ARIE SCHIPPERS
“Some Remarks on the Muwashshahaat of
Abraham ibn Ezra”
by Arie Schippers [
SUMMARY: In this paper some elements of form and contents in Abraham ibn Ezra's
strophic poetry will be discussed. Abraham ibn Ezra differs in many respects
from his predecessors such as Moses ibn Ezra and Yehudah ha-Levi. As far as the
thematic content is concerned, most common wine and love themes are
non-existent in Abraham ibn Ezra's poetry. Independent strophic love poems as
we saw currently in Moses ibn Ezra's work, are almost
lacking in Abraham ibn Ezra's poetry: love in his poetry is almost exclusively
connected with the panegyrics on his addressees. Also the formal
characteristics of Abraham ibn Ezra's poetry are different from those of his
predecessors, for instance with respect to the way in which Arabic is inserted
in his Hebrew poems. Some of his forms are innovations,
other types of his strophic poetry go immediately back to the schemes of the
Hebrew poet Yehudah ha-Levi and Arabic poets such as Ibn Baqi and Ibn Quzman.