Yehuda Ha-Levi and some aspects of his work within the context in which he lived

Authors

  • Ariel S. Levy

Abstract

As the language has a certain relationship with the context and the time in which it is used, it changes over time. If we incorporate the variant of faith, the issue is further problematized. Even more when linguistic exchanges happen in a framework of religious conflicts. Knowing all this, we will analyze some poems of Yehuda Ha-Levi to make a reflection of the situation experienced by the Jews in the Iberian Peninsula in a very particular period of Muslim domination, after the taking of Toledo by the Catholics (1085). We will do it without forgetting that the situation before the arrival of the Almoravids was not the same as the subsequent. In this way, we will think about the linguistic exchanges that took place between the speakers of the different religious denominations without trying to make an absolute generalization. We will make a brief mention of Cuzari.

Keywords:

Medieval Hispania, Spanish-Jews, Diachrony of the language