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Article: Religious metaphor and its denial in the poetry of Yehuda Amichai.
- Article from:
- Judaism
- Article date:
- June 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 American Jewish Congress. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE POETRY OF YEHUDA AMICHAI (1924-2000) IS ON one level a critical revaluation of Judaism. The loss of faith and the denial of religious metaphor illumine the discontent that hurt him into poetry. Cut adrift from Jewish orthodoxy, prone to difficulties in human relations, writing in a relatively affluent, materialist, secular society, Amichai sought a new basis for existence in or through poetry.
What does the denial of religious metaphor achieve? Degeneration into absurdity? An incapacity to imagine a world with satisfying richness? Or a higher consciousness of the real, a struggle toward new metaphoric reality? Spiritual insight might come from the conflict of ...