Medieval opinions on the Spanish school of Hebrew poetry and its epigones

Abstract

Since Solomon Ibn Gabirol left the world and Moses Ibn Ezra, Jehudah Halevi, and Abraham Ibn Ezra died, the well of poetry has dried up, inspiration has disappeared, and God’s spirit no longer manifests itself. None of their successors can compare with them. We backward ones, like beggars, gather the crumbs and refuse that have fallen from their table. We hasten day and night over the ways trodden by them, but we cannot equal them.1