Micah Joseph Lebensohn
Micah Joseph Lebensohn, also known by the pen name Mikhal, was one of the foremost poets and translators of the Haskalah in Vilna. He is best known for his innovative narrative Biblical romances and pantheistic nature poetry, influenced by the Romantic movement. These are characterised by "a deep pathos and a beauty of expression," and noted for their "expression of the young poet's strong longing for life and of the dread of an early dissolution which preyed on his mind."
Biography
Micha Joseph Lebensohn was born on 2 February 1828 in Vilna, the son of maskilic poet Avraham [Dov Ber Lebensohn], where he received a thorough Jewish education. Having met in his father's house many prominent Jewish writers, he developed an early interest in literature. He began to translate poetry into Hebrew at the age of twelve, and at the age of sixteen composed his first original poem, Ha-Aḥvah, written to his brother Noah. As a teenager, Lebensohn, besides his perfect command of Hebrew, was privately tutored in Russian, French, Polish and German.By the late 1840s, Lebensohn discovered early symptoms of tuberculosis. In 1849, on the advice of his doctor, he went to sanatoria abroad for medical treatment. During a winter in Berlin, he attended the philosophy lectures of Schelling at the University of Berlin, and came under the influence of German Romanticism. At the same time, he became closely acquainted with scholars Shneur Sachs and Leopold Zunz, who encouraged him to write original poetry on Jewish and Biblical heroes. He also visited the spa towns of Salzbrunn and Reinerz to seek relief from the disease.
He returned to Vilna in 1850, where he lived until his death shortly after his twenty-fourth birthday, on 17 February 1852. His last poem, Ha-tefilah, is dedicated to 'Prayer, Daughter of Hearts'.
Literary career
In 1847, Lebensohn wrote a translation into Hebrew of the third and fourth books of Virgil's Æneid, under the title Harisut Troya. The following year he wrote translations of Alfieri's Saul and Goethe's Erlkönig, among other works. Other compositions of this period include translations of Arnault's La feuille and Mickiewicz's , as well as elegies on the death of M. A. Günzburg.While in Berlin, Lebensohn wrote a cycle of lyric poems, including Ahuva azuva, Yom huledet ahuvati, Aḥot lanu, and Ḥag ha-aviv.
Lebensohn wrote his best known work, the poetry collection Shirei Bat-Tsiyyon, in 1850. It consists of six epic poems on Jewish subjects with naturalistic description: Shelomo, Kohelet, Nikmat Shimshon, Yael ve-Sisra, Moshe al Har ha-Avarim, and Yehuda ha-Levi. The best known among them, Shelomo and Kohelet, contrast the optimism of a young King Solomon with the disillusionment of the monarch in his old age.
In the Jewish Encyclopedia, Herman Rosenthal and Peter Wiernik wrote that
Legacy
After his death, a second volume of Lebensohn's poetry entitled Kinor Bat-Tsiyyon was assembled by his father. It contains, alongside a number of pieces translated from German, lyric poems, love poetry, and lamentations for the Land of Israel.Lebensohn's brother-in-law, Joshua Steinberg, published a German translation of Shirei Bat-Tsiyyon entitled Gesänge Zion's in 1859. The poems Shelomo and Kohelet were published in French translation, and Yehuda ha-Levi in Russian. In 1895, a six-volume collection of his poems and those of his father appeared under the title Kol shire Ada"m u-Mikh"al.
Lebensohn's work had a strong influence on J. L. Gordon, his contemporary and friend, and other lyric poets of the next generation. A noted elegy entitled Mikhal Dim'ah on his death was written by his father. J. L. Gordon's wrote an allegorical drama, Ho Aḥ, which is placed in the first part of Kol Shiray Yehudah, and Samuel David Luzzatto penned a kinah in Lebenson's honor. Gordon also published the kinah ''Ofel Bat-Tsiyyon'' in Lebensohn's memory in 1877.