaluation of

Steinberg’s work from 1914, Steinberg’s Yiddish poetry was well received, much better than his

Hebrew poetry.426 While Brenner saw Steinberg’s tendency to always see the other side of the coin as noisome427, Baal-Makhshoves describes Steinberg’s bi-polar writing as his strength. He identifies two poles: the eroticism and the unique sense of self, and claims that “in the union

425 Ha-Sipur Veha-Leom: Keriot Bikoratiyot Be-Kanon Ha-Siporet Ha-`Ivrit. 225

426 Baal-Makshoves “Araynfir” in: Steinberg, Rusland a Poeme.

427 Brenner, Kol Kitve Y. H. Brener. Uniform Title: Works. 1955, 412-22

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between these two opposite feelings…lies all the magic of [Steinberg’s] poetry”.428 Baal-

Makhshoves' commends Steinberg for his distinctive voice, already noted upon by Bialik, but also on his musical and formal richness, on his attention to life and social reality, on his mimetic skills that make his characters “stand out full and real with such closeness that one may almost touch them”.429

Formally Steinberg’s poetry in Yiddish had considerable achievements, in the poems reviewed here and mainly in the novel Rusland. The independent notion of the self we described so far is well expressed in the beauty of the poems, in the careful attention to music, to image and affect.

The rich musicality, formal variety, and the rich and varied figurative language work here against the vacuity that the poet feels in regard to politics, religion, the future and his own self. He is in a sense completed by the fullness of the aesthetic experience. The very same affect is thwarted by the alienating monotonous musicality of The Book of Satires.

The bottom line is that even though Steinberg did finally manage to compose more

‘successful’ poems in Yiddish, poems that were not crippled by his skepticism and pessimism, these poems did not constitute an alternative that could be affiliated with the

Yiddish culture. That is, they did not supply a different utopian vision that could counter that of the national literature. One explanation that we can offer here is that similarly to his problems with the symbol, Steinberg found himself in a bind not because his art in Yiddish failed but precisely because it succeeded. Commenting on The Book of Satires Brenner complained that Steinberg’s “attitude to his greater, poetic soul is bizarre: he never takes

428 Steinberg, Rusland a Poeme.

429 Ibid.

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pride in it and he believes in it even less and does not accord it with any value”.430 As Miron notes, the writer in Hebrew literature shouldered the heavy burden of being “a watchman onto the house of Israel”.431 At first the writer acted as a mediator between the world of tradition and that of rational and scientific thought, and later as prophet of an ersatz religiosity in a disenchanted world divorced from its tradition and sense of communion with the world. As such the writer’s function in the quasi-mystical transformation of a folk to a nation is pivotal. Steinberg’s resentiment towards the role of the poet in the national literature is hardly surprising given the enormous weight Brenner and his peers imposed on the poor artistic soul. This burden created for Steinberg in Hebrew the need for a violent separation from these imposed demands.

The landscape of Yiddish literature, with the pluralistic, liberal, social democratic character it had to assume, did not put such a burden on the poet.432 Therefore in the poems in

Yiddish the poet attempts to shoulder this burden or at least negotiates his role in relation to it. The poet’s creative genius is presented as a counterweight to the superficiality of the world. Both the amorphous longings for something and the burning and seemingly directionless desire have art as their end goal. While in Yiddish the poet is presented as a chronic non-believer as well, the capacity of art to resolve ethical and spiritual conflicts absolves him from the cynicism found in Hebrew. Thus in Yiddish he is able to separate himself from the demands of the nation and the national literature and to produce a persona whose separatedness and individuality are very complex but much more complete.

430 Brenner, Kol Kitve Y. H. Brener. Uniform Title: Works. 1955, 412-22.

431 Miron, From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking. Chapter Three

432 cf. D. Fishman, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture 62-65.

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It would seem however, that this form of independence holds for Steinberg neither a true identity nor any real national development. The thought of the national literature holds that the success of poetic expression at achieving a meaningful aesthetic experience also confirms the utopian possibility implied in it. The gap between the received or borrowed faith in social or national transformation and the self is supposed to be bridged by the artistic symbol.

Through it Steinberg was supposed to be able to believe in the project at hand, to believe that after his passing the good spring will come, a significant change will transform the material and spiritual situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe.

It seems that the liberation from this dream, much more evident in Rusland, is tantamount for Steinberg to the solution offered by the winds in “The Sad Love”. The open, polyphonic, undetermined space created in the later Yiddish poems with its affiliation with the great current of European decadent uprootedness, is to Steinberg a sort of death. It is clear that for

Steinberg, for all the beauty and charm of his Yiddish poetry, and the success it received, a different form of expression was necessary. Needless to say, this poetic expression is not present yet in the Hebrew poems and their angry acting-out. And yet, the landscape of ruined romantic ideals, in which Steinberg wages his battles against oppressive fathers and structures, indicates the possibilities that address his emotional and narcissistic needs better than in of his best Yiddish poetry.

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Chapter III. Rusland

Introduction

Rusland is Steinberg’s most important work in Yiddish and one of his finest in general. The long narrative poem was serialized in the major Yiddish daily “Der Fraynd” from 1911 to 1914.

It was published in book form in 1914, and received high critical acclaim. It is Steinberg’s last work in Yiddish, a long narrative poem telling of the protagonist’s return to- and departure from his native land of the Ukraine. It is a musical and ironic poem that depicts a whole panorama of characters and landscapes, from rural Ukraine and its peasantry to the Suisse Alps and the streets of Kiev and its urban Jews. This success was rightly due to the ease and mastery Steinberg exhibited over such a complex work. It was also due to the sophisticated fashion in which this poem was embedded in a familiar background: that of the Russian literature.

In parallel to the poetic efforts described so far, Steinberg’s Rusland indicates to a different direction, another literary option, with a different literary affiliation and genealogy. This option was also developed in relation and opposition to the demands and genealogy of the national literature. While in the symbolist attempts covered earlier Steinberg reached out to the national literature’s other: the a-moral, profane experience of the decadent, in this case he reached out to the national literature’s Father. Instead of complying with the demand of the national literature to accept the romantic notions of art and nation, Steinberg goes over the head of the national literature and attaches himself to its source, so to speak. The critic Baal-Makhshoves

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commended Steinberg on his success in creating a Eugene Onegin like voice.433 The poem refers to Pushkin's novel in rhyme Eugene Onegin and Lermontov’s Caucasus poems, from which

Steinberg adopts the Russian persona of the superfluous man, the detached intelligent, weary of pleasure, bored with life. Rusland is similar to Pushkin’s celebrated work in its rigid stanza form and light musicality. Thematically the poem is similar to Onegin, where a unique and egocentric individual is in the center of a love story, which is depicted against a wide social background.

Needless to say, Steinberg does not preform such a gesture in good faith. Bialik adopted the romantic sentimentalism and nationalism of Russian poets as the sine-qua-non of poetic experience, as the natural poetic sensibility lacking from the Jewish psyche, and accordingly affiliated himself with the Russian symbolism as an expression of resentment towards a reality that did not comply with this romantic vision. Of course, Bialik’s position was not simple and straightforward either. His persona of a man who joined history too late goes well with his pseudoprophetic voice, with his drama of secularization and redemption through the paradoxical return to a new kind of sacred communion. As we have mentioned earlier, it was the ideologues of the national literature such as Berdichevskyand Brenner who enforced this model of experience as the normative one.434 Steinberg preformed a different procedure. “Do you know where I got my song?” Bialik asks in his great poem “My Song”435. And Bialik answers: from

“the cricket- bard of poverty” singing in his father’s house, from the sighs and tears of his mother. Steinberg gives another answer, demystified and disenchanted: poetry was inherited,

433 Baal-Makshoves “Araynfir” in: Steinberg, Rusland a Poeme. ; Luria Shalom, "Hapoema Rusland Shel Yaakov Shtaynberg Vezikotah Leshrato Beivrit," in Divrei Hacongress Hashishi Lemadaei Hayahadut, ed. A. Shinʼan, Aḳademyah ha-leʼumit ha-Yiśreʼelit le-madaʻim, and World Union of Jewish Studies (World Union of Jewish Studies, 1977), 122.

434 Hever, Ha-Sipur Veha-Leom: Keriot Bikoratiyot Be-Kanon Ha-Siporet Ha-`Ivrit, 17.

435 H.N. Bialik (1901) in: H.N. Bialik and D. Aberbach, Selected Poems (Overlook Duckworth, 2004).

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cricket and tears included, from the institution of Russian literature, from Pushkin and

Lermontov, who in turn inherited it from the even larger institution of European literature. It is important to insist on the fact that Steinberg here does not enact a simple return to an Arcadian poetic past, but rather makes a statement with poetic and political significance that is in line with his critique of the national literature so far.

Poetically this move is consistent with the shift emphasized in the previous chapter. The refusal to accept any poetic gesture as natural, the insistence of viewing any poetic experience as structured and constructed allows Steinberg to enact for this poem the ludic aspect of the poet’s character, the playful, acrobatic, nature of the versificateur. It is a gesture that substitutes

Shneour’s suspension of disbelief and Brenner’s famous “in spite of” with a critical and ironic look at the very institution of literature. As Miron notes, much of Hebrew literature was written for people who had the Russian literature close to heart and whose part of the enjoyment from the text derived from the intertextual and parodic game between the languages.436 This was the power of Steinberg’s poem: it parodied, not so much a specific work as a major canonic idea of

Russian literature by judifying it, so to speak, putting in place a Jewish Onegin.437 Given the poem’s engagement with the key issues of Hebrew national literature, it is not surprising that in its scope and worldview Rusland negates the core premises of the Zionist literary canon.438

Instead of the national literature’s demand for poetics that would show socially and historical

436 Dan Nevo Gidi Arbel Michal Gluzman Michael Miron, `Itot Shel Shinui: Sifruyot Yehudiyot Ba- Tekufah Ha-Modernit: Kovets Maamarim Li-Khevodo Shel Dan Miron (Sedeh-Boker: Mekhon Ben- Guryon le-heker Yisrael veha-Tsiyonut, Kiryat Sedeh-Boker, Universitat Ben-Guryon ba-Negev, 2008), Biography (bio).

437 "Between Approval and Negation of the Diaspora in ‘Abshalom’s Journey’ by Yaakov Steinberg." 254.

438 Ibid.

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concepts such as nation or self as pre determined, natural, organically felt emotions, the poem shows a plurality of possibilities. The poem does not depict the rediscovery of man in his nation but rather his reinvention in his society. This reinvention is not a determined natural process but rather a free, elective one, albeit subjected by interests and needs. The natural, universal guise of nationalism is abandoned in favor of fragmented, voluntary and democratic vision of the self.

In that respect Rusland goes well with Yiddishism's ideology of Diaspora nationalism and the

“Hereness” of the Bund but runs directly against the Zionist need for the negation of the

Diaspora as a possible living reality.439 Rusland is clearly not a Zionist work, in form as well as in content. The poem makes no reference to Zionism at all, but then again we were not able to find references to Zionism in his other Yiddish poems (or in the Hebrew ones for that matter).

I. A Jewish Onegin

As we have mentioned Rusland is constructed around the parodic tension created by the poem’s use of a major Russian romantic topos. The canonic idea in question is the romantic discourse prevalent in Russian literature concerning travel and its relation to identity. In her book

“A Nation Astray” Anne Kleespies describes how through the topos of travel Russian writers dealt with the “abnormal” condition of Russian identity torn between east and west, tradition and enlightenment.440 The idea behind this discourse is that the nature of Russia, it vastness and savageness, as well as one’s place within it, can only be appreciated from afar. Therefore the

439 Hever, Ha-Sipur Veha-Leom: Keriot Bikoratiyot Be-Kanon Ha-Siporet Ha-`Ivrit, 33.

440 I. Kleespies, A Nation Astray: Nomadism and National Identity in Russian Literature (Northern Illinois University Press, 2012). Introduction

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topos of travel, the bildungreise, is taken to be the initial gesture through which one comes to terms with one’s national identity and one’s place in it. Through travel one can experience the opposite of Russian reality. The traveler can witness a different form of national identity from his own complex, fragmented one. He can experience civic freedom that is different from the repression of individual liberty by the Russian state.441It is a gesture that deals with the nebulous character of the Russian empire, the fluidity of its borders, its multinationalism, and its reactionary regime. The traveler, a member of the Russian intelligentsia, who feels himself removed both from the Russian people and from the state’s centers of power, constitutes himself in writing on travel, as orphaned from his homeland, which can give him neither the confines needed for a national identity (in its romantic formulation), nor the freedom needed for an individual identity. The trip to the West does not heal the traveler in any way: these narratives of travel constitute the subject as split. In the encounter with Europe the traveler is filled with a sense of inauthenticity: he is an acculturated westernized individual grappling with notions such as liberalism and democracy that are foreign to his nature. Upon his return, due to his encounter with the West, the traveler finds himself divorced from his own Russian Asiatic nature; he is a figure of European intervention in an oriental land that is hostile to the West and its ideals.442

The narrative poem Rusland (1914) is such a narrative of travel. In it are deployed many of the literary topoi of the romantic Russian literature: those of the uprooted traveler, of the bildungreise, of the organic relation between the self and the homeland. The poem tells us, in the first person, in a light tone, ripe with irony, of the travails and travels of a young nameless protagonist as he journeys in and out of the “kingdom of a hundred languages”, that "land of

441 Ibid.

442 Ibid.

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slaves” which is Russia.443 Steinberg takes the trouble to identify his protagonist as the individual described earlier: a member of an intelligentsia, a superfluous man whose sensibilities are his downfall.

The nameless protagonist is a Russian Jew, a modern urban individual. He is seemingly able and mobile, taking advantage of the possibilities of the modern world. Yet his efforts at achieving peace and happiness fail .He cannot have peace of mind, a sense of belonging or erotic relief because he is detached and morose, found at an equal distance of all things. This gives him, however, the possibility to observe and sardonically comment on everything around him.

The poem opens with a long prologue, in which the speaker bids adieu to Russia.

Figuratively the language is strong and evocative. It is a dramatic scene in which the speaker gives a dramatic soliloquy. He interpolates the land, Russia itself, and levels his complaints against her in a language that is a mixture of evocative and realistic tones: “ikh nem in hant dem vander shtekn/ un zog adieu dir tsofn-land” 444 (I take the wandering stick in hand/ and say

‘adieu’ to you land of the north!) He describes in it his longing for “a bit of land, a bit of rest”, but qualifies himself as a “vander-mentsh” (wanderer).445He feels rejection on the part of his homeland, which is likened to a stepmother (“mayn shtif-land” step-land) and a lover, selfishly and capriciously denying her love:

du bist a tfise mir gevorn dayn himel kookt af mir mit tsorn

443 J. Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," Dapim Lemehkar Basifrut 2(1985): 7. The expression “Russia land of slaves” as well as other expressions in the prologue are taken from Lermontov’s poem “Farewell, Farewell, Unwashed Russia....” : “Farewell, farewell, unwashed Russia,/ The land of slaves, the land of lords...”

444 Ibid.

445 Ibid., 10.

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dayn erd hot opgruntn on shir ven ikh leyg zikh oysruen uf ir....446 (you were for me a prison/ your skies look upon me with wrath/ your earth opens depthless chasms/ when I lay down to rest on it).

All he wanted was to be “mit lands-layt glaykh” (be equal to the people of the land), to ride his horse across the field and be one with nature, sleeping in the freshly cut grass, listening to the crickets, watching the majestic eagle:447

Es treft a mol a mol men midt zikh ayn... Men vil in feld alayn dan zayn... Bay nature gefinen ru Es makht dayn oyg aleyn zikh tsu Un unter zingen, tvishen, grilen Farzinkstu in a shlof a shtilen448 (...It happens sometimes, one is tired...one wants then in the field to be alone...to find rest in nature/ your eye closes by itself/ and between singing, tweeting, chirping/ you sink into a silent sleep).

However, it was not the eagle but hardship that took him under its black wing.449 In a romantic self-aggrandizing fashion the speaker shows that no one is his equal. The speaker announces that he was crowned by the world spirit, he is rich in dreams, and therefore he must leave:

zol der in dir, mayn shtif-land blaybn, ver s’hot zayn yugent do bagrobn

446 Ibid., 12.

447 Ibid., 14.

448 Ibid., 12.

449 Ibid., 14.

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un vil af ru a vinkl hobn; nor ikh, kh’bin yung, ikh kon nokh klaybn450 (Let he in you, my step-land, remain,/ he who buried his youth here/ and wants a corner in peace/ but me- I’m young I can still choose).

In this prologue we can see the poetic persona typical to Steinberg’s poetry. The speaker is depicted in a contradictory manner as a rich and unique individual and as an extremely vulnerable man. However, the richness of his character is placed as defense mechanism. The speaker’s loneliness and sense of rejection are portrayed by him as signs of superiority and pride:

“zol mir di aynzemkeyt dershreken?/ iz noyt dem vander-mentsh a shand?”451 (Shall the loneliness frighten me? Is hardship for the wanderer is a shame?). This aggrandizing language covers up a terrible experience of alienation: “In shtot vu s’roysht, in dorf-getzelten,/ Vu s’hersht di mentshns gutter got/ Bin ikh gehast mit bayzen shpot.” (In busy towns, in village hamlets/ where men’s good god rules/ I’m hated with furious scorn),

The speaker depicts himself as a man torn between conflicting emotions: his powerful will and his need for rest. His artistic side is a blessing and a curse: “vos mer es troymt der mentsh un shaft/ mer elent iz er tsayt tsu tsayt”452 (the more a man dreams and does/ the lonelier he is his day to day) that he would gladly be rid off in exchange from peace and quiet: “ikh -khotsh kh’bin nit troymen raykh/ ikh gebenkt nokh faster erd”453 (me- as rich as I am in dreams/ I long for solid ground). However the land, the vast multinational, multilingual empire that has room for a hundred languages but his own, thwarts both his will for power and his need for rest. The

450 Ibid., 7.

451 Ibid.

452 Ibid., 10.

453 Ibid., 14.

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speaker is the wandering outcast: Cain or Ahasuerus, hated and full of wrath. Instead of cursing the world with a hateful cry he disguises the fact that he is unwanted behind a gallant move of resignation and departure:

Di gantse velt- un ikh alayn Vel ikh di velt farsheltn? Nayn Ikh lakh un zukh mir naye vegn... Ikh varf der velt a blik a kaltn Un trog a retenish in hartsn: Di gantse velt- un ikh ukegen454 (The whole world- and me alone/ should I curse the world? No;/ I laugh and look for new roads...I give the world a cold look/ and carry in my heart a mystery:/ the whole world- and me opposing)

He wishes however: “...mit dir zikh itster shaydn/ on shklofen-has, on vonder-laydn”455 (to cut myself now from you/ without the hate of slaves, without the pain of wandering). In leaving, he shows a mock generosity that turns into self-deprecation and accusation: “ikh bin dir alts/ af shtendik meykhl/ ikh bin tsu shvakh un du- tsu shlekht.... ikh vil tsum gutn dikh dermonen...nokh shlekhte muters kon men benken”456 (I forgive you everything forever/ I was too weak and you- too mean...I will remember you fondly...one can also miss a bad mother.)

The prologue is marked with a heavy, suggestive language that draws the outside world into the interiority of the speaker and creates startling images such as that of the paranoia from the devouring earth and condemning skies or the image of the black wing rocking the cradle, which is familiar to us from Steinberg’s translation of Verlaine’s poem reviewed earlier. The dramatic

454 Ibid., 16.

455 Ibid.

456 Ibid., 7.

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tone and the repeated invocations of the land, the use of the trope of the apostrophe, open a direct dialogue between the speaker and the land, accentuating at once both the speaker’s poetic magical power to interpolate the land as well as the embarrassment felt when Mother Russia stays unresponsive.457 In that respect the prologue is very different from the rest of the poem, and stands out as the most emotionally exposed part. From here on the narration would be conversational, realistic, unsentimental and ironic. This difference constitutes the prologue as the emotionally significant moment. The significance of this moment is a riddle left for the reader to answer.

