GOLGOTHA AND THE GALILEE LAKE IN THE CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI POETRY – ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE SELECTED POEMS OF HEZY LESKLY AND AMIR OR

Beata Tarnowska

Instytut Filologii Polskiej Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski w Olsztynie

Abstract

The article presents the motifs of Golgotha and the Galilee Lake in the modern Israeli
poetry on the example of the selected poems of Hezy Leskly and Amir Or. Contrary to
Christian tradition, Jesus is shown here as a man, an enlightened master who “can’t be called
Jewish or Christian” and a brother rather than God. The description of the places of the
Revelation of Jesus’s divinity is – in the poetry of Leskly and Or – a point of departure for the
elucidation of the religious, metaphysical and aesthetic issues, most notably on the notions of
truth and beauty in art. For Leskly, who was not a believer of any religion, Golgotha is an
equivalent of the metaphysical emptiness and the lack of the eschatological hope. Whereas
Leskly is interested mainly in the ontological status of the word that becomes – as in the
Bible – a separate being-body and the exploration of his own “ego”, as well in an aesthetic
dimension of the work of art, Or is absorbed mainly in a super-personal reality in which the
unity of the opposites and the lack of dualism become synonyms for the harmony of being. In
the light of the poet’s beliefs, Jesus becomes an exponent of the faith in an immanent unity of
the universe.
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Keywords:

Israeli poetry, motifs of Golgotha and the Galilee Lake in literature, poetry of Hezy Leskly, poetry of Amir Or

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2012-12-01

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Tarnowska, B. (2012). GOLGOTHA AND THE GALILEE LAKE IN THE CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI POETRY – ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE SELECTED POEMS OF HEZY LESKLY AND AMIR OR. Acta Neophilologica, 2(XIV), 231–244. Retrieved from https://czasopisma.uwm.edu.pl/index.php/an/article/view/970

Beata Tarnowska
Instytut Filologii Polskiej Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski w Olsztynie

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