Zagadki i szarady w twórczości Szlomo ibn Gabirola oraz innych twórców hebrajskiej poezji Al-Andalus w świetle greckiej tradycji poetyckiej zabawy słowem
Riddles and Charades in the Works of Shlomo ibn Gabirol and Other Hebrew Poets of Al-Andalus in Light of Greek Traditions of Poetic Wordplay

Summary/Abstract: This paper compares the development of the tradition of the poetic riddle in the Hebrew poetry of the Golden Age in al-Andalus (10th–12th c.) and in Hellenistic Greek poetry, and presents a selection of the most interesting Hebrew riddles juxtaposed with their Greek thematic counterparts. Much like the poetry of the Golden Age, Hellenistic Greek poetry was informed by a bustling courtly and sympotic culture, driven by patronage, as well as the rise of new methods of studying canonical texts. One of the chief characteristics of poetry written in these two literary cultures was the popularity of poetic riddles. They appear among the works of the four prominent poets of the Hebrew Golden Age: Shmuel Ha-Nagid, Shlomo Ibn Gabirol, Yehuda Ha-Levi, and Moshe Ibn Ezra; riddles by Hellenistic Greek poets constitute a significant part of the 14th book of the Palatine Anthology. In both environments, the literary riddle existed on the boundary between orality and literacy: its poetic form originated from the epigrammatic tradition, yet its original context was the courtly banquet, where poets and other intellectuals engaged in riddling as a form of friendly competition of knowledge and talent. Moreover, the two respective époques gave rise to a lively book culture, which granted the riddle a place within poetic collections and anthologies. The similarities between the phenomena of the literary riddle in both epochs, discussed and exemplified in this paper, are not limited to its socio-cultural origins but extend to the character of the material itself.

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