II. The West Is Hellish-Red:

After the prologue and its demonstration of emotional intensity comes the first chapter with a detailed exposition of the social and political context of the poem: the days before the 1905 failed revolution. Steinberg’s speaker describes the rise of revolutionary sprit in Russia:

“In dem yor ven mikh gefangen Hot a meydl in ir nets- Hot in tsofn-land dem kaltn Yedes harts un harts bazunder Epes mentshlekes derhalten”458 (In the year in which/ a girl caught me in her net/ in the cold land of the north/ every heart and heart won/ something that is human)

The light conversational tone collides with the strong romantic images as nature and people come together in a wild awakening: “karshn royt un gel fun veytsn/ shpreyt zikh oys ukraina

457 Cf. J. Culler, "Apostrophe," in The Pursuit of Signs.

458 Steinberg, Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria), 20

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brayt”459 (cherry red and the yellow of grain/the Ukraine spreads itself wide). The enthusiasm sweeps the Jewish heart as well:

un fun ale hartsn hekher hot dos Yiddish harts geklugen ah, fun payn dem gantsn bekher hot men trinken undz getzvungn un derfar hot oysgemakht undzer lid mer freyd un makht: s’makht der vint dem klok vos shverer klingen hoykh un merer.”460 (And stronger from all hearts/ the Jewish heart did toll/ ah-the whole cup of pain/ we were forced to drink/ and so our song was filled with happiness and force/ if the wind forces itself upon the bell/ stronger and more often it will toll)

The Jewish heart except our speaker’s own, that is. He displays a marvelous lack of interest in the political events and an equally impressive lack of understanding: “Ruslands harts hot ongehoybn/ kloybn hofenungen un gloybn;/ s’hot der land fun ek biz ek/ afgetsitert un gevart;/ ikh bin dan nokh shvayts avek”461 (Russia’s heart begun/ filling up with hopes and faith./ from end to end the land/ shook and waited; I was then away to Switzerland )

This cold, dry description of the revolutionary moment demonstrates the unease the speaker feels in the face of these unchecked, seemingly irrational emotions. The revolutionary moment is perceived by him in mythical terms, not political ones: “ze, fun zeyer shney geleger / steyn af di

459 Ibid.

460 Ibid., 22.

461 Ibid., 23.

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tsofen rizn” 462(look-from their bed of snow/ the giants of the north are rising). The appeal of the mystical feelings is evident in the flowing, musical description of the country rising:

Hellish royt iz mayrev-zayt Shotens nemen zikh farshpreytn; Es dertseylt ayn goy dem zvveytn Tzaykhns fun a naye tsayt: Vi a muter vil geshvinder, Nokh an opsheydn a shvern, Geyn tzurik tsu ire kinder- Vet di erd tsu undz gehern. S’vet di erd tsu undz geheren Got aleyn bavayzt zayn tseykhns: Vi es vayst zikh afn bleykhn Himel yede nakht di shtern, Nemt arum ayn groysser flaker Alts bay pritsim in di gitter Vet zey helfn den di hiter? Alts iz dem vos firt dem aker”.463 (The west is hellish-red/ shadows come forth and spread/ one goy explains to another/ the signs of the new time:/ like a longing mother hurries/ after a hard separation/ to return to her children/ so the earth will belong to us.//The earth- it will belong to us/ god himself shows his signs/ as the stars show themselves upon the wide/skies each night/ a great fire embraces / all the lords’ mentions? Will the watchmen help them? All to him he who guides the plow)

462 Ibid., 20.

463 Ibid., 21.

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These emotions are checked by the light sardonic tone that generalized, intellectualizes and puts everything at an equal distance. However, it would seem that not everything is at an equal distance for our speaker:

In dem yor ven mir gefangen hot a meydl in ir nets hot in tsofen-land dem kalten yedes harts un harts bazunder epes menthlekhes derhalten... s’iz geshen in land a vunder:464 (In that year when a girl/ trapped me in her net/ in the cold land of the north/each and every heart/ held on to something that is human.../ a wonder happened in that land.)

In the usual Steinberg fashion the speaker opens the chapter by explaining that he was alone and cold since childhood and that the world is fake and false in general. In passing, however, the speaker mentions that he once loved a place, the city of Kiev, where his fiancee’s house once stood, but now : “Kiev iz gor an ander/ shtot far mir- mem hast dort bloise”465(Kiev is another/ town for me- they only hate there). The hushed reminders of the love story and its implicit equation with the political story place the love intrigue in the important place of the repressed secret, the latent motor behind the speaker’s feelings:

“In der tsayt, ven ale flegn dem kaprizn frayhayts-got shenken zeyer harts’s farmegn fleg ikh mit a laykhtn shpot,

464 Ibid., 20.

465 Ibid., 19.

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in geroysh zikh aynzam dreyen; kh’hob shoyn dan devust farhessen dem gefilder fun di massn - ikh zukh glik nor dort, vu zvayen” (in the time when all/ worshiped the capricious freedom god/ with their heart’s dearest goods/ I used to move around the tumult/ with a slight scorn/ already then I knew to hate/ the bustle of the masses-/ I seek happiness- only in couple )

The revolution was for the poem’s speaker someone else’s problem, something that took place alongside the speaker’s own, much more interesting personal story: “Alts arum hot mikh geart/ vi di khassene gezangen/ dem vos halt di khupa shtangen”466(Everything around moved me/ as the wedding songs/ move the one holding up the khupa)

This complex dramatic structure that we have seen before in Steinberg’s poetry in which the speaker comments on his indifference to the present while exposing a romantic hurt in the past is repeated here in order to establish the speaker as a parody of that kind of romantic persona. The grandiose youthful image of the self from the prologue is here replaced with the egocentric, indifferent and self-mocking persona of the dandy aristocrat. . He is the cerebral, dry-witted, keenly observant and emotionally handicapped. Seemingly a Litvak, a Jew from Lithuania, which is as close as one can get to an aristocratic intelligentsia in the Jewish Russian context. 467

A Litvak who is now transformed into the damned traveler of the romantic tradition, removed from society for some unspecified sin, indifferent to his travels abroad but unable to stay at home.

466 Ibid., 23.

467For example Steinberg rhymes “shmeykhl-meykhl “, a uniquely Lithuanian pronunciation. Zvi Luz, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtainberg: Monografyah([Tel Aviv]: ha-Kibuts ha-meuhad, 2000), Biography (bio). 45

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III. You Have Been In Switzerland Too Long/ Poor Heart...

The second chapter describes the speaker’s time in Switzerland and his journey home. It is a remarkable display of poetic and narrative technic. It is the longest part of the poem (54 stanzas) and it treats a great number of subjects: the experience of living abroad, a description of the different Jewish social milieux of Eastern Europe, in Galicia and in Russia, the experience of anti-Semitism and more. This abundance of subjects is present through a specific structure: it is an interior monologue reflecting the rhythm and flow of the long train ride across Europe, with rapid succession of landscapes and social realities. The places and people of Europe seen on a train ride allow the speaker to comment on a great number of current social and cultural issues.

The long intervals of fields and countryside in-between open up the space for reflection and reminiscence. The first part of the chapter is placid and calm, describing the beauty of

Switzerland and the sometime pleasant sometime alienating experience of a foreigner in it. Here as well as in the rest of the poem the light witty tone is broken by the presence of intense emotions that are in turn restrained by the witty generalizing ironic observations. The story opens in medias res so with a long letter from the speaker’s beloved, a parody of Pushkin’s treatment of Tatiana’s letter to Onegin:

“kum mayn tayerer, tsuforn: beymer hoybn on tsu blyen s’kumen faygelekh tsu flyen umatum iz likht un lider; kh’hob genumen benken vider un tserunen iz mayn tsorn”468

468 Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 24.

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(come my dear come back/ the trees are blooming/ the birds are flying back/ everywhere is song and light/ I came to long again/ and my anger has vanished.)

It stands to reason that the beloved did not compose her letter in trochees and alternating rhyming scheme the difference between the simple content of the beloved’s letter and the sophisticated rendering of it in the text is a camouflaged expression of their intricate relationship.

What in Pushkin is an ironic, good natured condescending look- Tatiana’s simple Russian character becomes a parody of itself in her French and is restored to her Russian authentic idiom by the poet himself- is in Steinberg’s rendering an expression of the deeply repressed hostility of the speaker towards his beloved: his talent lifts her words from the petit-bourgeois banality of her life. This hostility that would be repeated several more times by the end of poem, is of course an expression of the speaker’s conflicted psyche, his inability to handle emotions directly. And the letter has an emotional impact on him: “kh’hob dem briv fun kiev geleynt/ un (ikh shen zikh nisht) geveynt/ s’hot a shtrom a ney/ in mayn hartsn dervekt”469 (I read the letter from Kiev/ and

(I am not ashamed) I cried/ it awakened a new/ stream of feelings in my heart).

While in Switzerland our speaker finds for himself the semblance of freedom, in the villages, universities and Suisse countryside; freedom meaning being free from lust and desire: “got, zet oys, hot dikh far shrayber/ far turistn un hoteln/ seyn, helvetsye, gemakht;/ un umzist vestu do veln zen /mit khen un lust a froy- /zi zet oys vi groz on toy”470 (God, it seems, for writers, / for tourists and hotels,/ made you, Helvetia, beautiful ;/ and in vain you’d wish to see here/ with charm and lust a woman/ she seems like grass without dew).

469 Ibid., 27.

470 Ibid., 26.

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The sublime beauty of the Suisse Alps offers liberation from desire and urge:

S’dakht az nisht di shney berg brenen nor dos groysse velt-harts glit; vilst kayn froyen-harts nisht kenen, ven di aybikeyt dikh tsit. may dervekt do nisht di lust tsu dem ershtn sod dem zisn fun a tsarter froyen-brust- s’vilt zikh frayhayt nor genissn471 (it seems that these are not the snow-mountains burning/ but the world’s heart who’s lit/ you don’t want to now any woman’s heart/ when eternity entices you/ May, does not awake here lust/ for the first sweet secret/ of a woman’s tender breast-/ one wants only to enjoy freedom)

The speaker of the poem was on the verge of enjoying his freedom but: “yenem may hob ikh getroymt/ geyen tsu fus fun barg tsu barg....nor ikh hob ayn tog farziomt” 472 (that May I dreamt / of hiking from mount to mount...but I was one day late) for the letter had arrived and succeeded in awaking (dervekt) what the Suisse mountains had put to sleep. And he leaves. Not immediately as he has to wait for school to end. The enormous emotional importance of the letter is indicated by the fact that the rest of his time in Switzerland is summed up in one stanza. Once again, the power the speaker’s emotions have over him must be controlled and therefore downgraded and scorned:

mentshns harts du bist geglaykn tsu a kind...gib im khaeys fun papir (a soldat nokh oykh, vos tantst)

471 Ibid.

472 Ibid., 27.

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un derzet- a sherbl glantst: es fargest di hint, di ferd, zukht un valgert zikh af erd nokhn sherbl vil er krikhn”473 (Man’s heart, you are like/ a child ...give him paper animals / (and a soldier that dances)/ and look- a shard glimmers:/ he forgets the dogs, the horses,/ searches and rolls on the ground/ crawling after the shard)

This long segment is qualified as a recollection when the train moves and the form and content of the narration changes abruptly: “ikh for. Tyrol. Vi sheyn un vild...”474(I go. Tyrol. How beautiful and wild...”).

Here Steinberg makes use of the topos the train ride as the movement generating the east- west confusion of identity mentioned earlier. The train ride through Europe eastward fills the speaker with a growing sensation of familiarity and at the same time estrangement and anxiety, while in Switzerland he felt freedom and the intoxicating effects of the magnificent landscape.

However it was a tourist’s, an outsider’s fascination; he sometimes felt that “di velt is karg/ do in tol un kalt di zun” (the world is stingy/ here in the valley and the sun is cold). Crossing the Alps he feels: “frayhayt! Frayhayt! Vayt un brayt/ loyft der feld, badekt mit grozen/ (s’hot der tsug tirol farlozn)”475 (freedom! Freedom! Far and wide/ the field is running, wrapped in grass/ (the train left Tyrol behind)).

473 Ibid.

474 Ibid., 28.

475 Ibid.

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However as he approaches Vienna, last bastion of the West, he can already feel that “git mit mizrakh shoyn a shmek”476(there’s already a smell of the orient). The orient being: “yidn, yidenes mit pek,/ a dershrokn blass gezikht”477(Jews, jewesses with bundles/ a pale frightened face) upon that encounter the speaker feels himself too westernized: “Akh- mir vilt zikh moln liber/ yene velt fun kraft un likht”(I would like to lovingly paint/ that world of might and light). The approach of the train and of the interior monologue to the Russian border intensifies the speaker’s anxiety:

vayter vayter ! S’iz shoyn bald undzer haym... iz shoyn bald? Akh vider vald vider felder vayt un vayt vi es shlept zikh itst di tsayt/ es loyft der tsug vi on a tsil. kh’vays aleyn nisht vos ikh fil- has tsu libe on a shir”478 (Further further it’s already near/ our home...its already near? Akh another forest/ another field further and further/ the way time drags itself now/ the train is running with no goal/ and I myself do not know what I feel-/hate, or love without measure)

The anxiety is over the encounter with the Russian experience in all its complexity. Once the speaker crossed the border the romantic figure, which was fixated on the love affair, is now broken down to its different fragments. Initially we encounter the speaker’s civic identity. He approaches Russia as a Russian, a subject of a country to which, as Baal-Maakhsoves remarked,

476 Ibid., 29.

477 Ibid.

478 Ibid., 30.

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he has a strong, albeit complex, emotional connection.479 Russia and the events of the year of the revolution are likened to an old father who passed away in his son’s absence. The regret however is not over the father’s death but over having missed his last moment: “kh’hob baym grenets itst gebenkt/ nokhn bild fun toyt un shrek”480(I longed now, by the border/ for the picture of death and blood). However upon crossing the border the civic identity is broken to its conflicted social, racial and economic fragments:

Vider zey, di alte bilder Ot iz er, der driter klas Mitn reyakh un gefilder Goyim oygn ful mit has Yidn oygn, akh, in zey Shtekt a biterer geshrey Velkher iz fun tsu fil groyl Bald geven dershtikt in moyl.481 (Here again the old pictures/ here it is, the third class/ with its smell and bustle;/ gentiles’ eyes full of hate/ Jewish eyes, akh, in which/ a bitter cry is lodged/ which, from too much horror/ immediately chokes in the throat.)

Over the next few stanzas482 the speaker digresses and remembers his connection to the nation of slaves and his childhood, how he was attacked one day in Easter by a group of: “... Yunge shkotsimlekh, un ayner / hot mir ongeklapt di beyner-/kh’hob derfilt di gols-plog”483 (young

479 Steinberg, Rusland a Poeme.

480 Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 31.

481 Ibid., 32.

482 Ibid., 32-33.

483 Ibid., 31.

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ruffians, and one/ hit me to the bone/ I felt the plague of exile). This experience poisoned him: his song, with all its sadness, comes from that day, as well as his desire to poison the shameful world, to destroy it with him. Or maybe a miracle would happen: “Loz men aykh a naye harts makhn/ Un dos blut in aykh farbaytn/ R’zolt vi knakht fargessn lakhn/ ...volt a bild geven un gelaykht far ale tsaytn”484 (They'll let you make yourself a new heart/ and change your blood/ so you’d forget to laugh like a slave/ ...would this picture be so/ and light up for all times.)

However, after this spell of identification and attachment he quickly regresses: “...Du gibst/ In vagon a kuk un trakht:/ S’iz dem knekht di knekhshaft lib./ Host tsu fil in shvayts farbarakht,/

Orem harts...”485 (You give/ a look around the wagon and think/ the slave loves his bondage/ you have been in Switzerland too long/ poor heart...). The speaker suggest to himself: “shit nisht oys in mist dayn fayer-/ zits un trakht fun getrayer”486(don’t throw your fire in the garbage/ sit and think of your beloved).

However the beloved is a subject that is far from being safe. Rather than deal with these uneasy feelings the speaker retreats to his safe position of a removed and ironic description of the urban petit bourgeois Jewish family. This gesture allows Steinberg to give a remarkable and concise panorama of that rising Jewish class of the urban bourgeoisie while hinging it on mere generalities. The speaker gives a sociological description, peppered with references to political and cultural issues, of a class he calls “still pure”.487 One stanza describes the father as the typical petit-bourgeois Jew: religious, traditional and moderately Zionist: “Mir gefelt a Yiddish

484 Ibid., 33.

485 Ibid.

486 Ibid.

487 Ibid., 34.

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hoyz,/ Vu der tate leynt “Hatsefira"/ Un geyt in shabes nokh in cloyse”488 (A Jewish house pleases me/ where the father reads “Hatsefirah”/and still goes on Sabbath to the synagogue).

The mother is described in another stanza as the mother the speaker never had: naive and simple in her faith and care, firm but forgiving and loving.

In a theatrical gesture the speaker takes us in shows us around:

Un di kinder? Kumt, mir veln In mayn kale’s hoyz farbrengen...es hangen Fotografies af der vand; Zet:..yene meydl, di farklerte; Zi iz sheyn un ruft zikh Berte (Heysn Beyle iz a shand)”489 (And the children? Come we’ll/ spend some time in my fiancee's house...pictures hanging on the wall/ look...that girl, deep in thought/ she is beautiful and calls herself Berta/(to be called Beyle is shameful))

The family’s children represent the commonplace paradox of the gap of generation: “bildung iz vi likht far oygn” (education is like light for the eyes). Thanks to the sacrifice and dedication of the father the children have now the means to scorn his tradition.

488 Ibid. “Hatsefira”, mentioned here in the poem: “was the first Hebrew newspaper in Poland, founded in Warsaw and issued between 1862 and 1931” It was an extremely influential publication, one of main and most important stages for Hebrew literature. From the 1880’ the newspaper and its editor Nahum Sokolow expressed a moderate support to Zionist ideas: “[With] the rise of the Ḥibat Tsiyon movement,...Ha-Tsefirah contributed to lively discussions about the nature and goals of Zionism. In effect, Sokolow adopted a qualified position on the chances of settling the Land of Israel, offering moderate support blended with some suspicion and doubt.” After the Zionist congress in Basel in 1897: ”Sokolow was moved by what he witnessed, becoming an enthusiastic supporter of Herzl and political Zionism. He changed his editorial policy to reflect his new standpoint and sought in particular to spread Zionism among religious circles”. Holtzman Avner, "Tsefira, Ha,” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.(2010).

489 Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 34.

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As we eavesdrop on Berta/Beyle and her sister Lisa’s conversation their world is described through a collection of utterances overheard: ”S’kumt Chaliapin?’...montag hoybt men on farkoyfn. geyst ahin?/ S’redt der sheyner’. ...‘r’iz tsu din...‘nor haynt nokh kloybt men/ Delegatn

- kh’tsiter shtark./ Veyst di letste tsaytn men shlogt...”490 (‘Is Chaliapin491 coming?...Monday ticket sale begins. ‘will you go over there?/ The handsome one will speak’ ...he is too skinny....‘but today they elect/ delegates‘-I tremble hard/ you know lately they’ve been beating...)

The son, the pride of the family, is a lawyer: “...er heyst Moissey/ Halt mit alemen glaykh/ Un gefelt ‘i undz i zey”492 (He’s called Moissey/ walks as equal with everyone/ and is liked ‘by us as well as them). Through Moissey (a Russian pronunciation for ‘Moses’) we are further aquatinted with the character as well as with the political and cultural world of the young progressive Jew of the time: on the one hand he is well assimilated to the non-Jewish world and he thrives in the urban environment:

Redt nor russish un iz link Hot a shem fun an orator R’iz mit froyen brav un flink Iz a tikhtiker amator Fun teater..

490 Ibid., 35.

491 Chaliapin Feodor (1873 – 1938) a Russian opera legend, collaborated with Rachmaninof and toscannini. After the new Kiev opera house was built in 1901, Chaliapin preformed there regularly. Chaliapin signature role was that of Mussorgski’s Boris Godunov. Godunov (1551-1605) was Russia's Richard III and the sinful motor behind the rise of the house of Romanov. Pushkin’s “dramatic chronicle” of Godunov’s (1831) was banned from publication for over 30 years as was Mussorgski’s opera (1862). "Feodor Chaliapin," (2014).

492 "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 36.

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Kurts geredt- er kert di velt493 (He speaks only Russian and is a lefty/ he is known as an orator/ with the women he is brave and agile/ and he’s an enthusiast amateur/ of theater...).

His politics, even though it is not directly named, are radical: “...er muz a sakh/ Kritikirn di

Kadetn...zeyr minimum-program -/ Iz on a reykh, on a tam;/ Itster zayn Miliukov/ Kon gor efser nokh a rov...494 (He must severely/ criticize the Kadets495...their minimum-program is without smell or taste/ now to be Miliukov496/ even a rabbi can do it). At the same time however he is disconnected from his tradition and even harbors hostility towards it:

Kindvays hot er fort farkent Zogen ivri khotsh mit mi Itst az emetser dermont Yiddishe inoynim Vert bay im a zoyger ponim Un er murmelt ‘Чёрт возьми! [sic] Gor er redt shoyn, un gevis Fun Kaminskis benefis497

493 Ibid.

494 Ibid.

495 Kadets: adherents of the Russian constitutional democratic party (Konstitutsionno-Demokraticheskaya Partiya) "Kadet," (2014).

496 Pavel Nikolayevich Miliukov 1859-1943, historian and statesman, head of the constitutional democratic party, a liberal democratic party, which was created during the 1905 revolution and was affiliated to the progressive opposition to the Tsar and government. After the desolation of the duma in 1906 Miliukov participated in drafting the Vyborg manifesto, calling for passive resistance and non- cooperation with the regime. Following this gesture, perceived as radical, many of Miliukov moderate supporters left the party, and Miliukov followed to the right. In the 3-4nd duma (1907-1917) he assumed the liberal position of “condemning bureaucratic abuses and championing progressive causes”. John L.H. Keep, "Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov,"(Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 2014).

497 Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 36.

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(In his childhood he did know/ how to say recite?? a Hebrew work, with labor/ now should bring up/ Jewish business/ his face becomes all sour/ and he’ll whisper ‘tshyort vazmi’498/ and yet he speaks, knowingly/ of Kaminski’s499 benefit)

Steinberg arrives at a deeply saturated description of the vibrant milieu of young bourgeois

Jews in remarkably lean means. Through the use of free indirect discourse and the strategic placement of names and terms that are casually dropped by speakers: Chaliapin, Miliukov and

Kadets, Kaminski etc. Steinberg gives a detailed picture of this experience that is also conveying his low opinion of it. The life of the young Jewish bourgeoisie is composed, according to

Steinberg, of a mixture of excitements: music, 'petites romances' and politics. It is a world diametrically opposed to the world Steinberg’s speaker declares his fidelity to: the old, pure one of the father and the mother.

