Abstract

Heralded as the Jewish national poet more than a century ago, Ÿayyim Naÿman Bialik still casts a long shadow in Hebrew literature. His work anchors the modern Hebrew literary canon, his poems are staples of the school curriculum, and his name adorns institutions and street signs throughout Israel. References to Bialik also appear with surprising frequency in literary texts written after his death in 1934. This article traces literary constructions of Bialik and the transformation of these figures into inherited cultural capital, from Bialik's late poem, "Shaÿa nafshi" (My Soul Sinks Down), to a series of texts that challenge his status as a Hebrew cultural icon: Yosl Birshteyn's short short story "32," Aharon Almog's poem "Bialik lo haya temani" (Bialik Was Not Yemenite), and Eldad Ziv's play Al ha-ÿayim ve-al ha-mavet (On Life and Death). If Bialik's poem demonstrates the historical poet's attempt to control his poetic image in response to his growing cultural celebrity, subsequent texts featuring Bialik show the extent to which the poet ceded control over his own literary and cultural images. As a result, he has become a shifting composite, a masterful example of the ideologically charged nature of literary identity and the negotiations of cultural celebrity.

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