Capitolo 38
it is alive with spiritual and intense strength. This thick style has called
Kalirian, from the name of his better representative. The Kalirian Piyut
in the shed end mainly in France, England, Burgundy, Lorraine,
Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Italy, Greece and Palestine. The other type
of new-Hebrew Piyut, the Spaniard, increases to the tallest beauties of form. It
it is not free from the guilts of Kalirian, but it has them in a less
pronounced degree. The Spanish Piyut, in the hands of one or two
masters, become the true poetry, poetry in form as in idea. The
The style of Spaniard prevailed to Castile, Andalusia, Catalonia, Aragon,
Majorca, Provence and in countries where Arabic influence was
stronger.
Kalir was the most popular writer of the first type of the new-Jew
poetry, but he was not his/her creator. A the oldest contemporary of his, from
who he deduced his/her diction and his/her method to treat poetic,
subjects, were Jannai. Although we know that Jannai was a prolific writer,
only seven short examples of its verse remain. One of these are the
popular hymn, "it was to Midnight" that you/he/she is still recited to memory by the "German"
Hebrews to the house-service in the first eve of Passover. It narrates in
you order the liberations that, according to the Midrash, it was beaten for
Israel to midnight, from the victory of Abraham on the four kings to the
lack of sleep of Ahasuerus, the crisis of the Book of Esther. In the last one
room is a prayer for future redemption:
Hands near the time that is day neither night!
Taller! does known that thine is day, and
thine the night!
Face clear as day the obscurity of our night!
As of old man to midnight.
This form of versification, with a refrain in march it became later
very popular with Jewish poets. Jannai also visualizes the sour one
the alliterations, the learned allusions to Midrash and Talmud that were
brought to extremes by Kalir.
It is strange that it is impossible to mend with some certainty the date
to that Jannai and Kalir lived. Kalir can belong to the eighth or to