The chapter ends abruptly as the train arrives at Kiev. The description of the family is cut off abruptly as the city rushes over the speaker. The movement of the train is here again mimicked as the speaker comes across the poorer outskirts of the city: "Ot iz kyev, dos heylik ort/ Vu vladimirs beyners lign;/ Vu me khapt undz vi di fling/ Un mir handelen-vandelen fort”500(Here is

Kiev the sacred place/ where the bones Vladimir are laid/where we are trapped like flies/ and we sell and trade in spite of all).

498 “Чёрт возьми!”. Russian: damn it! Appears in Cyrillic in the original Yiddish text.

499 Kaminski, Abraham Isaac and his wife Esther-Rokhl were prominent figures in the world of Yiddish theatre and founders of the Yiddish national theater in Warsaw (1913). Kaminsky had organized a theater troupe when he was as young as 20. The group was extremely popular and presented plays of the Yiddish ‘high braw’ theatre such as Gordin’s Mirele-Efros as well as classics of Molière, schiller and Ibsen, in Warsaw and St. Petersburg. The troupe had an important role in giving Yiddish theatre the status of a sophisticated, modern artistic expression. Their daughter Ida managed the "Jewish State Theater" in Warsaw from the end of WWII until 1968. "Ida Kaminska," (2014).

500 "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 37.

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Then the speaker arrives at the splendor of its center: "Sheyn un raykh, mit gold bagossn/

Krum af berg un tif in toln/ Tsit zikh kyev, ver ken moln/ Alte-yunge shtot tsuzamen?”501(Beautiful and rich, flowing with gold/ crooked over mountains and deep in valleys/ Kiev here is spread, who would paint / a city both young and old?). As the train abruptly stops so does the long romantic, sentimental description. With the screech of the brakes the painful memory resurfaces and fouls the atmosphere:

“Vifl teg un nekht mir flegn Do farbrengen- ikh mit ir. ..akh s’iz yene tsayt ariber Kh’for a kranker tsu mayn liber. Oys mit glick un oys naiv- Nor an ek. Ot iz kiev”502 (How many days and nights we used/ to spend here - me and her...ah that time has passed;/ I go ill to see my lover./ no more happiness and no longer naive/ here’s an end/ and that’s Kiev).

IV. I Have Lost My Notion/ of Who I Am and Where I Am....

In the third and fourth chapters the story is brought to its enigmatic ending. After the long reflections of the poem so far, in these chapters the emphasis is on the drama.

The third chapter has as its apex he preparations made by the family of the beloved on the eve of Mai 1st, to meet the pogrom the day promises. Steinberg’s speaker exhibits once more his lack of interest in politics. The pogrom seems to be a spring storm or something that the season brings. It hangs in the air all through the first part of the chapter that describes his encounter with

501 Ibid., 38.

502 Ibid.

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his beloved. The encounter throws him into an emotional anxiety. He described his feelings before as:

S’ergets do a bild fun leym: S’kumt a yung tsu zayn basherter R’kon zi kushen , r’veys- er meg Nor er hot gehert in veg Shlekhts fun ir un shteyt on verter. Er iz shtum un zi iz dreyst: ‘Nit kayn umglik oyb du veyst’. Fraynd ikh kum azoy a heym”503 (Somewhere here’s an image on clay:/ a youngster comes to his betrothed/ he can kiss her, her knows- he may/ only that along the way he had heard/ vile things against her and is without words;/ he is silent and she is brave: ‘its not so Bad if you know’...friend, this is how I come home).

And indeed, sitting on their favorite park bench, the speaker feels that: “kh’hob farlorn dem gedank/ ver ikh bin un vu ikh bin.” (I have lost my notion/ of who I am and where I am). The exchange between the speaker and his beloved as they make their way home is fashioned after

Paul Verlaine’s “Colloque Sentimental”: to her heartfelt, emotion filled questions he answers with curt general statements:

“Meg di mame hobn tsar- Kh’blayb mit dir do in gefar. S’iz di shrek tsu fil tseblozn.... ‘Kh’shtel mit dir zikh bay der tir Revolvern in di hant...nisht lakh!’ Kum mir zitsn shoyn a sakh.”504

503 Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 30.

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(‘Mama may have her sorrow/ in staying here with you in danger’/-the fear is overblown...I’ll stand in the door with you/ revolvers in the hand...do not laugh!’- Come, we sat long enough).

Our speaker is, as we recall, very self absorbed and as the beloved tries to bring up the subject of the danger of May 1st he maintains his calm: “S’iz di friling nakht tsu tsart/ S’zol mikh hobn alts geart;/ Kh’bin vi der vos vil nisht zany/ Grayt tsu leydn - trinkt er vayn” (The spring evening is too tender./ For anything to touch me/ I’m like he who would not/ suffer- so he drinks the wine.)

He is aware of the atmosphere surrounding him: “yene nakht...hot zikh moyrediks geshpirt/ af di shtile gassn ale” (that night... Horror was felt/ in all the silent streets) but the night is

“shmekend-tsar” (fragrant and tender). In the mood the speaker is in his colloque sentimental is not mean but calming and reassuring: “‘Vos iz mir der otem karg?’/- geyst, mayn kind, aroyf a barg” (why is my breath scarce?’/ -You walk, my child, up a mountain).

In the house a dramatic scene takes place. The mother prepares to flee while the father remains behind. An argument ensues during which Berta, the beloved, insists on staying behind.

Running away is shameful and she must stay with the speaker. Finally the young sister escapes to town with the mother, Berta and her brother arm themselves, and the father stays as well. The protagonist's emotional state is reflected in the description of the evening’s atmosphere where the beautiful and tender spring covers up a deep feelings of horror that is in a sharp disjunction with the felt reality: “Fun di fentster vos iz akegn/ Pluzlung git a shpil musik...Raykh un mai-zis flist der nign” (From the window just across/ suddenly a music piece is heard/ rich and May-sweet the tune flows)

504 Ibid., 40. Cf: “In the lonely park nipped by the frost/ two specters have called back the past they lost/ “do you remember our old ecstasies?”/”why would you have waken those memories?”-/ “when you hear my name does your heart always glow?”....”No.” P. Verlaine, "Colloque Sentimental," in Selected Poems (University of California Press, 1948).

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Through this disjunction the Jewish particularity of this experience comes to light as the violence accompanying racial segregation. The speaker, with his particular understanding of politics never arrives at describing the moment as a historically and socially determined one.

Rather it is a moment that represents an aspect of the natural order of things. The experience is rendered as foreign to the general sentiment, to the natural emotions felt on such a night. The general sentiment is expressed through the music coming from the window, which was mentioned above. This music sounds to the speaker: “Vi af grine felder breyte/ iber may baputste vegn/ geyen yunge lebens zate/ mener, froyen, un men freyt zikh” (as if in the green wide fields/ over May-decorated roads/ young life-sated man/ and women walk, and all are happy). However, this apparition of normality in the midst of fear is quickly explained: “mit a shmeykhl zogt der tate/ s’baym meshumad dort, frashteyt zikh” (with a smile the father says/ it is coming from the covert’s house, it’s understood).

In an effort to understand these feelings the speaker presents a very long list of similes, situations where a person is about to lose his or her human dignity:

ven a frisher un gezunter yungerman geyt zikh dershisn ...ven es vert a froy farbundn mit a mentshn, vos zi hast.... ven a sheyne froy, vos nart kusht un haldzt dikh zis un tsart... ven a meydl vert farfirt; ven a yossem falt in gas... yede layd un yede shrek frier tsi shpeter - geyt avek nor in yeder noit iz do ayn umendlekh shvere sho

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nisht mit klangen nisht mit verter kon men oysdrikn ir tsar...505 (When a fresh and healthy/ young man goes to shoot himself...when a woman’s about to tie herself/ to a man she hates...when a beautiful woman who deceives/ kisses and holds you sweet and tenderly...when a maid is led astray/ when an orphan falls in the street.... every pain and fear/ sooner or later will pass/ only that in every hardship there is/ an endless hard hour/ whose sorrow cannot be expressed/ either with sounds or words)

This anaphoric list of similes arrives only at expressing the indescribable pain of a struggling subjectivity that cannot accept its helplessness against the cruel and vicious laws of nature that dictate that just as women are always bound to men they hate, that beautiful women always deceive, that orphans will always fall unnoticed in the street and Jews will be slaughtered on the first day of spring.

In a sophisticated critical twist this segment corresponds with Bialik’s famous epic poem “In the City of Killing”: “For the lord had called the Spring and slaughterer together:/ The sun rose,

Rye bloomed, and the slaughterer slaughtered.”506 Bialik’s poem written in the context of the

Kishinev pogrom (1903): “...shocked its readers with the power of its condemnation of the behavior of Jewish victims. This long poem is commonly seen as the motivating force behind the formation of the movement for self-defense among Jews in Russia...”507. The poem is considered also to have contributed greatly to the rise of national sentiment among Jewish youth and was a factor that promoted the second wave of Zionist immigration to Palestine (the second Aliyah

505 Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 48-9.

506 H.N. Bialik and A. Hadari, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik (Syracuse University Press, 2000), 1.

507 Holtzman Avner, "Bialik, Ḥayim Naḥman." YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (2010).

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1904-1914).508 Of course, in the case of Steinberg, the result is different: it is just another rhetoric device that fails to mediate the experience to the numb psyche of the speaker.

This is however not the case for the rest of the family. They are not caught up in the paralyzing egocentricity that cripples the speaker. They represent among them three courses of action open in such a situation. Not only the action of self defense and immigration publicly understood as the demand of Bialik’s poem, but also contending possibilities for Jewish action: the father with his steadfastness and trust in the all-mighty and the mother with her commonsense to escape are presented as alternatives to Berta and Moisey’s decision to raise arms against their fortune. In the rest of the family we find a depiction of a more coherent subjectivity that is capable of acting, not just reflecting on its own fragmentation.

In the family scene described in the third chapter the speaker does not take part. He is absolutely passive. The father’s steadfastness and Berta’s bravery, the mother’s worry and care and the young sister, Lisa’s excited and reckless behaviors are all rendered in detail but the speaker is absent. He is used as a prop, as Berta shows him to her father as an argument against running away. He has no agency and his opinion comes to light only through his position as editor and narrator, through his free indirect speech and the choice of quotations he brings from the family’s conversation. However the speaker does not form an opinion on the question at hand, but rather expresses his uncontrollable need to bring down any position that threatens his placid emotional balance. So the mother is quoted as caring for her china and furs as she does for her children; Berta’s bravery is criticized as being the folly of a girl in love whose charms melt the hard reason of a man’s heart; Lisa’s desire to remain is presented as jealousy and childish caprice; and even though the speaker finds himself impressed by the father’s old school Jewish

508 Ibid.

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steadfastness he constantly refers to him as a pimp, sardonically compering the father’s faith that divine providence will protect his stores to that of Abraham during the binding of Isaac:

tsi an altn ziedens mut velkher hot zayn aygner blut far korbn got gebrakht hot in mekler ervakht? un vi zeyne zeydes vil er tserabavete kromen morgen heylikn gots nomen mit a ‘krishma’509 a shtiler?510 (Has the might of an old grandfather/ who brought his own blood/as an offering to god/ came to life in that pimp? And like his old forefathers he wishes/ by plundered stores/ tomorrow to bless god’s name/ with a silent krishma prier).

This mocking representation of pious steadfastness, serves another role: that of dramatic intensification. The speaker claims he understands well the meaning of the father’s meek smile:

“ikh hob zayn shmeykhl gut farshtanen/ ‘zayn vet dos, vos iz bashert’”511 (I understood his smile very well/ ‘that which is destined, will come to pass’). However while it might seem that both the father and the speaker understand destiny as things staying as they always were, the narrative seems to follow the Yiddish maxim “Der mentsh trakht un got lakht” (man plans and god laughs) indicating that what is “bashert” might be very different than any calamity previously known.

509 Colloquial pronunciation for” Krias shma”: the centerpiece prier in Jewish services, seen as reaffirming the acceptance of the Ten Commandments. The prier is said twice a day and in cases of extreme duress.

510 Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 51.

511 Ibid., 52.

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The aforementioned statement is followed by the arrival of Moissey, the brother together with

“...a zakh vos shpayt”512 (a thing that spits), the cocky self-assured position of the brother that is expressed by the use of the familiar, colloquial reference to the gun and stands in such sharp contrast to the atmosphere laid down by the speaker, that the dramatic episode, and the chapter, is cut short with a dismissive gesture:

vos moissey hot altz gevust... hob ikh shraybn nisht kayn heyze un mir felt dertsu di lust ru zikh op atzind mayn muze! Vest nokh darfn geyen in geheynem vos men ruft bay yiddn leben- loz dervayl dir opru geben.513 (What Moissey had known...I have not the courage to write down/ and I also lack the desire. / rest now my muse!/ you will still have to go in hell/ that by the Jews is known as life-/ so for the time being I’ll let you rest )

V. My Heart, You Must Know All

The fourth chapter is a direct continuation of the drama from the last chapter. Steinberg ability for subtle and yet piercing satire comes to light here, as the drama in question has nothing to do with the trivialities of pogroms and firearms. Rather it has everything to do with the emotional unease the speaker felt as result of these trivialities.

The first half of the fourth chapter is dedicated to an ironic meta-literary debate on the problems of the poem we are reading. As we recall the first chapter of the poem opened with the words: in di gute yunge yorn/ fleg ikh kurtse lider shraybn....itster kon ikh gornisht makhn/ mit

512 Ibid.

513 Ibid.

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mayn ofn harts un lakhn/ kh’shrayb derfar itst ganze heften”.514 (In the good young years/ I used to write short songs...now I can’t do anything/ with my open heart and laughter/ so I fill entire notebooks). The 4th chapter opens: “laykht iz onhaybn a zakh:/ troym un hoffenung helfn tsu....shver fun grayzn iz zikh hitn/ ven di arbet halt in mitn/ un dos tsil iz umbabakant”515(It is easy to start a thing:/ dream and hope help...it’s hard to keep oneself from errors/ when the work if held halfway/ and the target is unknown)

The error becomes swiftly known:

“A roman iz on a held vi a landshaft on a feld vi a yunge froy on a khen vi a trern on geveyn vi on zun di friling-tzayt vi on feler - yungelayt vi a meydl, vos gehert nisht dem man vos zi bagert.”516 (a novel without a hero/ is like a landscape without a field/ like a young woman without grace/ like crying with no tears/ like the spring without the sun/ as youth without fault/ as a young maiden who is given/ not to the man that she desires)

This anaphoric cascade of analogies, culminating with the disturbing image of a silent rape describes a world without its essence, without its central organizing feature. That is without a coherent subject around whom the world is organized in sensible symbolic structure. “Alzo, mus

514 Ibid., 18.

515 Ibid., 53.

516 Ibid., 54.

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ikh nisht getsoymt/ tsum roman a held bashafen.”517 (So, I mustn't delay/ and create a hero for the novel), the speaker announces. The speaker signals the artificiality and pompousness of the moment by using the Germanic sounding word “alzo”518(so, therefore) in his usual gesture of belittling anything that causes him emotional distress. He rules out the heroes of the chivalresque kind as well as their pathetic other, the bourgeois hero of the naturalist tale: “zol itst yekhs-layt un graphn...zayn tsu zingen mir der shtof? Oder kremer-konkurants?“519 (Should now people of high birth and grafs.... be the stuff for my song? Or maybe shopkeepers concurrence?). Neither one of these is the hero the speaker has in mind:

Fast nor ainzam on a shir Iz der held vos ikh fantasir On a zikherkeyt in haynt, On a kholem far’n morgen, Vet er zukhen bay di faynd Freyd un lebens lust zikh borgen Nor zayn vander veg beglayten Vet vi shpot di klang fun keyten

In zayn blut dos kalte fayer- Vet keyn zakh nisht zayn im tayer Vet er hobn alts gevust Nor on gloybn un on lust. Mit zayn shmeykhl vet er gern

517 Ibid.

518 A daytshmerish (Germanized) word. Daytshmerish being: “a hybrid...linguistic elements coming from German...who are actually neither German nor Yiddish”. Cf: Max Weinreich, "Daytshnerish Toyg Nisht," Jidise sprach : zsurnal far di problemen fun der jidiser klal-sprach 34, no. 1-3 (1975).

519 Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 54.

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Fremde opgeter tsestern; Blaybn vet er dakh aleyn Elent, aynzam vi a shteyn520 (stable but unmeasurably lonely/ is the hero I imagine/ without sureness in today,/ without a dream for tomorrow/ he will borrow from his enemies/ happiness and life’s lust/ his wandering way will be accompanied/ by the mocking sounds of chains// in his blood- the cold fire/ nothing will be dear to him/he will already know all,/ only without faith or lust./ With his smile he will gladly/ destroy strange idols/ and than he will be left alone/ wretched and lonely like a stone)

The description of the hero’s qualities, spread over eight stanzas, brings forth the decadent image of extreme and pathological detachment. A sickly weakling, the imagined hero is inflicted with premature old age and the recklessness of youth; his eyes are filled with resentment and loneliness, spreading poison and scorn with his gaze. The hero behaves like a child, a confused and very hurt child who attacks when he seeks warmth or mocks when he seeks proximity or companionship.

The self-loathing emanating from this description is tempered by the similes that accompany the description: “fun der mame-erd der gute/ vet er hobn oysgelakht/ vi a yossem kukt farttrakht/ of der tsarkayt fun a mutter”521 (of the good mama-earth/ he’ll laugh/ like an orphan, contemplating/ the tenderness of a mother).

As we can see the text presents an ambivalent and contradictory mix of love and hate as a psychological motor for the character. This is mix further clarified as emanating from a profound hurt during childhood:

Az es vert a kind der tsoygn

520 Ibid.

521 Ibid., 55.

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on der veykhkeyt fun a mamen vestu zen in zayne oygn ainzamkeyt mit has tsusamen ....er veyss nokh nisht’ vos heyst di nature zol geben treyst”522 (If a child grows/ without the softness of a mother/ you will see in his eyes/ loneliness with hate together...he doesn’t know at all, what it means/ nature can give some rest).

The poem operates here a repeated slippage from the mother to the land, constantly confusing the two. It is hard to understand which one is symbolic and which is concrete. But then again as we have remarked in our discussion of “The Sad Love”, it doesn’t really matter who represents whom in this tangle of relationships. What we do have here is a mimetic representation of a person that is ‘losing it’, a mind under great stress, trapped inside one symbolic structure in which a maternal figure (mother, lover, homeland) disappoints and hurts her not-entirely- undeserving victim. Even though the maternal figure is far from just, one can long for bad mothers, as we have seen in the prologue, the speaker also shares the blame: “kayn mol vet kayn ru nisht vissn / mit der erd ver s’hot tserissn”523 (never shall he know rest/ he who tore himself from the land).

In the simile concluding this meta-literary digression we get a distilled Steinberg moment: through an ideal and innocent looking image of a mother watching her son play in a courtyard

Steinberg manages to convey an important point: no one is to blame. Mothers and children may be bad or good; the world is just as indifferent ”...di muter lakht/ shvaygt un git nor akhtung

522 Ibid.

523 Ibid., 56.

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bloiz/ vi es shpilt in zamd dos kind.../fray un zikher az es iz/ trakht dos yingle geviss524 ( the mother laughs/ and is silent and only pays attention/ as the child plays in the sand...that he is free and secure/ the boy must surely think). At this point, as usual when things get too emotional the speaker digresses. This simile with its ominous ending is left hanging. In order to explain it to readers, says the speaker, he must tell the story that is still without a hero, and will also stay that way, as the speaker’s time is pressing.525

The rest of the fourth chapter leads up to the second dramatic moment of the plot in which the police comes to Berta’s family’s home to arrest the illegal Jew who resides there. Steinberg further showcases in this segment the nuanced psychology described in the first part of the chapter. The narrative is marked by the duality signaled in the meta-literary section between the coldness and detachment of his personality and his over-sensibility expressed in his need to mock and poison everything around him.

May 1st and its horrors have past. Nothing happened and life resumes its course. Only the vulnerable, aggressive and conflicted psyche of the speaker is unable to move on. While the speaker hides this fact by hiding himself so to speak behind the 1st person plural the magic of free indirect speech exposes the antagonism he is feeling. For example as those who escaped the city before the pogrom return: “mit a troyrikn-shtumn/ un a shemevdikn blik/ hobn mir bagegnt zey”526 (with a sad-silent/ and shame-filled look/ we greet them). It is not clear why either Berta or her brother with their armed courage or the father with his steadfast faith might feel shame,

524 Ibid.

525 Ibid.

526 Ibid., 57.

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but they are included nonetheless in that “we” the speaker uses. This inclusion is in turn resented in the next stanza as it imposes the general positive sentiment on the individual speaker:

alte layd vert gikh fargessen in dem sheynem monat May... likht un hoffenung - zvey geshenken brengt der friling, un mir hoybn glaykh mit alemen on benken glaykh mit alemen on gloybn527 (Old suffering is soon forgotten/ in the beautiful month of May...light and hope- two gifts/ the spring brings forth, and we begin/ just like everyone to long/ just like everyone to believe.)

