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Jewish
6th Century
Israel/Palestine
(Middle East)

 

Yannai

Timeline (6th Century)

 

Poems by Yannai
Books - Links

 

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The poetry of Yannai was virtually unknown until he was rediscovered in the early 20th century by scholars.

Yannai lived in Palestine in the 6th century. An Ashkenazi tradition says that Yannai was the teacher of Eleazar ben Kallir, the best known of the classical paytanim (Jewish liturgical poets). There has even been a legend suggesting that Yannai grew jealous of his talented student and killed him by placing a scorpion in ben Kallir's shoe, though the written tale calls the story into question by adding, "May God forgive all those who say this of Yannai -- if it did not really happen."

Yannai is now thought of as the first of the great classical paytanim, and the first to use rhyme and acrostics in his works, which later became the standard in this form of Jewish sacred poetry.

 

Poems by Yannai

  Hymn from the Heavens
  The Celestial Fire

Recommended Books

The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, Edited by T. Carmi

Amazon.com

Related Links:

  JewishEncyclopedia.com -- Yannai
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=15&letter=Y
A brief article on Yannai, with a few short excerpts.
  Piyyut: The Poetry of Worship
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/940908_Piyyut.html
A short article on piyyut poetry, with several references to Yannai.
 


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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2011 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.