What is a "Sebastian"?
What is a "Sebastian"?

A nonsensical look at the poetry of Yona Wallach

Summary/Abstract: This article compares the nonsensical narrative of Lewis Carroll to the poetry of thecanonical Hebrew poet, Yona Wallach. Both writers seek to establish a unique anddifferentiated poetic logic, a logic that “makes sense” in its own way. Unlike Carroll, in themid 1960s Yona Wallach presented an adult audience with Hebrew poetry which is mostlyregarded as "serious", even tragic, with a "doom-like" quality hovering over it. Nonetheless,a comparison between Yona Wallach and Lewis Carroll discloses their surprising likeness.They both employ similar mechanisms of nonsensical linguistic games. As I will demonstrate,both Wallach and Carroll play with the conventional meaning of words and use them in anincongruous, anti-commonsensical, manner. Throughout the article, Carroll's workwill reveal its serious and gloomy quality, whereas Wallach's work will reveal its (rarelydiscussed) logical and amusing quality. Thus, the contrast between Carroll’s work andWallach’s poetry sheds light on their respective mechanisms of signification and humourmaking,in a manner indiscernible when each is treated independently.

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