Here the speaker finds it necessary to set himself apart from the family’s sentiment: “undzer meklers hoyzgezind/ hot baruikt zikh geshvind/ tog un teglekh klingen vider/ lizas lakhn, bertas liders”528 (our pimp’s household/ calmed down quickly;/ and day after day ring on/ Lisa’s laughter and Berta’s song.) This tension between inclusion and exclusion is important and becomes more pronounced as the narrative continues. After the long litanies concerning his loneliness, here the speaker seems to resent the inclusion in the general sentiment. He attempts through the use of various rhetoric devices to set himself apart from the general happiness. One of these devices is the contrast between the beauty of spring and the presence of violence that we have described earlier. It is presented as the unique sensibility of the speaker, his artistic gift.

While in the previous chapter the speaker would not admit fear into the beautiful world, even though everyone else did; now it seems he can't get rid of it even though everyone else had. The romantic impressionist tone that guided the description in the previous chapter is picked up again

527 Ibid.

528 Ibid.

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here: "Pasn gold un pasn shtol/ shpiln ofn taykh on tsol;/ heymlikh klept dos damper-rod/ in der sho fun libe-gnod”529(stripes of gold and stripes of steal/ play in the river in multitudes/ the steam-wheel claps in a homely fashion/ in the hour of the grace of love).

However, the beauty of the description is not enough to keep at bay the emotions brought up by the hidden violent strata of Jewish existence in Kiev, the strata that now the speaker can’t help but see: “...mir shifn/ afn deneyper zikh...(khotsh fun shkotsim zidlereyen/ kumt undz oys nisht ayn mol hern- verter kenen shtark nit shtern)”530(we sail/ on the Dnieper...(of course the shkotsim’s531 petty scorn/ came to our ears more then once/ words cannot be strong impediments)). However, more than a keen observation on the nuanced reality, this ability appears to be a device meant to set the speaker and his sensibilities apart from the crowd.

Later on the young couple would find themselves alone in Berta’s home. The couple’s romantic dialogue in this location is not flirtatious; rather it is a sadistic play for control. The speaker is well aware of Berta’s feelings and desires:"ikh veys, zi tsit/ mit ir gantsn yungen layb/ itst tsu mir- ‘gelibter blayb/ dayn bin ikh - ayl mikh nemen. ‘-”532 (I know, she is drawn / with all her young flesh/ to me now- ‘lover stay/ I am yours -don’t wait and take me’-).

The speaker doesn’t act upon this invitation but remains introvert and closed. The text here presents an image that might have been comical: the clownish relationship of an eager girl and a shy and absent-minded boy. However the situation is far from funny. The speaker toys with his

529 Ibid., 60.

530 Ibid., 59.

531 Sheygets (pl. Shkotsim): a word of Hebraic provenance meaning a reptile, an abominable thing or a gentile boy. Cf. Alexander Harkavy, "Yidish-ʻenglish-Hebreisher Verterbuch = Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary,"(New York:: Hebrew publishing company, 1928), 342.

532 Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 61.

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beloved: “...Vunder-zis/ is loyt eygenem kapriz/ mit meydl harts zikh shpiln/ reytsn yunges blut un kiln...un mit mener-gutskeyt varten”533 (wonder-sweet/ is, according to one’s caprice,/ to play with a maiden’s heart/ to stimulate young blood and cool it.. And with manly kindness wait)

The speaker claims that he would like her to give herself over: “zol zikh efenen aleyn/ der fargenigen-kval far mir”534 (may the fountain of pleasure/ open itself up for me). However, as we saw, one would be hard pressed to find a more willing partner. It is clear that the speaker is looking for something else: he wishes to humiliate and feel empowered. In an earlier scene he describes his feelings towards women:

ven mir shenkt a froy ir khen ... .troym ikh boyen un tseshtern, kh’gelt dem meydls hant un trakht vi s’iz zis der kval fun makht; zol di froy mir zayn a loyn un ayn shteyn nor in mayn croyn535 (when a woman sends me her grace...I dream of building and smashing to pieces/ I caress the maiden’s hand and think/ how sweet is the fountain of might/ may the woman be my reward/ and just another jewel in my crown)

This mock cavalier position stands in stark contrast to the feelings the speaker described during the train ride as well as to his reluctance now. A different reading of the situation would include the speaker’s feelings of anger and betrayal described during the train ride together with the description of the absent hero addressed earlier. This reading would see in this moment an

533 Ibid., 62.

534 Ibid.

535 Ibid., 60.

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expression of conflicting violent emotions that put the speaker in a state of emotional paralysis.

These emotions are brought about by the circumstances that force the speaker to engage with reality and with other people, namely to give up on his careful emotional balance and on his detachment. In the interactions he experiences, this emotional position is constantly challenged.

However, very much like in the case of the poetics of the national literature and Steinberg’s resistance to it that we reviewed earlier, it would seem that for the speaker, to overcome this emotional hindrance, i.e. to man up, to grow up, would mean to forgo a profound sense of hurt. It would mean letting go of a very concrete objection to the way things are. It is not only the question of either accepting or denying a serious wrong done to him, but more than that it means forgoing the basic sentiment that constructs his fragile identity.

This entire conflict is focused on the character of Berta. While the poem lacks a hero, Berta definitely could have been the heroine of a different one. As we have read in the first chapter she was the reason behind his departure abroad. She also brought him back in the 2nd chapter. She is brave and forthcoming both in love and in war. In many respects she is the opposite of the speaker and confronted with her he appears powerless, passive, emasculated. Her love for him is for the speaker an explicit demand of him to let go of his pain and anger, or in other words: to let go of himself, of his decadent personality. As we remember, in the speaker’s own narrative he is himself because a feminine, maternal figure had hurt him and had been untrue to him. It doesn’t matter much if it was actually Berta who’s been unfaithful, whether it is his own biological mother who had let him down or if it was the other mother, Russia, who favored other sons.

What is relevant to the story is that unlike Russia or the speaker’s mother, Berta actually loves him, and therefore she is dangerous and true to the taciturn nature of the hero described earlier she will be the one he hurts.

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In numerous places along the poem the speaker states that he belongs to older times. In the second chapter it is done to praise the traditional family, in which the woman knows her place along side her man. In the forth chapter the older times are not as clearly stated but they contain fires on riverbanks, gold and steel. In any case whether he is talking about the shtetl, or preindustrial times or the pagan heritage of the Dnieper, neither one of them is Berta’s time, a time of choices, freedom and personal responsibility. These were times when a man knew his place on the land and in society, and that is the one thing Steinberg’s speaker doesn’t know the first thing about.

The point is that it is Berta’s time and the muses keep guiding the drama her way, forcing the speaker into situations in which he must engage with reality and not only observe it from his aristocratic distance. As the night ends Aurora finds the speaker heroic in his absurd display of resilience: “ikh vart. In libe shmerts fargayen/ zol mayn harts - ikh kush nit frier;” (I wait. From the pain of love/ let my heart perish- I will not kiss before). The speaker revels in their emotionally charged, anguished goodbye: “Bald vet emetser fun bayden / in der shtilkeyt fun der nakht/ heylikn di sho fun sheydn” (soon, one of the two/ in the stillness of the night/ would sanctify the hour of parting.). This delaying has the effect of saving their relationship from the greyness of life: “...a libe-vort.../vos zol blaybn vi a sheyner/ yugent troym af ale teg /fun dem groen lebens-veg” (...a word of love...that would remain as a beautiful/ dream of youth in all the days/ of the gray road of love.).

This delicate moment engineered by the speaker is rudely interrupted: “...un plutslung : kling!” (…and suddenly: cling!). The poem ends with its second dramatic episode. As policemen arrive at the door the family hides the speaker in a pile of trash in the pantry. Someone denounced the speaker to the police: a Jew without a permit is present in the house. Even though

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he is both the cause of the problem and in immediate danger the speaker is detached and passive.

Hiding in the pantry he looks through the cracks and sees how the mother and two sisters resolve the problem. The speaker does not turn his attention to the police, nor does he think of the person who must have denounced him. He does however scorn the family: “s’loyft der mekler on in zokn/ r’hot zikh vi es iz fardekn/ tsayt gehat...” (The pimp runs in socks/ as it were to cover himself/ he had the time...).

The simulacra of masculine control and power he maintained with Berta collapses in his humiliated situation. This collapse is accompanied by shame, as the father: “git er shtum a kuk af mir...men hot dir do gekhapt" (gives me a silent look...they caught you here) and a sense of self loathing: “...ikh varf/ af zikh mist on, vi men darf” (I cover myself / with trash, as one should).

The sexual character of the scene is accentuated by the contrast between the masculine bas voice of the officer looking for “the little Jew” (“yiddl”) and the soft voice of the mother, who is lying.

Looking through the cracks in the door he can see, as a voyeur would, Lisa in all her seductive sexuality and Berta engaging with what to him would seem like a real man: “durkh a shpalt bamerk ikh klor/....lisa’n mit tselozte hor/ tsart un khenevdik farshlofen/ Berta! Her ikh vi es shrayt/ af ir ayner fun di ‘layt’” (through a crack I notice clearly...Lisa with loosen hair/ tender charmingly asleep/ Berta! I hear how cries/ for her one of the ‘guys’). The subtle allusion to the famous image of the lover of the Song of Solomon who: “...standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice,”536 further diminishes the character of the speaker, setting the ground for the abrupt and cryptic ending of the poem:

“s’iz avek der ‘mundir’ .... ikh gib zikh nisht kayn rir

536 Ibid., 64

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kh’lig alts vayter nokh un nokh s’heyst : in shveren lebens-yokh hot men itst ayngeshpant un mit goles-koyt bagossen - ver, mayn harts, mit alts bakant.”537 (The ‘uniform’ is away...I do not move/ I lay there further, on and on/ that’s to say: to life’s hard yoke/ one has now chained me/ and with diaspora filth covered me- / O my heart, you must know all)

This open-ended finale raises many questions. The parallel structure of the metaphor suggests identity between its two members. However it would seem that the identity is not only between the Diaspora and the yoke of hard life but also between the hand that put him in the filth and the one that chained him. The hand that pushed him in the garbage was of course that of Berta and her mother. This is a curious sentiment to feel in such a moment. It is definitely not the ‘right’ feeling from the point of view of a national or engaged literature. There is no transformation in consciousness, no new understanding of the role of the administrative repression of minorities in the emasculation of Jewish men, even though the scene could have been easily directed that way.

It is the right sentiment though for Steinberg’s conflicted hero. This ending constructs the whole poem in the image of its antihero: unresolved, conflicted, spiraling around itself with no hope of resolution.

VI. Open-ended structure.

In this text Steinberg presents a coherent and complex protagonist, with deep, nuanced and believable psycholagy. It is an individual constructed in opposition to Bialik’s celebarated self for whom the fragmented elements of the psyche: personal biography, national identity and

537 Ibid.

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individual sensitivity, come together through the mediation of the poetic muse. 538 In fact for

Steinberg they do not come together at all. The fragmented elements of this particualr personality are held in vice by its detachement, distance, emotional unavalibility and irony, all opporating in order to contain the cenrifugal force of the premordial hurt that is tearing him apart. The form of the poem confirms the control of the speaker over his emotions. The structure of the poem however undoes it, demonstrating the danger in basing this control of romantic models. The structure of the poem produced certain ambivalence from the start. The place of the prologue in the story is not clear (as opposed to its distinct place in the narrative continuity of the poem539).

Nothing in the prologue tells us if the departure described in it is the result of the events described in the poem or if it preceded them. The dramatic Childe Harold like departure could be read as the promise of a meaningful journey. And indeed it was read as such. Luria and Cohen both agree, that Steinberg’s protagonist is bidding a last adieu to Russia, following the humiliating events in Kiev.540Alternately, the emotional adieu to Russia could easily be associated with the journey to Switzerland. Such a reading would frame the story of Rusland as a prolonged walk to Canossa: the speaker’s humiliating and meek return after the explosive promises made in the prologue. It is clear that Steinberg himself felt part of this confusion.

Steinebrg attempted to translate the poem upon his arrival to Palestine. He published the prologue under the title “Farewell Homeland- Epilogue to the Poema Russia”.541 This change

538 Dan Miron, Ha-Peridah Min Ha-Ani He-`Ani: Mahalakh Be-Hitpathut Shirato Ha-Mukdemet Shel Hayyim Nahman Biíalik, 1891-1901, 29-31

539 Cf. J. Culler, The Pursuit of Signs, 189.

540 Shalom, "Hapoema Rusland Shel Yaakov Shtaynberg Vezikotah Leshrato Beivrit," 126. Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg: Ha-Ish Vi-Yetsirato.

541 Shalom, "Hapoema Rusland Shel Yaakov Shtaynberg Vezikotah Leshrato Beivrit," 123.

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indicates for Luria that what was an open-ended declaration of possibilities in Yiddish became a summery of a concluded experience in Hebrew.542 However, in the serialized publication of the poem in “Der Fraynd”, that preceded the publication of Rusland in book form, this chapter is also named “Epilogue”.543 In the publication of the book in 1914 Steinberg chose to change the more straightforward structure of the serialized poem to the confusing, cyclical one we have before us. As we can see, by the time the poem is over it does not really matter which version we choose to read. Whether the protagonist of the poem departs from Russia after the story or before it, it all amounts to the same thing: the speaker’s inability to change, to confront reality, to find some accord between his feelings and actions, between his words and deeds. This structure generates for the reader a multitude of choices as a paralyzing excess of possibilities that the choice between then depends only on the reader’s emotional flaws.

VII. The simile

The psychic reality described in this poem, a reality of unconscious forces, representing early, mythical stratum of human existance that was not tamed by civilization, is treated with care in the national literature. The problem Steinberg has with the national literature model is with the institution of the healthy mastery of this stratum as the desired course of emotional bildung. In

Bialik for example this hidden reality emerges in the form of the myth: the lions of the “Dead of the Desert”. Bialik’s figure, that we have discussed at length in the context of “The Sad Love”, of sixty thousand petrified lions coming to life, is an expression of this conception of myth as a

542 Ibid.

543 Steinberg, "Epilog tsum roman rusland", Der Fraynd, January 13, 1912.

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concret psychological and emotional reality.544 In Bialik’s poems the figure is organically connected to the “meaning” of the poem as it expresses the crisis of liberating oneself from tradition, the exhilirating yet dangerous unleashing of intense emotions and their containment in a new, voluntary set of rules of the poetic form. However, where Bialik is full of explosive energy and a sense of danger his succesors saw a pardigm and as such they misunderstand the menaing of the gesture. What was for Steinberg a personal psychological triumph was for

Shneour and Brenner a commonplace of the human psyche, like the Oedipus complex.

As we have shown regarding the narrative poem “The Sad Love”, for Steinberg the myth is a concrete reality and not a rhetoric device. The speaker of Rusland never goes through the emotional work done by Bialik. The text describes no eruptions or explosions of subterrenean energy. The presence of these powers is seen in the speaker’s worldview, which is completely dominated by the mythical maternal figure. However these forces are never engaged with directly. They are displaced from the center of the plot and kept at bay through the literary form and the rhetorics used in the poem. This is the function of the poetic muse: she gives the boundries and order of the structure, the formal external exigencies that keep the destructive powers of creation at bay. She does not produce that moment in which all contradictions are resolved and the fragmented indentity can flash before itself as whole for a brief second. Such a moment for the protagonist of Rusland would be dangerous, an uncontrolable emotional excess.

Steinberg paints a character whose reality is the reality of the subterrainian currents, of the contradictory, unconscious drives and urges that are the actual determining factor in human interactions.

The rhetoric figure that produces this distancing effect is called by Steinberg “Mashal”. This

544 Dan Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam : Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha- Mea Ha-Èsrim, Variation: Sifriyyat Ofaqim ;; 139. (Tel Aviv: Àm Òved, 1987). 191-193

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term covers different appearances of parables and fables, allegories and analogies, all marked by their explicatory function. We have seen this at work in Rusland: the long list of analogies before the May 1st episode or the one describing the hero-less novel; the parable of the dead father describing his entry to Russia or the simile of the clay picture describing his feelings towards

Berta. In all of these emotional peeks the speaker uses these figures to create a distance between him and the experienced reality in order to clarify for himself what he thinks or feels. It is a device that Steinberg used frequently in his poetry from his first book, and that would become a corner stone of later poetics: “Of all those who interpret the world only the work of the creator of fables is not deceiving; the riddle of the world is not solved, it can be elaborated, and therefore only the fable can break through the blinding fence enclosing man”.545 This “blinding fence” is the emotional state that blocks from view the riddle of life, the contradictions and antagonism that can’t be resolved nor understood. It is this fence that keeps man in his atomized, isolated condition with no chance of community, support or counsel. This fence can be bypassed via the simile or analogy. By using the form “it is as if...”, the riddle can be elaborated on, compared with other situations that share a certain emotional quality with it.

Through this practice the speaker’s distress comes to light: his own emotions are unknown to him, as he refuses to come to terms with his demons, to aknowldge them and deal with them.

Steinberg again rejects the deteministic trajectory of the national literature and insists on a different formation of the subject in which the issue is not the reform of the subject but rather its safekeeping. A delicate balance must always be maintained; the inner world must be kept separated from exteral reality and not be pushed to accord with it.

545 Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg, 335.

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Conclusions: Adieu.

Rusland is a brilliant act of intertextual parody. By putting in place a Jewish Onegin and by enacting a whole set of tropes prevalent in Russian and romantic discourse, Steinberg signals that his tale is fact another analogy: in order to make sense of his world a Jew is posing as a bored

Russian dandy, a comparable subject position to his own confusing one. The speaker in Rusland is in no fundamental way different from the other characters in the poem that pretend to have a personality and subjectivity where the speaker sees only fragments of identity. In both cases

Steinberg’s approach shows the materiality of the literary gesture and the distance between the the object of comparison and the comparing subject. It is not the knowledge of man but rather his fabrication. And this fabrication is not determined but a is free and elective process. The natural, universal guise of nationalism is abandoned in favor of a fragmented, voluntary and democratic vision of the self.

This democratic vision is expressed by the fact that Rusland is not a call for a contending literary discourse. Steinberg is not saying that forcebly this is the Subject. In another oposition to the discourse of the national literature, that defined its course as the only one possible,546

Steinberg does not present his construction of the subject as the only possible one, nor does he demand of others to construct themselves accordingly. True to the view of poetry as craftsmanship, this too is presented as a techne, a method of being. In the poem the father believes in God, Berta believes in culture, Moissey in the revolution and our speaker believes in nothing. To each his own, whatever works.

The poem accentuated this point by presenting a gallery of heroes in opposition to the antiheroic narrator: the Ukrainian nationalists of the first chapter, the traditional Jew in the figure

546 Y. Hotam, Modern Gnosis and Zionism: The Crisis of Culture, Life Philosophy and Jewish National Thought (Taylor & Francis, 2013). 186

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of the parents, the liberal, acculturated Berta and her sister Lisa and the revolutionary Moissey.

The speaker judges all of them with contempt. While the revolution excites everybody else, to the speaker it seems naive and fashionable. The nationalist Ukrainian discourse strikes him as authentic and powerful but primitive and atavistic. The Jewish petit-bourgeoisie in the figure of the merchant family of his fiancée is despicable to him. And yet the speaker of the poem

Rusland, for all his negativity, doubt and mockery, condemns no one but himself. As we have demonstrated the aristocratic distance is a facade for a sensitive and hurt individual who is in a state of emotional paralysis. Steinberg does not criticize the political choices presented in the poem on any principle level. They are just presented through the eyes of the speaker. The revolutionary enthusiasm seemed ridiculous to the speaker of Rusland, but it seems so to him and as we have shown, and Steinberg worked hard at producing an emotional state that would destroy the speaker’s credibility.

In that Rusland is clearly not a Zionist text.547 Surprisingly enough, after the publication of this work, his chef-d’eovre without a doubt,548 Steinberg ceased writing in Yiddish and joined the ranks of the second Aliyah pioneers in Palestine. The next chapter of this work would be dedicated to a reading of the texts Steinberg published immediately after his arrival in Palestine and would try to understand this violent, unexplained gesture. However, as a preliminary remark we shall point out that the answer it to be found entirely in Rusland.

The measured and balanced discourse of Rusland does not only cover the the conflicted and cotradictory psyche of the speaker, but also on larger political level it seeks to curtail a cetrain

547 547 Hannan Hever, "Between Approval and Negation of the Diaspora in ‘Abshalom’s Journey’ by Yaakov Steinberg" 59., Luria, "Hapoema Rusland Shel Yaakov Shtaynberg Vezikotah Leshrato Beivrit," 123.

548 Miron, cited in: Hannan Hever, "Between Approval and Negation of the Diaspora in ‘Abshalom’s Journey’ by Yaakov Steinberg", 254.

