Abstract

Abba Kovner's life and poetry are deeply identified with the city of Vilna, yet the city is never mentioned in his works. This paper sets out to interpret this absence as a case study of memory and history and about Kovner's particular place within, or without, the literature of the Holocaust. The dichotomy which characterizes the poet's attitude towards the city is partially resolved in his last book, where Kovner confronts his childhood and the memory of his mother. The symbolic act of naming, with its multiplicity of meaning, serves as a key to the interpretation of Kovner's poetry in both the personal and collective contexts.

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