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Shamma Boyarin deposited “Rhymes So Good the Likes of Which Have Not Been Seen in all the Land of Spain”: Meir of Norwich and Friendship Poetry in the group
Medieval Studies on Humanities Commons 6 years, 1 month ago This short essay explores Susan Einbinder’s observation that the poetics of the medieval Anglo-Jewish poet Meir of Norwich show a unique mix of borrowing from
the poetic schools of both Ashkenaz and Sepharad. Boyarin argues that Meir was discursively creating a school of Anglo-Hebrew poetics, one that he imagined drew from both of these established schools. Focused on two linked poems dedicated to an anonymous benefactor, this essay shows how Meir used a specific genre of poetry—the friendship poem—that was at the heart of the medieval Hispano-Hebrew poetic school and argues that Meir was constructing a (perhaps aspirational) English parallel.