Renewing the Past, Reconfiguring Jewish Culture from al-Andalus to the Haskalah ed. by Ross Brann, Adam Sutcliffe (review)

REVIEWS 282 toritas, essentially the strengthening of the position of the author in society between a “comfortable servitude” and “precarious independence” (154) (Preisig also uses keywords such as “corporatism” and “commercial strategies,” mostly at the service of developing a network of strategic alliances), thus arise organically from seeds that were planted by his French predecessors. One wellsuited example of Marot’s role is the inscription of the poet’s name in his text. As opposed to Villon, Preisig states that in Marot’s case, “le jeu prend plus d’ampleur, devient plus systématique” (88). Another fascinating topic that permeates the study are the underlying tensions in his poetry that, on the one hand, make Marot’s persona so hard to grasp (and his poetry so sublime) while, on the other, they put him in the company of authors such as François Rabelais and Marguerite de Navarre, company that further underlines the true significance of the “Prince des poëtes françois.” In Marot’s case, some of these tensions could be summed up as the conflicts between autobiography and fictitious personae, craftsmanship and inspiration, comfortable servitude of a court poet and the dangerous intellectual independence of an engaged writer, Christian humanist and Greco-Latin traditions, or finally the sacred and the profane. Unfortunately there is not enough room to adequately discuss all the precious insights into a highly complex poet that this rather short but welldocumented study provides (the discussions of L’Enfer, the 1539 églogue “Au Roy,” or the dispute with François Sagon would be further examples). One would have wished that the author had devoted a little more attention to Marot ’s satirical poetry as well as to the literary and intellectual impact of the poet’s various exiles, especially Ferrara, which he seems to dismiss all too easily (19), but the strengths by far outweigh such minor oversights. BERND RENNER, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY Renewing the Past, Reconfiguring Jewish Culture from al-Andalus to the Haskalah, ed. Ross Brann and Adam Sutcliffe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2004) 237 pp. Al-Andalus, the Jewish Golden Age of medieval Muslim Spain, and Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment of eighteenth century Germany, are characterized by tremendous cultural creativity as well as dynamic connections between the Jewish community and the dominant culture. This book explores literary, philosophical , and historical material from both periods in order to determine whether Jewish culture emerged through “extended interactions with Muslims and Muslim culture and subsequently with Christian society and culture” or, alternatively, through “its own internal dynamics” (5). The eleven essays illustrate , through a variety of cases, that Jewish intellectuals were animated by a dialectical relationship between their own textual tradition and “the philosophical and literary interests they shared with Muslim and Christian religious and literary intellectuals” (7). Renewing the Past, Reconfiguring Jewish Culture is an edited volume at its best, the product of unique collaborative circumstances and a strong editorial hand. The contributors were all fellows at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania in 1998–1999, and the book’s concept emerged from their research groups and final colloquium. The articles REVIEWS 283 effectively cross-reference one another, treat overlapping figures and texts, and operate within similar methodological and theoretical paradigms. Certain themes are the main subject of one essay, and echoed as minor themes in other essays. For example, friendships between Jews and non-Jews, the focus of Sepinwall ’s essay (chap. 10), is prefigured in Alfonso’s essay (chap. 2), in which Jewish poets used the term exile to connote separation from their Muslim friends, and Karp’s essay (chap. 6), in which Moses Mendelssohn’s friendships with German Christians enabled him to participate in European intellectual culture without converting. The interconnectedness of such a diversity of essays demonstrates the scholars’ commitment to developing ideas collaboratively , even outside their specialties, and the editors’ dedication to fashioning a coherent volume. Indeed, editors Ross Brann and Adam Sutcliffe’s comprehensive introduction provides a thorough framework for the essays and offers insights of its own. The book is not an introductory volume; it regularly alludes to traditional scholarly viewpoints only to critique or reject...