A Gost, a Converso and a Poem: A Letter to Gonzalo de la Caballería by Shelomo Ben Reuben Bonafed

Abstract

In this paper I propose to analyze a poem by Shelomo ben Reuben Bonafed, a renowned Hebrew poet who lived in the kingdom of Aragon during the first half of the 15th century. Analysis of this poem will allow us to see how Bonafed, a disciple of the circle of poets of Zaragoza, played his part in a re-invention of Hebrew literature that had been initiated a few years earlier by his masters, Shelomo de Piera and Vidal/Yosef ben Labi. Bonafed thought that the Hebrew language and Hebrew poetry were the depositaries of a «Hispano-Hebrew» cultural identity of which he felt himself to be a part.

En este artículo propongo analizar un poema de Shelomo ben Reuben Bonafed (s. xv) dirigido a Vidal/Yosef ben Labi, ya convertido bajo el nombre de Gonzalo de la Caballería. El análisis de estos versos muestra cómo Bonafed, discípulo del círculo de poetas de Zaragoza, jugó un importante papel en la re-invención de la literatura Hebrea que se había iniciado años antes con sus maestros y cómo Bonafed consideraba la lengua Hebrea y la literatura secular producida en esta lengua como depositarias de la identidad cultural «hispano-hebrea» de la que él se sentía heredero y adalid.