Language:
Hebrew
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
מורשת ישראל; כתב-עת ליהדות לציונות ולארץ ישראל
Angaben zur Quelle:
18,2 (תשף) 415-440
Keywords:
Alterman, Nathan,
;
Chagall, Marc,
;
Atar, Tirza,
;
Rabbah bar Bar Ḥana,
;
Talmud Bavli. Commentaries
;
Hebrew poetry History and criticism 20th century
Abstract:
The article highlights the intertextuality in multiple domains: modern poetry, a talmudic story and the paintings of Marc Chagall. All of these together – each work in its own way – can help us understand how every person is like a tightrope walker in a circus. Each work increases the number of obstacles the wanderer must encounter in the arena of reality.The road in Alterman’s poetry is the circus where the wanderer is a marionette. The path is revealed to him and he is directed to follow it even against his will. The cloud and the tree are pulling his strings as they await him. The wanderer, however, is not so much a marionette as a tightrope walker. During his lifetime, he is obliged to maneuver between contradictions that cause internal and external turmoil and expose him to different, contradictory situations.The narrator/tightrope walker is seen in Alterman’s “Three Tall Tales” as the successor to the talmudic sage Rabbah bar bar Hana. In these poems, he continues the stories of the sage, as Alterman himself notes in the subtitle of “The Tall Tales: New Legends of Rabbah bar bar Hana” (City of the Dove, pp. 235–249). Alterman’s “Three Tall Tales” are particularly related to Rabbah bar bar Hana’s third story. This story tells of an imp that jumps between two mules standing on a bridge made of beeswax. Both of these works connect to three Chagall paintings, and to the poem “Death of the Tightrope Walker,” by Alterman’s daughter Tirza Atar. The allusion in Atar’s poem isto Alterman’s poem “Leap of the Tightrope Walker” (one of the “Three Tall Tales”). Atar’s poem continues the idea of the wanderer as a tightrope walker.Looking at these works simultaneously illustrates the condition of human beings and their destiny, wherein each individual must maneuver like a virtuoso and a tightrope walker throughout the generations (from the third century CE to the present day), between contradictory situations and changing forces, while a turbulent, threatening chasm opens up beneath their feet. This insight leads us to understand the nature of the poet-narrator as a tightrope walker, as well as explaining the subjective breakdown, since he must wander and maneuver between contradictory factors – for example, his role as a poet whose mission is to instill culture, but at the same timehis addiction to alcohol. In addition, he is obliged to entertain and amuse the circus audience that, according to the painting, is in itself part of the circus.The article highlights the view that every individual has always been regarded as a tightrope walker; this concept derives from one source and can be looked upon as a “tree”: the roots of the tree are the concept of the human being as a virtuoso and a tightrope walker as found in the talmudic story of Rabbah bar bar Hana; the trunk is reflected in the poems of Nathan Alterman; and the treetop canbe found in the poetry of Tirza Atar.
Note:
With an English abstract.
URL:
אתר את הפרסום בקטלוג המאוחד של ספריות ישראל
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