HEBREW COMMEMORATIVE POETRY IN CAMBRIDGE, 1564–1763

It is well known that, from the 16th century onwards, English humanists had a considerable interest in the Hebrew language. This interest, however, was not confined to the study of the Bible and of Rabbinic literature, and was not motivated solely by theological concerns.2 At both Oxford and Cambridge, Hebrew was also a medium for creative literature; there is a very substantial corpus of original Hebrew commemorative poetry from university collections. The poems written in this genre by Cambridge scholars form the subject of this paper.3 The poems are not merely translated from other languages; nor were they taken verbatim from Jewish sources. Although their literary quality is uneven, they do nevertheless display some genuine creativity. As a literary phenomenon, they offer an interesting insight into the intellectual culture of the university, and into the knowledge and uses of Hebrew in England. In this paper we present an overview of these commemorative poems, discussing their genre, authorship and printing, followed by a detailed examination of three of the Hebrew poems, and of the relationship between them and other works by the same authors. We consider the poetic images they contain, their structure, and some possible sources for the Hebrew style that is employed. The appendix