Shooting Crows with a Canon: Notes on the Poetics of Shaul Tshernikhovski's Early Works

As thinking about canon formation becomes ever more sophisticated, the connections between canons and culture are likewise understood as equally complicated. This article seeks to look at one poem by Shaul Tshernikhovski in order to shed light on that complex. Despite the fact that Tshernikhovski's position as a canonical Hebrew poet continues to be secure, his works often challenge many of the preconceptions about the nature and role of nationalism in the so-called Hebrew Renaissance. In "The Two Ravens," Tshernikhovski's translation-adaptation of a Scottish ballad, the poet foregrounds a personal aesthetic project as an important contribution to Hebrew letters.