“The Myth of a Hebrew Troubadour: Isaac b. Abraham haGorni”
Professor Susan Einbinder
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Princeton Institute for Advanced Study
The late thirteenth-century poet, Isaac haGorni, entered twentieth-century scholarship as a braggart and bohemian, a wandering singer-poet who was described as a Hebrew counterpart to the famed troubadours of medieval Provence. This talk returns to haGorni, both in historical context and in the material context of the unique manuscript containing his poems. Together, these contexts suggest a much different vision of both the poet and his poetry as they illuminate the lively interests and debates of Jewish intellectuals in Provence.