By Raphael Loewe
Society of Heshaim, Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation
2 Ashworth Road, London W9 1JY
£30 (plus £4.50 p&p)
It was at the twice-yearly meetings of the Hebrew Translation Workshop, which he founded in 1971 and presided over with a benign and somewhat schoolmasterly air for the 35 years of its existence, that I encountered Raphael Loewe as a translator and sat at his feet.
Two lessons I learned from him were fundamental: you have to understand the original (not just the words but the background, allusions, nuances) and you have to find the appropriate form and style in English. It is not enough just to translate the words.
Both principles are lavishly exemplified in this wonderful volume, but a third is added as well: to translate a poem you have to be a poet. Nearly a third of the flowers in this poetic garland are original poems by Loewe himself, in English or Hebrew (and I doubt if he himself could always say which version came first). But original compositions and translations are all of a piece: all display the same supreme mastery of language and diction, of literary allusion, and of metrical skill.
The pendulum swings, and I find it curiously refreshing, in an age where poetry is dominated by liberty and subjectivity, to turn to these poems that evince the values of a bygone age: discipline, learning, sonority. There is no trace of modernism or post-modernism here, but that is not to say the poems lack allusiveness, playfulness or spontaneity. Many have a profoundly personal tone.
No less unfashionable than their literary quality is the serious engagement with large questions: Why are we here? What is the purpose of human life? How can we make the best use of our heritage, and be faithful to the best example set by our predecessors? (This last is where the style of the poetry most visibly echoes the content.)
Many of the translations are of liturgical poems, and a strong religious sentiment (embracing awe, veneration, responsibility and a constant quest for knowledge) pervades the collection.
Loewe's theological standpoint is a classical Aristotelian one, close to that of Maimonides and other medieval authors whom he admires. It has room for elements of neo-Platonism, but not for mysticism or sentimentality. Occasionally, he adopts a prophetic tone, denouncing the materialism of our time and calling for a return to eternal Jewish values. Nationalism is no substitute for faithfulness to Torah, and one of the worst acts of betrayal is the abuse of the Hebrew language: "God's chosen folk depose Him, to replace/Phylacteries with land and state as mark,/ Claiming their new-forged language is the base/Of power".
It is hard in such a varied anthology to select a favourite but, for me, two poems stand out. One, a sonnet-cycle, Like an Evening Gone, won the Seatonian Prize at Cambridge University, offered annually for a poem "conducive to the honour of the Supreme Being and the recommendation of virtue". The other is an ode on the 2001 tercentenary of Bevis Marks Synagogue. The poems and translations in this book are not an easy read, but they repay study, not just for their literary values but for their moral and religious lessons, too.
Nicholas de Lange is professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Cambridge University
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