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primordial ‘insanity’ that answers to the calls of freedom. Ernst Bloch explains this ‘insanity’ in his book Heritage of Our Times.549 The progress of modernity, which was deemed as necessary and unavoidable, dismantled, discarded to the side of the road many traditions and ways of life, together with the possible futures that nestled within them.550 For those people whose future was taken from them the utopia harbored in liberal or progressive thought seems to be a continuation of the modern way of life- a hellish landscape.551 Thus for example neither the man of the

Ukraine or Lithuania nor the Jewish speaker can feel themselves represented by the progressive ideologies of Moisie, the young activist. They are merely present as objects, spoken for and frustrated. These strata of society preform an act of “backward rejuvenation”, which entails the resurrection of chthonic drives and ways of life, producing the romantic “Irratio” as faith, destiny, myth, etc. The frustration comes to the surface as an outbreak of violence, reactionary ideas, dreams of power and order, unity and homeland. The democratic position in Rusland is undone by the outbreaks of violence that pick up on the historic reservoir of hate to the Jews, a weaker target than the capitalism that the Jews came to represent. As the speaker returns from the West to Russia he sees “vider zey, di alte bilder” (yet again, the old pictures), or in Bloch’s words: “Here are the medieval lanes again, St. Vitus dance, Jews beaten to death, the poisoning of wells and the plague, faces and gestures as if on the Mocking of Christ and other gothic panels”552. Unlike Zionism that could confront these eruptions of violence by violent myths of its own, Steinberg does not see in the liberal and social democrat Yiddishism any

549 Ernst Bloch, Heritage of Our Times (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1991), 56-63.

550 Ibid., 53.

551 Ibid., 61.

552 Ibid., 56.

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chthonic deposits from which myths of heroism might resurface. Thus for the speaker in Rusland the bravery of Berta and Moisie who face the pogromtshiks with nagants in their hands, is simply irrational, without the formal Irratio of presenting them as descendants of the Macabees.

As a final remark we suggest that if we put aside political, ideological or even rational considerations and compare Steinberg’s gesture towards Yiddish with the behavior prescribed for the speaker of Rusland we can clearly see the resemblecne. The angry and hurt childish gesture of abdicating Yiddish and never mentioning it again could be read as that act of hurting the utopian notion of a literature that would accept Steinberg and would be willing to moderetly love him. It seems that in this poem Steinberg formulated the poetic resoning that would allow him to maintain his relations with the national literature that, as a good mother should, didn’t only burden him with impossible expextations, but also constantly judged him as inadequat.

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Chapter IV- Massa Avisholem

Introduction

Steinberg regained the favor of the critics in the 1920’s after his immigration to Palestine. He remained a marginal author but he did spend the rest of his days as a valued and active member of the Hebrew literary community in Palestine. A significant change was perceived in the quality of Steinberg’s poetry. As Miron and others claim, one can sense a veritable change, a deepening of sort in Steinberg’s poetry.553 As we recall, one critic saw in his poetry from 1918 a return to the promise of Poems from 1905 while another viewed him as freed from a Dibuk’s possession.554 In the new poems, collected in 1923, Steinberg seemed to have undergone the needed transformation from the decadent to an active participant in the project of the national literature in many ways, though the themes and concerns of his earlier ‘deformed’ poems are still present in his later poems. The poetic of antinomies is still present as are the skepticism and the fear of death. His attitude to politics didn’t change and he did not follow his peers, in using his talents to glorify the occupation of the land by the pioneers. Steinberg composed in all about half a dozen poems that mention the new landscape and none that address the political situation in

Palestine or the Zionist project directly. In a way, his new poetry, immersed in the world of cafes and urban decadence, was more removed from the actual reality than ever before. He even remained faithful to the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew while all the rest of his peers moved on to the Sephardi one which was the signature of the Zionist national renaissance in Palestine.

553 Dan Miron, "Beyn Mukdam Leme'ukhar Beshirat Ya'akov Steinberg" haaretz, January 18 1963.

554 Tsiporah Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg. 106

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The remarkable change that probably accounts for his acceptance was in his attitude to poetry.

Poetry in Steinberg’s eyes had changed completely and became the force redeeming the soul of the nation. Not quite in the sense the national literature’s romantic norms dictated but after his own fashion, Steinberg seemed to finally read history along the grain.

The new understanding of poetry resolves the contradiction between the decadent personality of the poet and the demands of the national literature for renewal and engagement in a very similar manner to the resolution found in the poems of The Book of Lonelinesses and the cycle

“Dances” or the Yiddish cycles of 1910-1912. The principles we outlined for these poems presented a person who covers up and controls a memory of an intense emotional pain through a discourse based on parody and irony. This discourse sets him as an outcast in the world, a position which he is accepting, assuming the identity of a hermit who dedicates himself to the creation of perfect objects of art that capture suggestive contradictory images.

In this chapter we will show how Steinberg’s later poetry and poetic ideology was reorganized according to romantic nationalist ideas and his particular poetic ideology. We will examine in this chapter Steinberg’s Hebrew epic poem “Massa Avisholem”, which we view as his attempt to conclude and sum up this internal debate between decadence and the romantic norms of the national literature. It is through the closure achieved in “Massa Avisholem” that the affirmation of the romantic nationalism could be achieved. We will show how Steinberg’s decadence and pessimism functioned to affirm the Zionist position in opposition to the

Yiddishist position, an affirmation that allowed Steinberg to criticize and distance himself from the imposing structure of the national literature in Hebrew while staying it its confines in the role

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of the national intellectual, the role designated for the poet since the inception of Hebrew literature as a modern literature.555

I. The Ideology of the Verse

In 1924 Steinberg published a programmatic article detailing the principles of his poetic ideology. The poetic ideology as it is presented in “the Verse” displays the romantic principles

Steinberg has rejected so far. He claims in the article that through the aesthetic experience:

“...Man will learn that the things in the world are not separated and atomized things... that hazard had scattered on left and right.”556 The understanding that all the images in the world are one and that creation is a unity is achieved through the experience of beauty, of the symbol “that expends our apprehension in the wondrous speed of a lightning”.557 He claims that there should be a unique poetry that the soul that is native of the land, modeled by its geography, climate and character. Only the achievement of such nativist poetics will determine the future course of

Hebrew poetry and the Hebrew soul.

Despite these statements Steinberg doesn't really double back on his poetic conclusions from

1910-1914. An attentive reading of The Verse and other texts Steinberg published reveal a poetic ideology that is still hinged on his earlier symbolistic understanding of poetry. The article attacks the public discourse of the national literature: “for Jews who view the Hebrew poetry as something that renders us equal to the nations, a vision of the persistence of our national genius...as literary patrimony whose absence was felt...the essence is in the appearance, in the

555 Dan Miron, From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2010), Chapter Three

556 J. Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg (1957), 336.

557 Ibid.

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property, the voice of the nation coming out of the poetry as a general object.”558 This type of reader is compared to a child in the kheder who only remembers that Leviticus is the book dealing with sacrifices and leprosy without remembering one single verse. Steinberg does declare his affiliation with the renaissance project of the national literature, but in a manner which is of course contradictory to the doxa, as he viewed it: “the Hebrew poetry brought redemption to the spirit of the Hebrew man: it created the verse”.559 He rejects the demand that the poem would engage with reality, and calls for a verse that would find its meaning only through its form. The form of the poem produces the energy needed for the transformation of the national character and not the poem’s affiliation to an idea, a reality or an emotion.560 Rejecting various expressionist and other modernist trends Steinberg formulated a poetic principle that argues that only the minimalist verse, reduced to its barest elements, and governed by formal confines, is in fact poetry. This basic unit of poetry is a picture composed of many other pictures, which are contradictory and suggestive. The poetic power is derived from the power to produces correspondences between unrelated things. The poet forces the reader “...to see in two different things one moral...two things that we are all used to seeing one in the West and another in the

East”561 every verse is contradictory “it causes pleasure when it talks of sorrow, it spreads loneliness by describing friendship, love, the joy of life.”562

Beyond all the nativist justifications, Steinberg anchors his perception of poetry in the nature

558 Ha'Shura, ibid., 334.

559 Ibid.

560 Ibid.

561 Ibid., 338.

562 Ibid., 335.

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of the Hebrew language: “our Hebrew language is a closed language, its words are separated and one word does not follow her sister easily.”563 The words of the Hebrew language are:

“...complete stones and not running sand like the material of words in the Germanic and Slavic languages.”564 Steinberg claimed that the unique capacity of the Hebrew language is its ability to force together two nouns without any of the grammatical cushioning found in European languages, producing surprising and contradicting effects from the “discomfort”565 found in their tense, forced, momentary relations. This capacity is based on one of the grammatical characteristics of the Hebrew language, the smikhut (construct state). The smikhut is a manner of placing together two nouns in a fashion that transforms them into a single grammatical unit.566

This single unit expresses the relation between the nucleus noun (nismakh- supported) and the complement noun (somekh- supporter). While morphologically there is no difference between the different types of smikhut semantically they cover a wide range of possibilities.567

Steinberg claimed in another article “Hebrew” that the smikhut is the soul of the Hebrew language, that without it the language would be a wasteland of death.568 This soul of the language determines both the persona of the poet writing in it and the writing, which not surprisingly are very similar to Steinberg’s own. Hebrew poetry is written by men, brave men

563 Ibid., 339.

564 Ibid., 338.

565 Ibid., 339.

566 Avraham Even-Shoshan, Ha-Milon He-Hadash; Otsar Shalem Shel Ha-Lashon Ha-Ìvrit Ha-Sifrutit, Ha-MadaÌt Veha-Meduberet, Nivim Va-Amarot Ìvriyim Va-Aramiyim, Munahim Benleumiyim, [Mahad. hadashah u-murhevet]. ed., 7 vols.(Yerushalayim: Kiryat-sefer, 1966), 145-57.

567 Ibid., 144.

568 "Hebrew" ibid., 283-87.

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who can take the language’s abuse. The language, like the archetype of femininity in Steinberg’s writing, is loved because it is hurtful and creates the constant feeling of emotional deprivation and want. The labor of crafting the smikhut involves extremely hard work: “...the adjective is disappearing from the language...and in its stead comes the construct state, that costs great labor and demands.... to capture within the narrow circle of life the entire world, to find it, to unite it, and to occupy it, an occupation of the spirit, of course.”569 The artistic object is crafted with great difficulty but must not display the labor. Even though writing in Hebrew is an unbalancing experience that confronts the author with the darkest reaches of his soul,570 the author should believe that: “...all these imagined deficiencies are habits of nobility- once the writing hand...is trained and... the man...adapts to the spirit of the language.”571 These two texts, “The Verse” and “Hebrew” describe the poetic language Steinberg developed after his immigration to Palestine. It is this language that allowed him to have extremely rich expression in poems that are minimalistic, nearly frugal. The important feature of this poetic language is

Steinberg ’s use of the smikhut contrast state.572 This form: noun + noun + epitaph, became his trademark so to speak and instituted a new depth, a different suggestive power, and a whole new musicality to his poems:573

The relation between the two parts of smikhut compound is commonly, but definitely not always, genitive. For example “yom huledet” is the “day of birth”, “tuv lev” is "the goodness of

569 Ibid., 284.

570 Ibid., 285.

571 Ibid.

572 Miron, "Beyn Mukdam Leme'ukhar Beshirat Ya'akov Steinberg ".

573 Ibid.

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the heart", etc. However, the conjunction of two nouns in the construct state can express a variety of relations and does not signal or automatically express any relation. So, while the construct state: anshey tsfarde’e (frogmen) looks and behaves identical to “Yom huledet” it does not express a genitive relation but rather an analogy. It can qualify the content of a noun as in sefer habdidoth (the book about lonelinesses) or place one noun as an indirect object to the other:

“pakhad maveth” (fear of death). This lack of determination is of course very productive for

Steinberg’s proposes as it is only conventions that guide the reading of the construct state. The relation between fear and death is not conventionally read as genitive but an imaginative reader can picture a fear that belongs to Death. The two examples brought here, like many other construct states, have become idiomatic, losing the individual meaning of each noun when put together.574 However different, unexpected combinations of nouns can create oxymoronic sensations such as “rikvon paz”575 (the rot of gold), or surprising images: “vela’anath shimamon ola be’atsits khiskenu”576 (and a wormwood of ennui rises in the flowerpot of our desire). When an adjective is added, if it agrees in gender and number there is no way to determine which of the two nouns it qualifies. For example when Steinberg writes: “vehaya kidrokh regel zarim/ al kivrey yeladim nishkakhim”577 (it was as if the feet of strangers stepped/ on forgotten children's tombs) there is now way for the reader to tell whether the tombs or the children are the forgotten ones.

This poetic language represents among other things the completion of the process already

574 Ibid., 146.

575 "A Hymn to nokham" Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg, 71.

576 "Rhymes From Abroad" IX ibid., 60.

577 "Love Will Not Be Erased from the Heart..." Ibid.

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begun in the book of loneliness and the cycles. The style of parody and irony that insisted on demonstrating its own inadequacy is replaced here by a seemingly classist severity that is suggestive and evocative while remaining reserved and thoughtful. Steinberg ’s use of the construct state and the ideas accompanying it in his essays present the near perfect example of the poetic expression he sought after in his earlier poetry. The intense emotion is contained in the tight confines of the poetic form while the essays give the necessary mythical support. Steinberg finally manages to form the mystical connection between him and the project of the national literature. The connection between the poet and his clarity of vision, Hebrew and the bible with their clarity of expression and the land of clear air and light is exactly the type of mystical connection Steinberg can contain. These separate elements are held together by the imagination of the poet that sees something profound uniting them. Their coming together will be the triumph of the Hebrew man, and then the Hebrew literature will be able to represent a real plot: “whoever has a vision for the Hebrew literature has a vision for the Jewish people as well. Both have only one road to greatness: instead of the quick perception should come apprehension....” 578

Quick apprehension is the way of the land where the native eye apprehends forms in their entirety. The change to this form of apprehension is defined as the duty of the Jew. Poetry will follow suite: “the Jew does not see the things close to him...to determine his relation to this things the Jew uses foreign glasses of apprehension that he borrows from his neighbors.... the

Jew must start again, return to being a child... Then it will be in the power of the Hebrew poetry to do so. It’ll become an encompassing human poetry”579

578 Ha'Shura, ibid. 340.

579 Ibid., 340.

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In the article “Hebrew” Steinberg gives the Hebrew poet a more central role in bringing about this redemption: “we return to the language of heritage in order to pass from one level of life to another and cast a shadow on the rest of the world...Hebrew means to forget, to bear a burden, to cut off the Jew's cobweb that is drawn through the air.”580 Interestingly, Steinberg does not place himself in the avant-garde of the movement but rather as one of the last of a metaphoric generation of the desert. In another article “The Poetry of Labor” Steinberg criticizes the poetry celebrating the return of the Jewish immigrants to physical labor in Palestine. Among other shrewd remarks Steinberg writes that this poetry is celebrating labor as if it was the beginning of something new, it: “castrates the idea of labor which is a symbol of the end of a long period of transformations, into something that is a beginning, a blossoming.”581 The poetry to come should be simpler, based on action and describing superficial moods. Comparing this statement to the one closing the article “the Verse” we see that in opposition to the full human poetry that will cover all deeds: “...the new Hebrew poetry up until our days was a poetry that had only one true sound: the sound of longing of the soul yearning to return to the origin of things.”582 This description fits very well with Steinberg’s own poetry. While waiting for his return to the origin of all things Steinberg presents a persona that is similar to that of The Book of Lonelinesses but much more elaborate. It is the persona of a hermit, reclusive, conflicted and reserved; a man engulfed in deep thought, highly reflective and extremely introvert, immersed in the crafting of his small formally perfect poems. Steinberg described the poet as a jeweler fusing together the

580 Hebrew, ibid., 285.

581 On the Poetry of Labor, Jacob Cohen Israel Steinberg, Deyuknaíot Va-`Arakhim : Masot Asher Lo Nikhlelu Be-Khol Ketavav, Sifre Nefesh; (Tel-Aviv: Agudat ha-sofrim ha-`ivrim be-Yisíraíel, 1979), 142-51.

582 Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg, 340.

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stubborn solitary Hebrew words with the corrosive power of remorse and regret, while finding solace in their fusion.583 The important development in this persona is that the constant contradiction between the romantic longings and aspirations of the poet and his decadent inability to believe in them is resolved here through the concept of nokham. “Nokham” is a hapax appearing in the book of Hosea,584 which Steinberg uses to signify both solace and remorse. It is the substance that relates the poems to the world. Through it the feelings are invested in the artistic object and are separated from the poet:

A Hymn to nokham …. Ishoney eyenay kamu mitsrof kol rik vekzavav Ve’eymun-bdolakh pag bemekhitoth kol yekaroth Akh kakhash-khen od sovev et rukhi ca’asher savav Uveketsev-paz tinharna khidothay haniftaroth ... Ha, eyfo emtsakha, hanokham pri-hamerorim Asher assiskha rifuth umakhyath-lev khadasha? Ze arsekha mistanen kenitfey saraf tehorim, Vesoref glimath tsadik venokev shiryon rasha. (My pupils rebel from smelting every void and its lies/ and the faith of crystal expired in the shards of all that’s precious/ but the lie of grace still turns my spirit as it did/ and in a secret’s rhythm all my solved riddles will glow...Ha, where will I find you, remorse son of bitter fruit/ that your sap is healing and

583 Ibid.

584 “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.” Anonymous and Hosea King James, Bible, , Book 28 Hosea, (S.l.: s.n.), http://www.columbia.edu/cgi- bin/cul/resolve?clio8977206.001

Anonymous and Hosea King James, Bible, King James Version, Book 28 Hosea, (S.l.: s.n.), http://www.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/cul/resolve?clio8977206.001

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revives the heart?/ your poison filters as pure drops of fiery poison/ and burns the cloak of the righteous and pierces the armor of the wicked.)

In spite of the renewed appearance Steinberg new poetic persona is still closely tied to his previous persona. Nokham, in the sense of remorse, replaces the deep sense of pain that he called sadness in Europe. The aggression towards the world is interiorized and directed towards the self, becoming a constructive element rather than a destructive force. The pain was due to betrayal, half deserved, committed by a motherly feminine figure that abandoned him. What is the story behind the piercing sensation of remorse? In his writings Steinberg never specifies the cause of remorse. However it is our contention that the cause is to be found in “Massa

Avisholem” the exceptional epic poem Steinberg wrote in Hebrew, the last of his old tunes.

II. Massa Avisholem

The epic poem “Massa Avisholem”585 is a piece in seven parts telling the story of the immigration of Avisholem, a Ukrainian Jew, to Palestine. The poem stands out unexplained in the poetic landscape of Steinberg’s poetry like a Stonehenge of sort, a mysterious relic signaling some obscure transition. The poem is too similar to Steinberg’s early poetry to be included in his new style as it draws heavily on the language and models of Bialik, both formaly and figuratively. On the other hand the poem shows a marked difference form Steinberg’s early poetry as well. It is the only poem that Steinberg wrote in Hebrew according to Bialik’s model of the long narrative poem. The language of Bialik and the insistant referencing of his poems that was progressly disappearing from Steinberg’s poetry return here in full force. As such the poem turns its back on many of the important developments that we reviewed so far. A superficial

585 The name can be translated as “The Journey of Avisholem”. The name Avisholem (Avishalom) appears in the bible only once, and mentioned in passing, cf. kings 1, 15:2, 10

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reading might suggest that Steinberg repented and returned to the fold of the national literature.

In fact the return of Bilaik to Steinberg’s poetry was also the return of the piercing irony and parody. This poem was once more an attack on the principal values of the national literature.

The criticism of “Massa Avisholem" repeated the old tunes regarding Steinberg and his failings.586 As Sivan notes, this poem was expected to be an autobiographical poem and a Zionist epic and was judged as failure when it didn't meet these expectations.587 Critics attacked the melancholic tone that regarded the Zionist project with the disdain of a tourist.588 The poem was viewed as a failure because it did not demonstrate the transformation required by the national literature. The land of Israel is not the remedy for the poet’s soul; the national communion is not found. Cohen writes of the poem: “truth be told, we were a bit disappointed by this foreignness of a Hebrew poet who talks not of the land of Israel but of the orient...”589

An important fact most of Steinberg’s critics overlooked was that, for all his negativity and doubt, by the very fact that Steinberg chose to write in Hebrew, discarded Yiddish, and immigrated to Palestine, he declared himself part of the Zionist project, intending to build something in it and in some way be built by it. They ignored the fact that even though “Massa

Avisholem” lacked the positive and uplifting qualities desired by the critics and proponents of the national literature, it was a poem of journey and arrival, indicating a clear ideological choice.

Hannan Hever writes in a recent critique, of the function the tension between the romantic and the modernist-symbolist poetics has in obfuscating the violence that the Zionist colonialist

586 Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg. 48-54

587 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg, 108.

588 Israel Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg: Ha-Ish Vi-Yetsirato. 74

589 Ibid., 74.

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project entailed.590 Hever claims that the symbolist orientalist enchantment serves as a correction to the European ennui and is a substitute for the theological justifications of the national literature.591 This research claims that this shift is hinged upon another violence that predates the

Zionist colonialist violence and is in a certain sense the condition of possibility of the colonialist project. The violence in question is to be found of course in Steinberg’s renunciation of his own

Yiddish self and of the radical political utopia nestled in Yiddish literature, in favor of Zionist nationalism. It is our contention that in Massa Avisholem Steinberg puts in place the spectacle of the repentance requested by the national literature. This repentance is manifested in the assumption of a retrograde poetics that he had already renounced several years before. It also entailed the renunciation of his success and achievements up to 1914 namely the advancements

Steinberg had made towards a mature style in Yiddish. The renunciation is not of Yiddish as a culture or a language but rather it is the renunciation of Yiddishism as a possibility, a utopia as it is expressed in Rusland.

