Anamnesis and music, or kabbalah as renaissance before the renaissance

Moshe Idel*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

The present study traces the vestiges of an ancient connection between the Plato's theory of anamnesis and the Pythagorean view of cosmic music. The earliest evidence to such a nexus is found in a passage of the Neoplatonian and Neoplatonism thinker, Jamblichus. However, the first substantial treatments of such a nexus are found in Arabic literature, which served as a vehicle that trans- mitted to Kabbalistic treatises since early 14th century, especially in the influential passage of the Spanish Kabbalist Rabbi Joseph Angelet, found in his Livenat ha- Sappir. Several Kabbalists reverberated his view as to music as triggering the memory of the music heard by the soul before the descent in this world. Some other Kabbalists in the 16th and 17th centuries, include treatments of the same nexus, but independent of Angelet's book. In modern times, the musical anamnesis is evident in a poem of Lermontov and in the Nobel Prize speech of the Israeli writer Shmuel Y. Agnon.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)389-412
Number of pages24
JournalRivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa
Volume49
Issue number2
StatePublished - 2013

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