The Dream of the Poem

Celebrated poet and translator Peter Cole will deliver a series of three talks presenting the greatest Hebrew poetry of the Middle Ages, much of which is little known to the general reader. The first session will introduce the Golden Age of Hebrew Poetry in Spain and some of its most outstanding figures from the tenth through the twelfth centuries: Shmuel HaNagid, Shelomoh Ibn Gabirol, Yehudah HaLevi and others. The second discussion will treat the often-overlooked Hebrew poetry of Christian Spain up to the expulsion in 1492. And the third session will explore the startling, often erotic verse that emerges from the Kabbalistic tradition.

Lecture 1: The Hebrew Poetry of Muslim Spain –The Golden Age

Lecture 2: The Hebrew Poetry of Christian Spain

Lecture 3: The Poetry of Kabbalah: Poems from the Jewish Mystical Tradition