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JEWISH BOOK ANNUAL
Where is the canvas, marble or the bronze
Which does not speak the language o f the ancients
-—
The low-voiced stirring o f awakening matter,
That heartfelt something o f my treasured prophets
And the dreams and visions o f their light
. .
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Hebrew readers o f Shneour’s poetry responded to its blaring
contradictions and shocking inconsistencies as evidence o f its
authenticity. Like him, they too were attracted and repelled by
the Gentile world simultaneously. The poet’s untrammeled indi
vidualism, hedonism and libertarianism fascinated them as they
sought to harmonize the monotheism and group-centeredness o f
the Jewish tradition with life in the twentieth century. Was a syn
thesis o f eros and esthetics with responsibility and morality possi
ble?, they asked. Could one be deeply Jewish and genuinely mod
ern at one and the same time?
E LOQ U EN T SPOKESMAN
I f Shneour’s initial impact in Hebrew literature appeared to be
that o f a representative o f non-Jewish culture in the Jewish world,
his enduring contribution lay in his stance as the spokesman and
representative o f Judaism to the Gentiles. “In order to stand
before the Gentile world as a liberated Jew, Shneour donned
non-Jewish pride and trappings o f majesty, wrapped himself in
the purple cloak o f a successful Don Juan and girded the weap
ons o f a conqueror who crowned himself king even though his
scepter was only a ray o f light shattered in a j a r o f water.”11
Shneour brought the modern ambiance with its extreme indi
vidualism into Hebrew poetry. His hero is universal man scaling
the heights o f accomplishment while bound to selfish instincts
and sordid motives. His totally self-preoccupied hedonistic indi
vidual is plagued by boredom, alienation and existential dread.
“Fear o f the annihilation o f the individual and the human which
Shneour expressed in his earliest work and which is part o f any
life based on the momentary, on pleasure and instinct, increased
during his sojourn in the large cities o f Europe during and after
10 “The Melodies o f Israel,” translated in Meyer Waxman,
A History o fJewish L it
erature,
vol. 1, part 1 (New York, 1941), p. 296.
11 Yeshurun Keshet,
Havdalot
(Tel Aviv, 1962), p. 75.