The Reception of Classical Literature in Hebrew: A Very Brief Survey

This chapter presents major developments in the modern history of Hebrew translation of Greek and Latin texts. When texts began to be translated for their aesthetic value, the Hebrew rendering was based on radical ‘Hebraization’, as in the case of M. H. Letteris (1800–71), who turned book 6 of the Iliad into a quasi-biblical epic about the fall of the First Temple. An important turning point in the history of Hebrew translations of classical poetry was the work of Aharon-Armand Kaminka, Shaul Tchernichovsky, and Shlomo Dykman, who promoted the idea of ‘bridging between Athens and Jerusalem’ through translation. As of the mid-1950s, Israeli poetry experienced a radical shift of literary orientations, aesthetic values, and linguistic policies, as can be seen in the translations of the poet-translators Aharon Shabtai, Amir Or, and Shimon Bouzaglo.