First, the role of Yiddish poetry in the history of Yiddish Jewish culture development.
Modern Yiddish poetry has a wide range of creation. It includes all the themes and techniques in European and American literature; And from the vast geographical conditions of Jewish readers all over five continents, it has produced unique worldwide characteristics. However, it was not until the last two or three generations that Yiddish poetry appeared such a prosperous scene beyond all kinds of constraints and restrictions in its prehistoric and post-historical development process of nearly a thousand years. In the development of traditional Yiddish Jewish culture-Arjun Kenazim culture, people concentrate on reinterpreting the essence of Talmud according to the changing living conditions, thus ignoring literary and artistic creation. People think that "literature" in the western sense is not important; Therefore, although Jewish poetry (including Yiddish poetry and Hebrew poetry) develops in various forms and colors, it is still in a neglected position. By the end of 19 and the 20th century, Jews in Eastern Europe had experienced a series of revolutionary upheaval-urbanization, industrialization, internal migration, the rise of political organizations and the development of civil liberation, as well as the extensive secularization and thorough Europeanization of Jewish culture. With the occurrence and development of these drastic changes, Jewish poetry-including Yiddish poetry and Hebrew poetry-has also reached the peak of Jewish culture. A large number of talented people are attracted to today's poetry world, and they must have engaged in other jobs in the past. Jewish poets and readers are more and more strongly influenced by foreign poetry, and Jewish poetry finally catches up in order to catch up with the development level of Europe. Khrushchevsky commented that Yiddish poetry "achieved a great leap and reached the level of Europe in the 20th century". Due to its rapidity and ever-changing style, Yiddish poetry has not formed its own normative form, but only some very rough characteristic outlines. However, poets will naturally learn from the universal norms of European poetry. Even Yiddish poems with a large number of Jewish cultural allusions undoubtedly have the typical characteristics of modern European and American poetry and become an integral part of modern European and American poetry. As Reyes pointed out: "The poetry of our generation originated in the East, but flowed into the West. Whether it is inheriting the tradition of Jacob, the ancestor of Hebrew, or the style of Raben, the originator of modern western expressionist dance, our poetry has always been a fusion of Eastern and Western cultures. "
Second, Yiddish poetry1before the 9th century
The earliest Yiddish literary works have been lost. However, the contemporary historical materials related to these literary works and the earliest poems recently discovered (written in 1382) show some information about Yiddish poems in prehistoric times. Before19th century, poetry played a major role in Yiddish literature. At that time, the language used in poetry was mainly Yiddish idioms based on western Yiddish dialects. This idiom was used as Yiddish standard language in Western Europe until 1800, and was later replaced by another Yiddish standard language based on Yiddish dialect in Eastern Europe. Influenced by the tradition of German poetry in the Middle Ages and the style of literal translation of the Bible in many languages, Yiddish's literary language style is very elegant, but it can't communicate directly with Yiddish spoken at that time. Many early Yiddish poems were used by professional bards or amateurs to recite and perform. Even after the introduction of printing, every published poem often indicates the reading method to be adopted at the beginning or end. In the14th century and15th century, a revised version of Yiddish epic appeared. These epics include traditional European themes (such as the heroic stories of King Arthur and Godling) and Old Testament themes (such as the stories of Samuel and Isaac), but in form they adopt the strict rhythm, long sentences and rhymes of XAXAXA and xbxb. The complex and incisive Italian octagonal rhyme (abababcc rhyme) first appeared in two poetic novels written by Avery Birkel (died in 1549) influenced by Italian poetry. It can be seen that Italian stereotyped poetry was introduced into Yiddish poetry more than a century earlier than German poetry. It can also be said that Eli Birkel, an Italian poet, was the first poet to use iambic accented melody in European poetry.
With the disappearance of the bard, the rhythm of Yiddish poetry became irregular. Later, the number of syllables contained in each musical beat became very different, and sometimes the number of syllables in a beat was even very large. This situation is clearly reflected not only in the folk songs of16th century and17th century, but also in religious lyrics, poetry chronicles, lamentations, satirical poems and ethical poems. Therefore, it can be considered that Yiddish poems in early modern times are very similar to most contemporary German poems in terms of the free use of melody.