Abstract

A poet's name appearing in a poem signals the question: To what degree does the individual writer speak for her/himself and to what degree for the community? In Old Yiddish poems, no modern idea of the individual writer is present. When the poet signs her name—Rivke Tiktiner in an acrostic, Royzl Fishls and Toybe Pan in a rhymed stanza—she carves her name into her prayer or proem according to the convention of signature established by medieval Hebrew liturgical poems. She names herself as a woman linked to Jewish learning through male ancestors and as a voice for the Jewish people awaiting messianic redemption. Such a poet signs her name to claim the distinction of an authorship predicated on the author's place within the Jewish community and its conventions, both literary and religious. But when modern women poets—Anna Margolin, Kadya Molodowsky, Rokhl Korn—place their names in a Yiddish poem, they inscribe a vexed individuality. The pull away from traditional Jewish life produces a literary tension between the poet's responsibilities to voice the will of the Jewish people and her own desires. The lyric poem becomes an analogue for the individual person, yet vestiges of communal responsibility and traditional writings linger in its Yiddish language, culture, and historical context.