One of the reasons that “Massa Avisholem” was read as an autobiographical poem was because of the proximity of its publication to the publication of Rusland in book form in early

1914 and to Steinberg’s arrival to Palestine, in the spring of 1914. Many critics expected the

Hebrew epic poem, which appeared in segments in different publications in 1915,592 to be either a rewritten, corrected Rusland or an immediate continuation of it. The protagonist of Rusland who says, “I say adieu to you land of the North” in Yiddish, was supposed to be completed in the

590 Hannan Hever, "Between Approval and Negation of the Diaspora in ‘Abshalom’s Journey’ by Yaakov Steinberg" 225-59.

591 Ibid., 252.

592 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg, 122.

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Avisholem who arrives in Palestine.593 Many later critics describe “Massa Avisholem” as an adaptation of the Yiddish poem and they did so for a good reason.594 The similarities and relation between the two works are evident. On a formal level there are many differences between the works: “Massa Avisholem” is mostly narrated in white verses in the third person as opposed to the rhymed first person narration of Rusland, and the Pushkinesque irony is replaced here with a humorless severity. But there are still clear connections between the two. Steinberg defined in

Rusland the hero that was missing from the novel:

In zayn blut dos kalte fayer- Vet keyn zakh nisht zayn im tayer Vet er hobn alts gevust Nor on gloybn un on lust. Mit zayn shmeykhl vet er gern Fremde opgeter tsestern; Blaybn vet er dakh aleyn

593 cf. Cohen, Ya`Akov Shtainberg : Ha-Ish Vi-Yetsirato, 429.

594 See for examples: Dan Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha- Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim 207. Hillel. Barzel, "Shirat Ha-TeḥIyah: Amane Ha-Z'aner. , Shalom Luria, "Hapoema Rusland Shel Yaakov Shtaynberg Vezikotah Leshrato Beivrit," 125.

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Elent, aynzam vi a shteyn.595 (Stable but unmeasurably lonely/ is the hero I imagine/ without sureness in today,/ without a dream for tomorrow/ he will borrow from his enemies/ happiness and life’s lust/ his wandering way will be accompanied/ by the mocking sounds of chains// in his blood- the cold fire/ nothing will be dear to him/he will already know all,/ only without faith or lust./ With his smile he will gladly/ destroy strange idols/ and then he will be left alone/ wretched and lonely like a stone)

The description that the poem’s hero, Avisholem, gives of himself is modeled very closely after the description in Rusland:596

Az ani velo legvura Ay bitkhoni beyom holekh Hemayth nafshi le’yom makhar Vela’athidoth ki thikrena Rakh ani velo lekhedva Rak le’oyvay umenaday Aruts lidrosh ve’eshala Rinath khayim vekhedvatham Vebe’od etskhak tskhok sivoni ...yakhlimayni pizmon kvalim. Dami esh vekar halahav.... Zar ani, ve’im al sfathay Birkat akhim lekhol rakhok... Venisa shmi kol am al siftho... Ve’ani yathom ne’ezav.597

595. Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria). 53

596 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam : Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha-Èsrim, 207.

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(I have might but not for heroics/ where are my certitude in the going day/ the whispers of my soul for tomorrow/ and for the futures that may come.// I’m soft but for joy/ i’ll run only towards my enemies who banished me/ to borrow the song of life and their joy;/ and while I laugh a sated laughter...i’ll be put to shame by the tune of chains...my blood- fire and the flame is cold...i am a stranger, and if on my lips/ there’s a brother’s blessing for whoever is far...and every nation bears my name on its lip...i am as an abandoned orphan.)

Another formal element that features strongly in both poems is the long lists of similes, analogies and comparisons that intervene between the speaker and the object of his description.

Both Sivan and Cohen describe these long lists (up to twenty successive images) as a unique experiment undertaken in Massa Avisholem and not a successful one. Cohen saw it as “a carnival of images” and another critic defined it as an unhealthy tendency.598 These long lists of comparisons are known to us from Rusland, where they fulfilled the same function of indicating:

“ in their feebleness ... to delirium, dizziness, and an awakening that cannot express itself” , as the only positive critique of “Massa Avisholem” described it:599

Ven a frisher un gezunter Yungerman geyt zikh dershisn ...ven es vert a froy farbundn Mit a mentshn, vos zi hast.... Ven a sheyne froy, vos nart Kusht un haldzt dikh zis un tsart... Ven a meydl vert farfirt; Ven a yossem falt in gas... yede layd un yede shrek

597 Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg.

598 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg, 117.

599 Jacob Fichman, "Kitve YaʻaḳOv Fikhman,"(Tel Aviv :: Devir, 1959), 266.

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frier tsi shpeter - geyt avek600 (When a fresh and healthy/ young man goes to shoot himself...when a woman’s about to tie herself/ to a man she hates...when a beautiful woman who deceives/ kisses and holds you sweet and tender-like...when a maid is led astray/ when an orphan falls in the street....every pain and every fear/ sooner or later will pass/)

The similarity exists also in the loving description of the Ukraine, described in both texts as a land of love and bounty as well as in the qualification of the homeland as a woman, cruel and capricious in her love.601 However, as Shalom Luria sums it up:

“... There is indeed a resemblance between “Massa Avisholem” and the epic poem Rusland, mainly in regards to some topics addressed, to the persona of the hero in the novel, to the descriptions of the Ukraine, the span of description, imagery and characteristic rhetorical devices. On the other hand, differences stand out in regards to the structure, the development of the plot, in the descriptions of the house of study, the sea, the land of Israel, women, the tone, the motives, the point of view of the speaker and his worldview, the supporting characters and the rhythmic structure.”602

Luria is describing the strong sensation of rupture one gets when reading these two texts alongside. Because of the many similarities the difference between Rusland and “Massa

Avisholem” is uncanny. While looking very much alike, the personae in the texts are opposed to one another. The contained Yiddish speaker who avoids his inner world is replaced in the

Hebrew poem by avisholem who is driven by irrational desires, dreams and mysterious sounds:

“Ele koroth avisholem /Hu haelem kvad-hakhalomoth/ Asher hetsil beyoim zadon /Behithgoshesh

600 Steinberg, "Rusland (Original and Translation by Shalom Luria)," 48-9.

601 Shalom Luria, "Hapoema Rusland Shel Yaakov Shtaynberg Vezikotah Leshrato Beivrit, 123.

602 Ibid., 127.

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el baelim /Playtath aysh ushyar nishmatho.”603(This is the story of Avisholem/ the youth with heavy dreams/ that saved in a day of evil/ as a god wrestled other gods/ a keepsake of fire and the remainder on his soul.) The experience of reality is opposed in Hebrew and Yiddish. We can see this clearly if we contrast the description of the encounter with Palestine in “Massa Avisholem” with that of the arrival to Russia in Rusland:

...ketslil shir khadal ga’aguim Kehevel aliloth eved; Kezer prakhim akharey mishte Vekhe’atereth melekh nishkakh Khifney kherev khaludath lahav Ukhitsavon lo tasikhenu... Vekhmo reyakh terfay perakh Shomer sod beyn aley sefer- Kakh nigleta ha’arets Le’avisholem larishona604 (As the sound of a song that lost its longings/ as the vanity of the heroics of a slave;/ as a bouquet of flowers after a dance/ as the crown of a forgotten king/ as the face of a sword consumed by rust/ and as unspeakable sadness...and as the smell of flower-petals/ who keeps a secret among the pages of a book- so did the land reveal herself to avisholem for the first time.)

This long list is very different from the description found in Rusland:

Vider zey, di alte bilder Ot iz er, der driter klas Mitn reyakh un gefilder Goyim oygn ful mit has

603 Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg, 33.

604 Ibid.

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Yidn oygn, akh, in zey Shtekt a biterer geshrey Velkher iz fun tsu fil groyl Bald geven dershtikt in moyl.605

(Here again the old pictures/ here it is, the third class/with its smell and bustle;/ gentiles’ eyes full of hate/ Jewish eyes, akh, in which/ a bitter cry is lodged/ which, from too much horror/ immediately chokes in the throat)

In Rusland the irony and realism cover the mythical violence that is at the base of the social reality. The highly symbolic, mythical images of “Massa Avisholem" on the other hand are rooted in violent social relations that they block from view: “Hadur, dagul, geva eynaeym/ Kakh amad avisholem / Komemyuth bene’urav / Beshokh sa’arat elim / bmoladetho ubenafsho(Elegant, great and proud /so did avisholem stand/ rebelliously in his youth/ as the storm of gods calmed down in his homeland and soul). Compare this to the description of what is presumably the same period.

In der tsayt, ven ale flegn Dem kaprizn frayhayts-got Shenken zeyer harts’s farmegn Fleg ikh mit a laykhtn shpot, In geroysh zikh aynzam dreyen; Kh’hob shoyn dan gevust farhesn Dem gefilder fun di massn - Ikh zukh glik nor dort, vu zvayen

605 Ibid., 32.

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(In the time when all/ worshiped the capricious freedom god/ with their heart’s dearest goods/ I used to move around the tumult/ with a slight scorn/ already then I knew to hate/ the bustle of the masses-/ I seek happiness- only in couple)

These two texts present nearly opposing approaches to experience, and it stands to reason that they would do so as they were written from two very different subject positions. The person departing in Rusland leaves with a tremendous sense of rejection a place he loved. The emotional state of the speaker is covered up by an ironic regard on the hard reality that was nothing but fallacy and rejection. This regard couldn’t help but expose the emotional and mythical worldview that guided it. Massa Avisholem on the contrary is written from the opposite position.

The speaker in the poem has arrived in a Palestine. As Luria writes: “Rusland is built on the relation between the past and the present, while Massa Avisholem- between the present and the future.”606 This relation between the subject and the utopia implied in the relation between the present and the future has to be legitimized. Following Hannan Hever we can say that the need to cover the violence of the colonization of Palestine precluded the realist style of Rusland from being repeated in Massa Avisholem. Steinberg could not have produced the same image as in

Rusland where he created the image of a person forcibly belonging, through many sentimental and historical ties, to a social group and a land he feels alienated and rejected from. Such an ironic realist depiction of the complex and dismal Zionist reality of the time could not have legitimized the speaker’s position in relation to it. At most it would have been another bitter

606 Luria, "Hapoema Rusland Shel Yaakov Shtaynberg Vezikotah Leshrato Beivrit," 126.

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disappointment, “The Truth from Eretz Yisrael” à la Steinberg.607

Yet the choice to immigrate to Palestine had to be justified. The justification found in the national literature had the land of Yisrael figure as the cure to the Jewish degenerate disease, expressed in the life of the Diaspora. Even if farfetched, no more than a horizon of possibility, the land of Yisrael was the answer.608 Therefore Steinberg recreates the drama he worked so hard to outgrow, that of the conflict between the decadent poet and the world imposed on him by the national literature. The main question of the poem becomes the stormy inner world of the speaker with its conflicts and contradictions. Myth and complex existential questions replace social reality as the apparent driving force of the hero, entailing the heavy epic tone and form.

The democratic vision of Rusland is replaced here with a strange tale of fate. The reality of

Avisholem who is pushed to Palestine by mysterious urges and sounds is very different from that of the protagonist of Rusland: “nor ikh, kh’bin yung, ikh kon nokh klaybn” 609 (but me- I’m young, I can still choose). The profound sense of grief and hurt, which was an underlining sensation in Rusland, becomes in Massa Avisholem the corner stone of a worldview: “Ekhad hu yagon hakhayim” (the grief of life is one and the same). As Luria writes: “The epic poem “Massa

Avisholem” is not a literary or spiritual continuation of Rusland, unless we wish to perceive it as a leap from one character to another, from one situation to another, from one point of view to

607cf. Ahad Ha’am (Asher Ginzburg) The Truth from Eretz-Yisrael”: “ in all things it is our costume to learn nothing from the past for the future....our brethren in Eretz Yisrael...were slaves in their land of exile, and they suddenly find themselves with unlimited freedom...this sudden change has endangered in them an impulse for despotism, as always happens when “a slave becomes a king” Alan Dowty, "Much Ado About Little: Ahad Ha’am's "Truth from Eretz Yisrael," Zionism, and the Arabs," Israel Studies 5, no. 2 (2000): 175.

608 Hever, "Between Approval and Negation of the Diaspora in ‘Abshalom’s Journey’ by Yaakov Steinberg," 225.

609 Ibid., 7.

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another and from one language to the other.”610

III. Avisholem and “The Sad Love”

Interestingly, while performing this jump from one character and language to another

Steinberg uses a model that does come from his Yiddish poetry. “Massa Avisholem” for all its similarities to Rusland, is modeled very closely after Steinberg’s "The Sad Love””. Formally the poems are very similar in their proximity to the poetic models of Bialik, the epic and the autobiographic. Both display the same structure of a wide epic descriptive meter, which is interrupted on several occasions by an address in shorter rhymed verses. In both poems the protagonist and by unnatural speakers pronounced these addresses: the winds of creation in “The

Sad Love” and the dreams in “Massa Avisholem”. Both poems open with a declaration placing the narration in an expression on an extreme and suggestive emotional state:

S’shteyen af far mir geshtaltn Libe, tayre- un lakhn Mit a kol fun a gelibter, Gut un zis tsu mir;- Vayter kumt ir mikh dermonen Libe teg un libe ovents.611 (Images present themselves to me/ loved, dear- and laugh/ with a voice of a beloved/ good and sweet for me.// come remind me/ days of love and loving evenings)

And in “Massa Avisholem”:

Yofi ha’almaveth bekhalomi

610 Luria, "Hapoema Rusland Shel Yaakov Shtaynberg Vezikotah Leshrato Beivrit," 127.

611 Jacob Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften,

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Velevavu gakheleth amuma Tsav hanetsakh al sifthay hakodkhoth Ubeyadi eyn me’uma .... Veashen lev beyn udey yetsira Mikhalom ta’atuim lo eref Kegibor nofel al kharbo Ve’eynav hagov’oth lakherev (The beauty of immortality is in my dream/ and my heart is a smoldering charcoal/ the decree of eternity on my burning lips/ and in my hand there is nothing...and with a smoking heart/ among the ashes of creation/ I will not let go of the delirious dream/ like a hero falling on his sword/ and his dying eyes on the blade.)

The two texts also differ considerably, but unlike the relation to Rusland here the differences show a clear development and not a rejection and an opposition. Take for example the depiction of childhood. In ”The Sad Love” it is presented as a series of disassociated vignettes, each endowing the speaker with a specific quality. In Massa Avisholem it is reduced to one childhood experience- that of Bialik. The only detailed biographical episode in Massa Avisholem is the scene of leaving the house of study. The description in Massa Avisholem is remarkably close to that found in the poems of Bialik:

Odo na’ar veyivadel Mebney gilo hogey thora Beveyth rabam uvekhavura Hu levadu rakh veyekhidi Notar dimemat beyth hamidrash ... Eyth gam ner hatamid nizkaf thohe al ha’amud Kemishta’e la’atsevet. Vehakhasheykha sfugath yagon

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dom nithkapla bazaviut. ... Akharon haya az hana’ar Bimlo khalal habayth Shthikath ad sheleakhar hamaveth.612 (While still a boy he distinguished/ himself from his peers who ponder on the torah/ in their rabbi’s house or in commune; he alone, soft and solitary/ he watched over the silence of the house of study...when even the flame of the everlasting candle/ rose perplexed on the lectern/ as if amazed by the sadness./ and the grief soaked darkness/ silently folded itself to the corners...the boy was the last one/ as the house filled up/ with eternal silence that follows death)

The expressions used here are taken from a number of Bialik’s poems: “The Talmud

Scholar” or “Alone”:613 “All gone with the wind, all swept away by the light/ A new song filled with song the morning of their lives/ And I, a tender chick, was quite forgot / Alone under the wing of the Divine Presence.” The impact of these words is strong. As Miron writes, the scene of the house of study in “Massa Avisholem”: “inspires in the reader repulsion and wonder...it feels not only as a nearness to Bialik that is too intimate but also a certain quality of being essentially derivative”614 Steinberg constructs the scene in a way that demonstrates its being an intentional and critical parody of it.615 When Steinberg imitates Bialik’s model it is a parody that transforms the crisis of faith from the foundational trauma it was to Bialik to a generational experience, one event among many.616 However, the entire scene of leaving the house of study is translated -

612 Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg, 33-34.

613 Ada Barkai, MishkaÌm Byalikaiyim Be-Shirat Meshorim Ìvriyim Be-Reshit Ha-Meah Ha-Èsrim, 1900-1920, 108. Interestingly Barkai also sees in "Massa Avisholem" allusions taken from “Before the Book Closet” Bialik’s poem that was published in 1910.

614 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim, 202.

615 Ibid., 204.

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allusions, parody and all - from the parallel segment of “”The Sad Love””:

Ayner aleyn hot dos yingl gezesn In dem farkheyshekhte kloyz un gekholemt “Shtil kukt di vinter-nakht durkh di tsvelf fentsters In’m beys-midrash dem pusten arayn. Shtil iz in kloyz un es rirt zikh kayn zakh nit S’drimelt der omed, di falm fun ner tomid, Unter dem parokhes shloft got un zayn toyre, S’shloft oykh zayn gloybn in harts bay dem yingl Bald vet oykh er, der letster antloyfn...”617 (The only one and alone the youngster sat/ in the darkened house of study and dreamt./The winter night looks in through the twelve windows of the dusty beys-midrash/ The cloyse is silent and not a thing moves / dreaming are the lectern and the flame of the everlasting candle,/ under its curtain god sleeps with his Torah/ his faith is also asleep in the youngster’s heart./ Soon he will escape as well, the last one...)

In Yiddish the linguistic difference softens the sensation of overload generated by the excess of references to Bialik. In Hebrew they strike at the reader. Also the fact that leaving the traditional house of study is in “”The Sad Love”” only one of four biographical episodes appearing in the poem (childhood, hunger and violence being the 'others') dilutes Bialik’s presence to a bearable measure. This does not indicate failure like the one Steinberg experienced in translating Rusland into Hebrew. Here the difference between the two poems sharpens the message of the poem and brings to the surface the criticism implied in the parody. The many experiences of “”The Sad Love”” are reduced here to one that determines and sets the tone for all the experiences to follow. The scene of the house of study is found in

616 Ibid.

617 Steinberg, Gezamelte Shriften, 59.

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“Massa Avisholem” in the beginning of the canto “The Death of Gods”. In the course of this canto the hero sits in the house of study by the side of his god until this one dies. Saying goodbye, he sets out to the world but carries with him a faint scent of dead sanctity:

Uveyn kimtey haparoketh Ra’ad kol halayl bakhashay Retet elohim akharon Ve’yealem im boker. Az hithna’er gam ha’elem Veyitsamed livney gilo. Akh betsetho me’habayth Davak elav le’olamim Reykh dak shel kdusha metha (And between the folds of the curtain/ all night a last tremor of god/ in secret trembled/ and with morning went silent/ then the youth shook himself/ and joined his fellow youngsters/ but upon leaving the house/ a faint smell of dead sanctity/ was attached to him for eternity.)

This attribute, the small of dead sanctity, will accompany him further in his encounters with the new gods (those of the revolution), revealing to him that to die is the gods' only godlike characteristic. These experiences are narrated briefly compared to the space they take up in “”The Sad Love””. What was a general atmosphere in “”The Sad Love””, a hushed resentment against the false ideals imposed on the speaker, represented by the marked presence of Bialik, becomes in “Massa Avisholem” a clear idea and an attack on the national literature, represented here once more through the poetry of Bialik.

IV. Attack on the national literature

The attack on the national literature and on the romantic norms guiding it in “Massa

Avisholem” takes place on two fronts: explicit and implicit. On the explicit front the attack is

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expressed by the fact that nothing in the poem indicates any transformation. Told from a historical perspective the poem presents the story of a man who failed to have a change of heart and that had probably never been able to; a man that the crown’s jewel of his emotional development was his ability not to change, to always remain balanced.618

The prologue to the poem, called “Grief of the Homeland”, ends as Avisholem sets out to find a mysterious sadness that he named Homeland:

Vehine nishkefa lemulo Mithokh ed halaila hakhiver Ayin gedola ve’ivereth Uvemabata tuga sethuma, Asher ekhad yasikhena - Tslil hamila moledeth (And here appeared before him/ from the pale night’s mist/ a big blind eye/ and in her gaze blank sadness/ that one would articulate-/ the sound of the word: homeland)

In canto I the experience of the encounter with the revolution as well as the subsequent disappointment from it are summed up with the same epitaph: Avisholem walks away accompanied by a faint scent of dead sanctity.619 The last god on avisholem’s list is the god of national redemption and the poem doesn’t give any reason to believe he will fare any better than the jewish god or the god of freedom: “Az yithna’er gam haelem / Veyithkhadesh im habsora/ Uvegaaguey el khadashim / Tas likrath ha’el hakhadash /Asher kora lo: hageula

618 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim, 214.

619 Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg, 34.

