Prefatory Verse and the Reception of the Guide of the Perplexed
Maud Kozodoy
This article presents, first, an overview of medieval Hebrew prefatory poems to prose texts, tracing changes in the genre and considering how these functioned with respect text manuscript production use. In early verse from Golden Age al-Andalus, poets often imported individual formal elements Arabic preface. With shifting Jewish cultural Christian Europe twelfth century, tends shed elements. Instead, type that flourishes later period usually addresses reader directly; names book its author; praises work; alludes formative aims. Within this framework, focuses on poetry appears manuscripts Maimonides’ Guide Perplexed. includes own for Guide, written by two thirteenth-century commentators Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera (c. 1225–1295) Zera@hyah ben Isaac Shealtiel @Hen (d. after 1291), brief, anonymous verses copied readers or owners into their copies Guide.
The Jewish Quarterly Review