A Crown for the King

by Gabirol, Solomon Ibn; Slavitt, David R.

• ISBN13: 9780195119626
• ISBN10: 0195119622
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-11-26
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Solomon Ibn Gabirol (ca. 1021-ca. 1070) was the greatest of the Spanish Jewish poets and an important neoplatonist philosopher. Translated into Arabic and then Latin in the mid-twelfth century, his work became influential among the scholastics, who were unaware that "Avicebron" (as his namewas Latinized) was a Jew and a celebrated writer of religious hymns.The Royal Crown ("A Crown for the King" in Slavitt's translation) is the greatest of Gabirol's poems. Bernard Lewis has called it "one of the major works of Hebrew literature since the completion of the New Testament." Its theme is the problem of the human predicament: the frailty of man and hisproclivity to sin, in tension with a benign providence that has to leave room for the operation of man's free will and also make available to him the means of penitence. The "Royal Crown" is still printed in prayerbooks of the Sephardic rite for the Day of Atonement, and among North African Jewishcommnities (and their offshoots in Israel and elsewhere) it is read communally before the morning service of the Day. In northern Europe and the West this custom has lapsed but the Royal Crown is still used for private penitential reading. David Slavitt's inspired translation of this classic poem into contemporary English--printed with Hebrew text on facing pages--will make the Royal Crown newly available and accessible to students and scholars of medieval Jewish literature and philosophy and to the general public as well.

Author Biography

About the Translator:
David R. Slavitt is a renowned poet, novelist, journalist, critic, and translator. Also the translator of The Hymns of Prudentius, he has taught at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Philadelphia.