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(Then the youth shook himself/ and renewed himself with the news/ and with new god’s- longings/ flew towards the new god/ that was named: redemption).

In the second half on the poem when Avisholem arrives in Palestine, the land doesn’t sound to him as a homeland but very different: “...ketslil shir khadal ga’aguim” (as the sound of a song that lost its longings). In the last canto, “The Lament of the Homeland”, we find that even in the holy land Avisholem remains with his spleen and ennui: “Kakha hetsik hayitsavon / Al ha’elem asher nimlat / Mibeyn zro’ot olam nekhar/ Uvekhalom moledeth karav / Livney amo oley gola. (Thus the sadness pestered/ the youth who escaped/ from between the arms of a foreign world/ and in a dream of homeland/ approached his brothers returning from exile.) He does not describe the Zionist pioneers as the avant-garde of a national revolution: “Akhen am rak noash hayu/ Sridey rivevoth hagolim / Asher alu veyikhalu / Lasol derekh el hamenukha/ Asher kora la moledeth (Indeed they were but a desperate people/ the remains of myriads of exiled/ that ascended and hoped/ to pave a road to rest/ that is called: homeland)

V. The implicit attack

The “Lament of the Homeland”, ends with Avisholem sitting on the sandy hills of Jaffa, straining to hear from the silent night the sound of the word that brought him there:“Ulam

Misvivi demi hamidbar/ Knaf halayla rak roedeth/ Min hademama od aazina/ Tslil hamila: moledeth” (But around me the desert is silent/ only the night’s wing is trembling/ I’ll still listen in the silence /to the sound of the word: homeland.)In this canto Avisholem's reasons for immigration are made clear. The prologue described the relation between the Ukraine and

Avisholem as a romantic and erotic affection:

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Veyisnaer pithom libo Ledmuth na’ara min hanearot Asher yatsak el hayofi Mor ahava al roshan Umisvakh kvutsoteyhen konen Reshet khaya veroedeth. ... Ukhvar ne’ekhaz ktse libo Bemalkodeth zahav hakvutsoth”620 (And his heart will all of a sudden strom/ at the image of one of the girls/ that the god of beauty ointed/ with the myrrh of love/ and from the thicket of their locks made/ a living quivering net...and soon the edge of his heart was caught/ in the golden trap of the locks. )

The last canto reverses and sharpens the image, as Avisholem appears to be a rejected lover:

Bimloth yamay alumay Nitku raglay leolamim Min ha’arets asher ohav Ve’eyn liba iti thamim Kakh yinathek ish mizro’oth Esheth khen asher ahava Ki yishtakef bemabata Irbuv ahahva ve’eyva621 “As my youth was full/ my feet disengaged forever/ from the land I love/ and whose heart is not true// so a man would disengage / from the arms of a beautiful woman that he loved/ because her gaze reflected/ a mix of love and hate/”.

620 Ibid., 32.

621 Ibid., 43.

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This clarification casts an ironic light on the poem's formal choices. Now the affiliation to the poetics of Bialik and the aesthetics of the national literature appears to be a facade covering up the real “mix of love and hate” that pushed him to leave. This highlights the difference between

Massa Avisholem and Rusland: while in Rusland an entire social experience with all its antagonism was recruted to hide the true feelings of the speaker, Avisholem has only the national literature’s longing for redemption to cover up his emotions. The main drama of the poem is, like in the poems of 1907, the conflict between the worldview imposed on the poet and his inability to accept it. This position sets the ground for the other, implicit attack. This attack is carried through the parodic use of Bialik’s poetry, its institution as a psychic and emotional foundation and its subsequent presentation as false and misleading. Bialik’s national poems such as “In the

Field” and “The Scroll of Fire” fulfill a similar function to the one Bialik’s love poems had in

"The Sad Love": the emotional foundation against which the actual romantic and erotic experiences of the speaker are constructed.

However, the poem “Massa Avisholem” is a mature and complex poem that differs in the most significant way from "The Sad Love" in its ironic awerness of its own mechanisms. In the first part of “Massa Avisholem” the poetry of Bialik is presented as an unconscious psychic structure. From the first lines of the prologue the connection to Bialik is expressed forcefully as the opening description uses a similar litoteas to that of the opening of “dead of the desert”:

Lo migeza rikavon Yanak leshado avisholem Veba’avon yerushath kalon Lo hithgala bo nafsho Lo bemishkanoth haoni Kavda rukho veteagen Leshvil yesha bamerkhakim

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Lo shigyonoth osher noar ... Mimoladetho hithu hu...622 (Not from a rotten stem/ did Avisholem draw his marrow/ and for the crime of inherited shame/ his soul was not besmirched/ not in misery dwellings/ did his soul grow heavy and anchored itself/ to a path of redemtion in the distance/ nor the folies of youthful happiness...diverted him from his homeland.)

This list rules out most of the commonplace reasons people, including Bialik or Brener, used to legitimate their choice of Zionism. For Avisholem it was not the sensation that Jewish life is rotten from the stem, nor was it the shame of the Diaspora or the expereince of poverty. What then diverted him from his homeland? The answer is found at the end of the poem. In the poem’s second half, which relates the arrival in Palestine, Bialik does not have the same textual presence. He reappears in force however in the very last lines of the poem, when the disenchanted Avisholem is sitting on the sandy hills of Jaffa and is wondering about his decision to immigrate to Palestine:

Tsme moledeth gam anokhi Tayvath nefesh li zikhrona Velegaaguey zikhra orid Dimat evli ha’akhrona Ki miyom baol huvethi Umiyom nafshi eda Milath kesem li romezeth Uvakol aazin heda 623

622 cf. “Dead of the desert”: “Not pride of young lions and their dams hides the hue of the plains,/ not the oaks of Bashan - their glory mightily fallen.”

623 Ibid.

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(I am also thirsty for a homeland / its memory is the lust of my soul/ and longing for its memory I will shed/ my last tear of grief // for since the day I was brought under the burden/ and since the day I knew my soul/ a magic word entices me/ and I’ll listen for its echo everywhere)

As Avisholem continues his explanation we see that the longing for a homeland is an amorphous emotion like the sadness that Avisholem sees and hears everywhere. Avisholem is trained from youth to hear the echo of the homeland. But it would seem as if he can mainly hear echoes of Bialik:

Mitokh shaon yearoth sakhim Umilakhash kney hakama; Reykha nodef li basade Mima’aromey ha’adama ... Ekhof roshi la’adama Ate ozni va’aazina : Im lo tinshom li nikhumim Ha’arava hamalbina?

(From the noise of conversing forests/ and the whispers of the wheat;/ her smell transpires for me/ from the nakedness of the earth...i will bow my head to the ground/ lend my ear and listen:/ will the whitening steppe not/ breathe out council to me?)

This description, along with its resemblance to the works of Bialik is contrasted with the more concrete feelings represented in this segment: “Irbuv ahava ve’eyva / Hidikhani lamerkhakim, /

Ulam akhush: gaaguim/ Yotskey ra’al li mekhakim. (A mix of love and hate/ drove me to the distance/ but I feel: poison/ versing longings await me.) This contrast allows Steinberg to create the sensation that Avisholem is governed by two different and opposing emotional structures: the

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romantic sentimental one, represented by Bialik’s poetry, and the decadent one evident in his skepticism, his devotion to unhealthy romance, passivity etc.

Since the poem is told from an historical perspective, in a sense it is read backwards. Only when the last sentence is punctuated do the first words acquire their full sense. In that moment

Avisholem becomes conscious of what his reader was very aware of from the beginning:

Avisholem is a travesty of Bialik’s poetic persona and Bialik’s emotional bildung. His feelings and actions are directed by quotes from Bialik’s work that do not accord with his reality, producing the sense that he is fundamentally secondery, a pale copy. The underlying situation of the poem is a parodic version of Bialik’s “The Scroll of Fire”:624 “Ele koroth Avisholem / Hu ha’elem kvad hakhalomoth / Ahser hetsil be’yom zadon / Behithgoshesh el be'elim / Pleytath esh veshyar nishmatho.” (This is the story of avisholem/ the youth burdened with dreams/ that saved in a day of evil/ as a god wresteled the gods,/ a morcel of fire and the rest of his soul)625

Bialik’s text deals with destruction of the second temple and the spiritual survival of the

Jewish people. Steinberg’s Avisholem barely saves himself. The norms of the national literature call for the depiction of political and historical events as relating to the apocalypse and to redemption. Steinberg’s description of the day of evil as opposed to the night of the destruction of the temple in Bialik minimizes the political event and effaces it. The social reality that was expressed in “The Sad Love” or Rusland with all its cataclysmic colors is here reduced to the epithet repeated a number of times: “Behithgoshesh el be'elim” (as a god wresteled the gods).

624 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim.

625 Cf. “The Scroll of Fire”: “and one young angel, sad of eye and clean of wing…saw… the curl of flame ... the remnant of the alter flame, as it flickered and trembled and died among the burnt stones of the Temple Mount.” H.N. Bialik and A. Hadari, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik. 148

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The prologue of the poem, like the prologue of Rusland, presents a sentimental piece that sets the atmosphere for the departure, and is immersed in the language of Bialik. It is as if every experience is mediated through Bialik's writing. The impossible love between the Ukraine and

Avisholem was expressed in the image of the god of beauty pouring love on the head of the

Ukrainian girl, creating a net from her golden locks, in which Avisholem is caught. This image incorporates the language of a similar Bialik scene:

“When sun launders the gowns of the proud wood and a sea of light pours on its forelocks, and he, the brave, spread all over with the net of gold of his own will, like Samson in Delilah’s cupped hands,stands captured and in the light laughter and glow of a lover’s face feels his powers in a net of gold of his own devise, takes his pains with joy and raises his preist’s head under the mighty sun as if to tell her …do with me what your heart desires.626

Avisholem’s decision to leave the Ukraine is taken after a mysterious feeling grasps him when he amuses himself with the girl, and out of his gloom he interprets the blind gaze of the moon as saying: homeland:

Veyithnaer avisholem ... Veyithapek mul haerev. Rega shakat bo levavo Lelo zia gil veregesh Umishnehu - atsar pithom

626 H.N. Bialik, “The Pool” H.N. Bialik and A. Hadari, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik. 140-145

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... Ukhe’eyn regesh dak vesathum Kam berukho dimyon pla’im .... Vehine nishkefa lemulo Mithokh ed halaila hakhiver Ayin gedola ve’ivereth Uvemabata tuga sethuma, Asher ekhad yasikhena - Tslil hamila moledeth (And avisholem shook himself...and contained himself before the evening/ one moment his heart was still and there appeared before him/ from the pale night’s mist/ a big blind eye/ and in its gaze blank sadness/ that one would articulate-/ the sound of the word: homeland)

The scene contains a few clear references to Bialik’s poem “secrets of the night” that deals with the being of the poet and its connection to the mythical aspects of nature, as well as to “the scroll of fire” and its story of redemption and providence: “and yet in the heart of the firment , opposite the youth’s head and above , one eye still opened on him with favor, a great golden eye, bright, watching over him, for it was the eye of the morning star”627

The parody of Bialik here indicates that as a poet his field of vision was limited by Bialik who instituted in him a limited sensitivity that was relevant to Bialik but is no longer relevant to

Steinberg.628 The poem puts in place several discourses that in Bialik’s work are well contacted but in Steinberg’s rendering appear as fragments of a whole: love, connection to nature and myth, homeland, etc. For Avisholem the anchoring point for all these discourses would be found

627 H.N. Bialik and A. Hadari, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik. 162

628 Miron, Bodedim Be-MoÀdam: Lidyoqna Sel Ha-Republiqa Ha-Sifrutit Ha-Ìvrit Bithilat Ha-Mea Ha- Èsrim, 211-12.

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in the sound of the word “homeland”. The search after that sound represents the search for sanctity that was lost and whose redicovery is understood in terms of national redemption.

However, for Avisholem sanctity has always already been lost, no one ever uttered the sound of the word “homeland” that he sees everywhere but never hears, and there is no redemption, national or personal, in sight.

In fact Zionism as an ideology or a movement is not mentioned even once in this poem. It is alluded to once, in the canto “the death of gods” as the last god, the god of redemption. The manner in which the new god in introduced to Steinberg’s ‘social circle’ in very instuctive:

Yom leyom uleshana shana Elim gov’im umiskhadshim Khearesheth bsorath pla’im Ba hakholem bethokh hagola: Al hayarden o basharon Ra’a khoresh ziv hashkhina (A day to a day and a year to year -/ gods die and renew themselves;/ as an expression of wondrous news/ came the dream into the exile:/ on the Jordan or in the Sharon/ a plowman saw the splendor of the divine)

This is also in a sense the only mention of Zionism in his poetry in general as this line is a misquote from a poem in The Book of Satires from 1907:

Ana olikh eth yagoni? ... Veani shamathi omrim Al dayarey palestina: Al hayarden o bagalil Ra’a khoresh ziv hashkhina Veod zoth shama’athi... Efsher hivrik khol hamidbar

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Vehu nith’a velo yada

Where shall I lead my grief?...I heard it said/ of the inhabitants of Palestine: / On the Jordan or in the Galilee/ a plowman saw the splendor of the divine/ I also heard […that..] perhaps the desert sand glimmered/ and he was lost and did not know it”.

In the poem “Where shall I lead my grief” this verse comes up as an escapist fantasy from urban ennui, a desire to move away, a girlfriend that shoots down the dream: "stop longing and accumulate riches". He questions his own heart and is answered with silence. Without a prophet or a comrade to guide him, the poem ends with the words: "out of the wall a stone will cry to me/...you will be buried here".

In The Book of Satires these words are not a simple reference to Zionist ideology as much as they present a question to the Zionist literary ideology. The glimmer of the Devine is the apparition of the symbol, the poetic idea that Steinberg resisted so hard. In “Massa

Avisholem” it appears in a different tone. The questioning and doubt are not expressed and while the verse in Massa Avisholem is misquoting the younger Steinberg, it is a precise quote that comes from Sh. Tchernichovsky’s Zionist lullaby “Nitshu tslalim” celebrated as the first

Hebrew lulluby:

Noded tihye bimlo tevel, Akh moladetkha akhath Zoth al tishkakh niskha: tsion! ... Al hayarden uvasharon Sham arvyim khonim... Lanu zoth haaretz tihye Gam ata babonim.

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Veyom yakumu nos’ey romakh Al tim’ala maal- El kley zeynkha bagiborim Od shimshenu ya’al!629 (You will be a wanderer acrross the earth,/ but your home land in one/ do not forget your banner: Zion!...on the Jorden and in the Sharon/ there the Arabs park...we shall have this land/ and you will be among the builders./ and the day that lancemen rise/ do not betray your duty-/ to your hero’s arms/ for our sun will rise!)

This excess of literary references give the actions of the plowman and of Avisholem a

Quixote-like character, rendering the longing for Zion a reckless child's dream inspired by a lulluby, forcing upon him an impossible longing, that no longer signifies anything once he sets on his quest. As Hever writes, the move from Europe to Palestine in the second half of the poem is expressed by a shift from a romatic style to a more symbolist one.630 The presence of Bialik in the second part of the poem is significaltly diminished.631 In the second part of the poem it becomes increasingly clear that without the veils of the national literature nothing hides the existential void this project covers up for. Avisholem’s encounter with the

Orient is experienced in this fashion: it spreads itself under his gaze, all of “the magic circle that is called the orient” 632 in all its deception. The grandeur and glory of the Islamic past are reduced to magnificent ruins and substituted by romantic Bedouin pastoralia or decadent sexual reverie about the harem.

629 Sha'ul Tchernichovsky, Shirim. 1, Shirim U-Valadot. Uniform Title: Poems, Vol.1: Poems and Ballads. Hebrew, 1 vols. (Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1966), 66.

630 Hever, "Between Approval and Negation of the Diaspora in ‘Abshalom’s Journey’ by Yaakov Steinberg," 240.

631 Barkai, MishkaÌm Byalikaiyim Be-Shirat Meshorim Ìvriyim Be-Reshit Ha-Meah Ha-Èsrim, 1900- 1920, 104.

632 Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg, 40.

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The end of the poem closes the circle that started with the prologue. As we have shown,

Bialik reappears in the language and imagery of the poet. The panultimate stanza of the poem is very similar to the reference to “The Scroll of Fire” at the end of the prologue, only this time it is written in the first person and the reference is gone: “Ulam Misvivi demi hamidbar/ Knaf halayla rak roedeth/ Min hademama od aazina/ Tslil hamila: moledeth” (But around me the desert is silent/ only the night’s wing is trembling/ I shall still listen in the silence /to the sound of the word: homeland.) This scene, the lament of the homeland is a moment of realisation for

Avisholem. It is the moment when he himself sees himself as derived from the poetry of Bialik.

It is there that the function of the romatic norms is made clear: “Lelo ednath pney moledeth /

Ktse ha’arets li nigla” (Without the tenderness of the homeland’s face/ The edge of the land was revealed to me). Without the support of the national literature the drastic move of immigration to

Palestine has no justification. Whoever even the justification it did give cannot resist the encounter with reality. Where avisholem sits there is no splendor and there is nothing divine.

Avisholem is in a position to realize that maybe the plowman from Palestine was indeed lost, following bright light reflcted from the sand.

VI. In The Beginning Was the Deed

The poetic development of the epic poem “Massa Avisholem” does not give the justification to the act of immigration to Palestine. The renewed contact with the divine, which justifies the national project will appear, as we have stated earlier, in his later poetry through the persona of the hermit-poet, through the religious-like practice of poetic labor, through the connection between the language, the past and the land. This research does not mean to claim that Steinberg was anti-Zionist, nor that in any way the colonization of Palestine posed a moral problem for

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him. His problem was, as always, with the principles of the national literature and the demands it made, which were unacceptable to his decadent persona. However, “Massa Avisholem” is, ipso facto, an avowal of Zionist ideology and practice. Neither in content nor in form but in its very being the text represents an action, a die that has been cast. The poetic persona of Steinberg, lethargic, passive, crippled with skepticism takes a step and commits himself to a course of action that takes him away from the circle of indolence to which his fate had chained him with shackles of wondrous grief.633 True, this action only lands him in the circle of magic that is called the Orient, but it is nonetheless a different circle.

The literary commonplace of travel, frequent in Russian literature, which Steinberg employed in Rusland, is developed in “Massa Avisholem” by the journey to the Orient. For Pushkin,

Lermontov and many others the journey to the Orient is binary, opposite to the journey to the

Occident: while in the Occident the Russian is confronted with his Asiatic, nomadic character, the journey to the Orient allows him to relate to his civilized, European sides.634 This does not happen by a simple comparison with the Orient but through a process during which the layers of civilization fall away and the inner nature is exposed.635 This encounter reveals to the subject on the one hand his intimate connection to the Orient and on the other how much farther he moved along that imagined line of historical development, going from the nomadic Orient to the sedentary and civilized Occident.636 Massa Avisholem presents only part of this topos. As we

633 Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg, 32.

634 I. Kleespies, A Nation Astray: Nomadism and National Identity in Russian Literature, (Northern Illinois University Press, 2012), http://www.amazon.com/Nation-Astray-Nomadism-National-Literature- ebook/dp/B009XE6GYS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-textie=UTF8qid=1396010519sr=1- 1keywords=A+Nation+Astray%3A. kindle. Chapter 3 "The Russian Poet-Errant"

635 Ibid.Chapter 3 "The Russian Poet-Errant"

636 Ibid.chapter 3 "The Russian Poet-Errant"

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have stated earlier, upon his arrival in Palestine the facade of the national literature, a fake discourse in his eyes, falls off leaving the space free for the development to come.

Therefore it is not surprising that the poem does have the detached point of view of a disappointed tourist. However, and this is a feature many of Steinberg’s critics failed to see,

Avisholem, for all his negativity, doubt and mockery, condemns no one but himself. Here, like in

Rusland, the aristocratic distance is a facade for a sensitive and hurt individual who is in a state of emotional paralysis. The choice of "the army of confused wandering brothers" that came with him to Palestine is not confronted with another choice. The fear exhibited in the poem "where shall I lead my grief" from 1909, the fact that the plowman in Palestine might be wrong and not even know it, is no longer there. By 1915 he already knows that wrong; there is nothing divine in the glimmer and there is no promise of redemption in the national literature. “Massa Avisholem” does not join the Zionist discourse of return, renewal and rebirth. However, it exhibits a choice that beats the alternative, which is to be buried in Europe. Palestine and the Zionist discourse of its settlement allow Steinberg to carve himself a place within the discourse of the national literature. A place on the margins of this discourse from which the European subject with his aristocratic distance, immoral indifference, melancholy, decadence and cynicism can comfortably criticize the romantic aspirations that justify the colonialist project.

VII. The Price of Nokham

The last canto of the poem “A Lament for the Homeland” stages a great funeral oration on the hills of Jaffa:

Ukhmo za’af tlunath-olam Sheon hayam ha’az mithgalgel; Uleumatho mimerkhakim

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Tsafa yileleth shualim, Halo hu yilel hayeshimon Asher yeor layla layla, Lethamruray thaaluma ... Dumam tsafa az haelem, Af leylel hayeshimon he’ezin, Veyithabel bamistarim Beyn gavnunay khol shomemim. ... Kakha divrey avisholem, Zoth hakina asher konen, Lethamrurey hadumya, Al hakhof beleyl hatkheleth. (And like the wrath of the world’s complaint/ the mighty crush of the sea is rolling;/ and form across, in the distance/ floats the wail of foxes/ which is the wail of the wilderness/ that wakes every night to the weepings of mystery... Silently the youth then watched,/ and listened to the wail of the wilderness/ and mourned in hiding...so were the words of avisholem, this is the lament that he spoke/ to the weepings of the silence/ on the shore in the azure night.)

