Description
This book sets out to redefine Ur Zvi Grinberg`s writings on the background of the cultural framework in which they flourished and to return them to the place from which they were extracted and made timeless. The book reconstructs the beginnings of Grinberg`s poetry before it was canonized into classic volumes, the uniformity of which hides the differences inherent in his works. The essays analyse these differences and examine the moment of creation of each work, showing how it reflects the subject-author, deliberating and deciding, regretting and self-reflecting.
The chapters of the book trace Grinberg`s works chronologically and aim to restore to them their original patina, their bibliophilic antiquity and admired remoteness. The author has undertaken an archeological mission: to free the historiography of Grinberg`s poetry from the revolutionary narrative with which it was labeled and to describe the lost consecutiveness of the Hebrew expressionism in his early poetry and later thought. The poet was driven by a deep cultural desire to restore to life and unite in his poetry the religious, aesthetic and poetic forms that had lost their relevance to modern life.
Two essays on Else Lasker-Schuler reveal a personal and poetic friendship between the two poets, not as ``barricade brothers`` in a literary revolt, but, rather, as two poets who inspire attention to mutual relevance, each recognizing his own voice in the work of the other. This relevance is what makes the last two essays a natural continuation of the seven essays on Grinberg`s poetry.