The Jewish Poets of Spain 900-1250

I was vaguely aware of the existence of the Jewish poetry in medieval Spain, but I had not really experienced it until I read this. The introduction is informative on how the poetry developed --I had not realized it was written by Jews whose everyday language was Arabic but who adapted Arabic

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poetic forms to writing poetry in Hebrew. The book being an anthology, naturally individual poems by individual writers vary in quality, but some of the best --for me, some of Samuel ha-Nagid's poems like "On the Death of His Brother" and "The Citadel" are as good as any poetry I have ever read, and some of Samuel ben Gabriol and Abraham ben Ezra (especially his witty "Luckless") are very good.

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