This scene is extremely noisy. The land makes itself heard very clearly in the wrath of the sea and the wails of the wilderness. This scene of Avisholem in mourning with the whole night crying around him, opposed by a great black silence they cannot break, constitutes Avisholem as a person deeply immersed in grief. But grief over what? The basic experience of Steinberg’s poetry as we have shown so far is that of a terrible sense of sadness whose origin was never disclosed but was rather shown to be the result of an abandonment or betrayal on the part of some feminine figure. Here the tables have turned. Avisholem is the one abandoning.

Avisholem’s grief is over the things that will have to be disavowed as a result of the resolution

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expressed in the poem. These things are his homeland, his language and his person.

The land

In this scene what is being mourned for is explicitly presented as the homeland, with which he did have all the intimate relations described in Bialik’s poems, the Ukraine: “Tsme moledeth gam anokhi ...Velegaaguey zikhra orid/ Dimat evli ha’akhrona.” (I am also thirsty for a homeland...and longing for its memory I will shed/ my last tear of grief)

However, as Luria remarks, there is something strange about his love for the Ukraine. Could avisholem have forgotten the hardships experienced by the protagonist of Rusland? 637The complexity of Avisholem’s relations with the Ukraine is only intimated but the harsh reality from which he had just been barely rescued; a scrap of his soul is never described. This is an interesting change from the text of Rusland. Steinberg in “Massa Avisholem” presents the sentiments of belonging to the Ukraine as the model for the same type of belonging to the Land of Yisrael. This model, based on a naive sensual affect, is a different model than the one found in

Rusland, the complex, multileveled affiliation to Russia, the kingdom of a hundred languages, the land of slaves, the bad mother he cannot help but miss and that never shed a tear over him, up to and including his departure. The nuanced description of Rusland encompassed many more layers than just the nationalist affiliation to the land of the Ukraine and exposes the deep emotional connection to Russia but also shows the violence and the harsh unjust conditions of life there. In the encounter with the Orient avisholem signals an awareness of the complexity of the new situation:

Gam im od nothar tseif hakavod ...

637 Luria, "Hapoema Rusland Shel Yaakov Shtaynberg Vezikotah Leshrato Beivrit," 125.

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Halo hu tseif hakhida, Asher helit bo eth panav Vayiradem shnath kharada Leviuthey shilton zarim Ulehed hemyath khaym rekhokim - kol hamizrakh min halevanon Ad ligedoth algir hakholema, Umigvul iran bamidbar Ad leneoth arav brukhim.638 (Even if the veil of honor remains still...it is the veil of the riddle,/ with which the orient covered its face/ and fell into anxious sleep/ of nightmares of foreign rule/ and echoes of a murmur of a distant life- / from Lebanon / to the bank of dreaming Algeria,/ and from the border of Iran in the desert/ until the blessed oases of Arabia.)

This view is quickly defined as a vision that avisholem shakes off. He does that because such visions are politically dangerous. The dream of dreams that is the Orient touches his heart as the old gods once did: “Nag’a knaf hakhida/ Gam bilvavo...”639(The wing of the riddle/ also touched his heart), proposing an alternative to the Zionist god of redemption.

The shift from Russia to the Ukraine is the shift from the general to the particular, from the public to the very personal and from the system to the case. it is completely in line with

Steinberg’s development of self-absorbed ingathering and introspection, the political declaration of a man who realized that it is time to: “...cultivate our own garden”.640

The fantasy of a private garden is based on the obfuscation of the roots of violence Steinberg

638 Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg, 41.

639 Ibid., 40. Cf. “Rishon haya az haelem/ Asher nithkela bilevavo/ Knaf hael...” (The youth was the first one/ whose heart was touched/ by the wing of god...) Ibid., 34.

640 Voltaire, Candide, trans. L. Jenkin (Theatre Communications Group, 1982), 169.

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experienced in Europe, which are described as a natural, as storms, or as mythical in the image of the wrestling gods. Similarly the fantasy is hinged on hiding the reality of Palestine and the social and political complexity of the situation there. As a result the poem presents only one tie between avisholem and the land of Yisrael: the longing set by the national literature. The national literature, which is in fact an answer to a problem posed in Russia, cannot produce a real affiliation to the land and the tie snaps with the encounter with Palestine. The land is not personified through eroticizing figures like Russia or the Ukraine, and cannot occupy the same position. Nor will it. In Steinberg’s later poetry the new land is barely even mentioned.

The language:

This type of eroticizing language is found somewhere else though. It is to be found in

Steinberg’s words on Hebrew, which he described as: “an enchanted beauty that kept her youth almost in all its innocence”641. The Hebrew words are “embalmed beauties” that Steinberg describes as women after his own heart:

“A lonely Hebrew word is forlorn, stubborn, she averts her eyes from you like a captive daughter of a foreign land; but when she finds herself a sister in an instant her cold heart will become good....and she will forsake to this fraternal union all her beauty, all her secrets, all the loving whispers that are created from love”642

The erotically charged perception of Hebrew indicates that it is the language that is now serving as the anchoring point for Steinberg’s discourse. When Palestine couldn’t replace Russia it was Hebrew that replaced Rusland. But according this place to the Hebrew language: “...

641 Hebrew, Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg, 283.

642 Ibid.

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means to forget, to bear a burden, to cut off the Jew's cobweb that is drawn through the air.”643

What Steinberg means to forget is the language from before his immigration, which was full of foreign influence and empty hopes: “whoever has vapors of creation without expression wandering in his blood- necessarily, when hearing something new, will shake, get excited, believe that the time has come.”644 This has been the life of the Hebrew language, which is equivalent to the soul of the Jew: with every generation the language was willing to rise up and sing the psalms.645 However, in each such instance there was no continuation, not ever since

Hebrew stopped being a spoken language and a language of a plot.646 Now the action undertaken by the immigration to Palestine and the constitution of Hebrew as the spoken language liberated the Hebrew language for the prison of the bible.647 The previous attempts are not to be included in the new Hebrew but rather to be purged from it: “your fathers’ language is for you the bed of

Sodom, many wings are sentenced to be severed but- believe!- these are not the wings of eagles; more than one mouth will fall silent, but would you intend to bring with you into Hebrew all the palaver...?”648 This avowal of commitment to the cause is natural, and given the reception of

Steinberg’s partial attempts to present something new in Hebrew, it is also quite understandable.

However it is important to remember that there was the other direction in Steinberg’s writings that over the totality of his work amounted to more than just a start. Whether it is in a work like

643 Hebrew, ibid., 285.

644 Ibid., 286.

645 Ibid., 287.

646 Ibid.

647 Ibid.

648 Ibid.

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Rusland or in his prose stories, Steinberg had developed an inspiring mastery of his craft.649 One can presume that severing off the wing of the Yiddish language so that Steinberg could fit in the

Sodom’s bed of Hebrew was a very painful operation and one that left its mark.

The self:

The loss expressed in “Massa Avisholem” is complex and understandable. The rich diverse world of the Russian empire was a place Steinberg intimately belonged to and felt rejected from.

But the renunciation of the Yiddish language it implied was the betrayal that turned the loss into grief. As Hannan Hever writes, the ideological opposition between Hebrew and its vision of a nation state and Yiddish with its vision of a national autonomy could not be reconciled.650 The political landscape of Rusland, in which one group is negotiating its position among others, in the context of a multinational, multilingual empire that is on the brink of collapse, was not all that different from the situation of Palestine and the ottoman empire at the time. However it was a landscape that could not be depicted in the national literature. The depiction of a minority among minorities whose identity is determined not only by a unique history and a connection to the language and the land but also in relation to an outreaching, corrupt bureaucracy and other national groups and languages, contradicted the mission of the national literature. The national literature sought to create an ideological model of a major literature written by a nation in its national language sitting safely in its homeland.651 This was something that the ironic, sharp- eyed and sharp-tongued, indifferent Yiddish speaker from Rusland could not do. The subject

649 Aharon Komem, Darkhe Ha-Sipur Shel Ya`Akov Shtainberg

650 Hever, "Between Approval and Negation of the Diaspora in ‘Abshalom’s Journey’ by Yaakov Steinberg," 256.

651 Hever, Ha-Sipur Veha-Leom: Keriot Bikoratiyot Be-Kanon Ha-Siporet Ha-`Ivrit, 9-10.

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presented in Rusland had to go not because of his failed beginning but, quite on the contrary, because this was a successful solid start for a new direction.

Therefore, the self that is presented in various forms in Steinberg’s poetry in Hebrew and

Yiddish, that in its different manifestations has displayed manners of depicting a complex decadent psychology, is treated in Steinberg’s essay “the verse” as:“...a sad and terrifying spectacle; the heir, burdened with this accursed load [talent], inspires horror in his empty deeds, in his suspicious adventures, in his strong words that sound like the devil’s graceful sham...whoever has a brain in his head will move away shaking his head: ...before him there is

״ .marvelous human creature armed with an empty talent, embalmed, that has no life

While the description above could have suited the former Steinberg, for the post 1920’s

Steinberg the person described above is the author of the type of literature cannot serve the goal of the national transformation:

“There are many as we know who say the for Hebrew literature (or the one written in Yiddish) awaits a great future... They think it natural that the spirit of the nation, that drew of all sources, would best create as a synthesis...they think that the ideas that the brain of the Jews absorbs...the different life combinations that jews witness in all countries- that all that ought to become a wonderful mixture in the special literature of this people. How big is the lie entangled in this deception!”652

Steinberg had to sacrifice the speaker from Rusland on the altar of the Hebrew national literature that he has just joined. This sacrifice, with all the pain it entailed, was necessary so that the solitary hermit could take up the stage. In the process he also put avisholem behind him and all of his “European” poetry, along with the different futures and utopias that were still possible and were now void because of this act of will, this choice. By that heavy price Steinberg declared

652 The Verse, Steinberg, Kol Kitve Yaa̓ Kov Shtaynberg, 339.

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his commitment to the national literature and to the Zionist project.

Conclusion

“Massa Avisholem” is an important moment in Steinberg’s work. It describes the inner struggle of the poet to accommodate himself to a new reality. In the totality of

Steinberg’s work it is treated as a transitional poem between the old Steinberg and the new one.653 “Massa Avisholem” does have an important function in Steinberg’s own narrative. Steinberg created a narrative where he details his dramatic, even epic, poetic development in which the renunciation of Europe and its possibilities was a moment of betrayal that caused both the vitriolic remorse that fuses the Hebrew words together and the solace found in the sublimation of pain into an experience of beauty.

The drama of “Massa Avisholem” was the hushed inception point of an epic narrative that made possible the existence of Steinberg’s new morose poetic persona. It is the hidden theological justification for his catabasis and the psychological grounds for his addiction to sin; it is the repressed dramatic reason for his journey to the Orient and the undisclosed source of “nokham”, which stands for both solace and remorse.654 The epic poem engages closely with the Yiddish poems Rusland and "The Sad Love", it presents the conflict between the modernist sensibity and Bialik’s poetics in its first part and the replacement of these poetics by symbolist aesthetics, which are closer to the persona of the speaker in the second part. All this sums up Steinberg’s poetic experience and

653 Sivan, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtaynberg.

654 Zvi Luz, Shirat Ya`Akov Shtainberg: monografyah

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concludes that chapter of his life. It is, as Steinberg demanded in his article “On the

Poetry of Labor”, a poem that does not present any false beginning but rather declares and accepts its end.

Discussion

I. What’s in it for me?

Through the course of this work we have tried to follow the mock romantic bildung of

Steinberg’s poetic persona. We have covered in chapter I of the work Steinberg’s development from the romantic poetics of Poems, through the kenositic poetics we identified in The Book of

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Satires, the experiments with symbolism in The Book of Lonelinesses and the first steps toward the mature image of the jeweler that appears in his later poems. In chapter II we have examined his attempts at producing “correct” poems in Yiddish, and to participate in the effort to constitute a national subject according to the poetics of Bialik, albeit in Yiddish, and the attempt to define a mature symbolist persona in Yiddish. In chapter III we examined Steinberg’s attempt to introduce in the narrative poem Rusland a different persona, a modernist subject whose constitution relies on the balanced relations between the fragmented and contradictory elements of his personality. In chapter IV we showed how in his only narrative poem in Hebrew Steinberg adheres to the Zionist project, in practice if not in form and content. We also described briefly his mature poetic persona, claiming that it was constituted by Steinberg’s renunciation of his former self.

It is a mock romantic bildung as Steinberg’s persona strives but fails to attain the expected result: a coherent individual subjectivity anchored in the poetics of the symbol. Even if it is a failed one, this bildung is nonetheless romantic. The persona it produced is still a parody of the dominant model and as such it is its affirmation.655 This persona can be described in Lowi’s terms as a resigned romantic one: resigning himself to the fact that a return to the pre-capitalist values in impossible and that progress is a standing fact, the poet develops a tragic worldview where, in a reversal of the organic-vitalist metaphor, society is an organism that does not grow and develop but decays and declines.656 It is a position that rules out change or resistance in practical terms, while leaving frustrated and charged the yearning that is embedded in any form

655 Catherine. Belsey, "Critical Practice," (London;: Routledge, 2002), 58.

656 M. Löwy et al., Romanticism against the Tide of Modernity (Duke University Press, 2001), 73.

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of romantic thought.657 This romantic stance is formulated in opposition to the position assumed by Steinberg’s Yiddish persona in Rusland, which we can define as reformist romantic: this position adheres to pre-capitalist values and presents an anti-capitalist critique as well as a desire for change, which is attainable in practical terms through reform.658 The vision of a world in which primordial forces clash for control of the world and man’s soul that we saw in “The Sad

Love” and “Massa Avisholem” is downplayed in Rusland in favor of an egalitarian discourse that is concerned with the minute negotiations of everyday life. The reformist stance is its own undoing as it the fact it downplays is extremely important: there are violent undercurrents under the surface of modernity that are woken up by its progress. These undercurrents are not mythical foundations expressing the profound truth of the human psyche; they are pragmatic answers to pressing questions of the day. They express resentment and frustration and when they erupt, Jews get hurt. As Hever writes, the Zionist territorial solution was basically a pragmatic one of this kind: “After [the Jews] understood that reaction against their persecutors is self defense at the most, and that the struggle for emancipation is not a long term solution for Jewish existence in the Diaspora, they directed their violent reaction to a destination in which they could fulfill the auto-emancipation”659 Steinberg’s choice of Hebrew and Zionism is a pragmatic choice expressing the resigned approach, which recognizes the impossibility of change in the Diaspora.

Steinberg, however, cannot hide the calculated nature of the choice behind essentialist or theological justifications. As we have shown in our reading of “Massa Avisholem” and of the

657 Ibid., 69-71.

658 Ibid., 71-73.

659 Hannan Hever, "Between Approval and Negation of the Diaspora in ‘Abshalom’s Journey’ by Yaakov Steinberg," ʻIyunim bi-teḳumat Yiśraʾel : meʾasef li-veʻayot ha-Tsiyonut, ha-Yishuv u-Medinat Yiśraʾel 22 (2012): 225.

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later essays, Steinberg could not produce either the negation of the Diaspora or the affirmation of the Land of Yisrael. The Diaspora is presented not as inherently flawed but as a beloved yet cruel and violent homeland. The connection to the Land of Yisrael is not presented as a natural and historical right, but as a connection to be developed and deserved.

Steinberg’s refusal to negate the Diaspora, as his refusal to accept the romantic symbol of the national literature, makes his affiliation with the Zionist project seem peculiar. And yet, he participated in the project. In his role of editor of the writers association’s review and in other functions he fulfilled, Steinberg took an active part in the constitution and maintenance of the

Zionist hegemonic culture in Palestine. However, he did express his resentment by holding fast to the selfish and a-moral position of the decadent that was his trademark. It was the position of the hedonist that put aestheticism and his own narcissistic needs before the general redemption.660

As such this position is absolutely political. It is a: “...subjective expression of social antagonism.”661 Marcuse's observations on hedonism find in the epicurean hedonist position an opposition to all the demands to restrict personal happiness in favor of the greater good.662 This is not because of the selfishness of the hedonist, but because of a deep mistrust in these demands, which determine that for the larger good, and the personal freedom it presumes to guaranty, it is necessary to the restrict and curtail the individual’s personal freedom and desires.663 The

660 Ḥamuṭal. Bar-Yosef, "Magaʻim Shel DeḳAdens : Byaliḳ, Berdits'evsḳI, Brener," ([Israel] :: Hotsaʾat ha-sefarim shel Universiṭat Ben-Guryon Ba-Negev, 1997), 17.

661 “On Lyric Poetry and Society” in: T.W. Adorno and R. Tiedemann, Notes to Literature (Columbia University Press, 1992), 38-54.

662 Herbert Marcuse, Negations : Essays in Critical Theory (London: MayFlyBooks, 2009., 2009), 119- 51.

663 Ibid.

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hedonist, being aware of this contradiction, is asking the very valid yet infuriating question:

“what’s in it for me?” It is all the more infuriating, when one asks this question, as Steinberg does, not against the solid cultural institution of the bourgeoisie in Europe but against what was perceived as a national liberation movement. The answer to the question is that what is in it for

Steinberg is a spectacle of constant act of heresy that allowed him to uphold his detached, outcast, nay-saying persona in the context of the national literature.

A personal note I came across Rusland for the first time in 2005, in a class given by Professor Dan Miron in

Tel Aviv University. Nine years later the journey in the footsteps of this exceptional poet was concluded, in Tel Aviv again. It was an insightful and exciting journey that is not in any way complete. The fascinating character of Yaakov Steinberg and the complex relations between languages and genres in his work still have a lot in store for scholars. Steinberg's critique of the discourse of the national literature in Hebrew is as instructive today as it was provocative in his time, inspiring scholars and lovers of poetry to revisit his writings.

Seeking a suitable image to close of this work I came across a curious fact. Tel Aviv, a city that loved poets and was loved by many in return, commemorated many of the important Hebrew authors in its streets, giving them an active vibrant presence in the everyday of our time.

It would seem that a quick glance at the map of Tel Aviv gives a picture of the literary landscape that is very similar to the one I have described here. Bialik is parallel to

Tchernikhovsky and Brenner meets Ahad Ha’am in the well-to-do center; the Yiddishists Peretz,

Dubnov and An-sky reside with the exploited Jewish masses in the poor neglected south of the city. And what about Steinberg? After some research I found a Steinberg Street in the south of

Tel Aviv, near the central bus station, the darkest, hardest part of town, the quarter of prostitutes and refugees. It would seem that the otherness and foreignness that Steinberg inspired in his life

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accompanied him to the street naming committee. Steinberg was awarded with a small lain between two desolate parks in which Sudanese asylum seekers hide from the police among piles of trash, reminding us that the filth of Diaspora is nothing in comparison to the price and shame of nationalism.

Elik Elhanan,

Jaffa, April 2014

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October 21 1903.

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———. "Der Shmeykhl." Der Fraynd, November 24 1911.

———. "Di Troyrike Libe." Dos Yiddishe Folk March 14, 30 April 5 1907.

———. "Dos Yiddishe Meydl." Der Veg, June 6 1906.

———. "Genug!" Yiddishes Vakhenblat, March 9 1907.

———. Gezamlte Dertseylungen = Collected Yiddish Stories [in Yiddish]. Yiddish Literature; Variation: Yiddish Literature. Yerushalayim: Hotsaat sefarim `a. sh. Y.L. Magnes, ha-Universitat ha-`Ivrit, 1986. Fiction (fic).

———. Gezamelte Shriften [in Yiddish]. Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library. Varsha: Velt bibliotek, 1908.

———. "Got." Dos Yiddishe Folk, June 20 1906.

———. "Got Farlost Nicht..." Eyropeishe literatur, no. 29, 1910.

———. "Gurnisht " Der fraynd, August 18 1911.

———. "In a Farkishufte Shtub." Yiddishes Vakhenblat, February 2 1907.

292

———. In a Farvorfn Vinkl [in Yiddish]. Klal-Bibliyotek; Variation: Klal-Bibliyotek. Berlin: Klal-farlag, 1922. Fiction (fic); Microfilm (mfl); Master microform (mmc).

———. "In Ovnt." Dos Yiddishe Folk, June 7 1906.

———. "In Shlitn." Falksshtime, June 26 1907.

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———. "Libe." In Di Shtime: Zamelbukh, 111 p. Vilna: Romm press, 1907.

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———. "Shtendik Sheyn." Eyropeishe literatur, no. 27, 1910.

———. "Vide." Yiddishes Vakhenblat, April 6 1907.

II. Hebrew: ———. Mivhar : Lirikah U-Reshimot [in Hebrew]. Sifriyat "Devir La-`Am". Sidrah 1. Tel Aviv: Devir, 1963.

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——— .Sefer Ha-Bedidot : Shirim [in Hebrew]. Varshah: Hotsat "Safrut", 1910.

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