Article
“Aesthetic Distance” in Contemporary Israeli Poetry
January 18, 2006
[Editor Yehoshua] Ravnitzky to [the poet Haim Nachman] Bialik, Odessa, 1900
There are those who say that, as a matter of fact, it is only now, for the first time, that new Israeli poetry is ‘free’ from the effects of the rich cultural freight that influential [Hebrew] poets brought with them from Russia and Germany.
For good or for bad, native Israeli writers are no longer exposed very much to these influences whose sources lie in now-foreign languages and culture.
Do poets writing in Hebrew in Israel today (actually, all the writers and artists in Israel) mirror the experience of Israeli reality? Or are we witness to a process of cultural thinning in poetry? Though an “antimony of distance” as presented in the aesthetic theory of Edward Bullough, is not the issue, perhaps physical, geographic distance threatens to tone down the complexity and poetic riches of art works that grow in this cultural environment, which is not so varied any more. It’s not my intention to delve deeply into this matter – which surely deserves discussion – but rather to point to a lack of access to cultural diversity among writers who were born here (to be exact, the second and third generations, for the first generation did have access to books and languages that their parents brought with them from the Diaspora).
The cultural baggage accompanying those who were not born here – especially those who arrived old enough to have absorbed the culture of their country of origin, including its language – needs to be rounded out, and this is the function of the educational system. This completion of what is missing in culture is the way education should have functioned in the past, and is even more necessary now. But the educational system erred all the way, and the cultural deficit only deepened. It is important to emphasize that I am not making the claim that Israeli poetry is not as good as it used to be. It may be that, paradoxically, in this situation, it is even easier to arrive at “aesthetic distance” in art; perhaps, in certain circumstances, the artist profits from a shrinking of sources of influence.
I’ll raise another possibility, that the difficulty in acquiring missing elements of culture is actually an aid in producing better poetry. Let’s call this concept the “difficulty principle”. The principle doesn’t derive from the field of poetry, and there are those who will say that it will distance us from it. But it is perhaps, on the contrary, worth studying how the principle works in other areas, and learning how to apply it to poetry.
The “difficulty principle” is the idea of Prof. Amotz Zahavi, who claims that difficulty in one area of functioning compensates us in another. It is possible to identify the difficulty principle as operating in all of nature’s communications systems, and we will try, as I said, to apply it to the development of new Israeli poetry. Prof Zahavi studied the critical function of difficulty in communications between the sexes in nature. In a study of [the songbird known as] the Brown babbler or the Arabian babbler (Latin name Turdoides squamiceps), the concept was used to explain the logic behind its altruistic behavior, which seemed to oppose the evolutionary logic of tending to oneself before tending to others.
According to the difficulty principle, Zehavi discovered that a songbird with a higher status than others invested more than they did in group life. From this point the idea developed that investment in group life contributes to the status of one who contributes to the group – in the eyes of others. That is, altruistic behavior serves the individual, who strengthens his position and increases his worth in the group. The mathematical model for the difficulty principle was published in 1989, and since then it has been accepted by the scientific community as a basic principle of communication in nature.
To go back to what was said about poetry and the cultural freight of poets, it may be that all of us – as individuals living in society – would benefit from a better education which would – through the application of the difficulty principle – find ways to bestow cultural riches [on everyone]. Edward Bullough, “‘Psychical Distance’ as a Factor in Art and as an Aesthetic Principle” British Journal of Psychology, Vol. 5 (1912), pp. 87-117
Translated for PIW from Shvo, Ra‛anana: Even Hoshen Publishers (Summer 2004) 12: 5-6
On the loss of languages and cultures: how is the development of contemporary Israeli poetry affected by the knowledge of 'foreign' languages and the educational system?
God gave you a valuable gift,and if you throw your spiritual treasures to the windsyou’ll have to defend yourself at the last judgment.[Editor Yehoshua] Ravnitzky to [the poet Haim Nachman] Bialik, Odessa, 1900
There are those who say that, as a matter of fact, it is only now, for the first time, that new Israeli poetry is ‘free’ from the effects of the rich cultural freight that influential [Hebrew] poets brought with them from Russia and Germany.
For good or for bad, native Israeli writers are no longer exposed very much to these influences whose sources lie in now-foreign languages and culture.
Do poets writing in Hebrew in Israel today (actually, all the writers and artists in Israel) mirror the experience of Israeli reality? Or are we witness to a process of cultural thinning in poetry? Though an “antimony of distance” as presented in the aesthetic theory of Edward Bullough, is not the issue, perhaps physical, geographic distance threatens to tone down the complexity and poetic riches of art works that grow in this cultural environment, which is not so varied any more. It’s not my intention to delve deeply into this matter – which surely deserves discussion – but rather to point to a lack of access to cultural diversity among writers who were born here (to be exact, the second and third generations, for the first generation did have access to books and languages that their parents brought with them from the Diaspora).
The cultural baggage accompanying those who were not born here – especially those who arrived old enough to have absorbed the culture of their country of origin, including its language – needs to be rounded out, and this is the function of the educational system. This completion of what is missing in culture is the way education should have functioned in the past, and is even more necessary now. But the educational system erred all the way, and the cultural deficit only deepened. It is important to emphasize that I am not making the claim that Israeli poetry is not as good as it used to be. It may be that, paradoxically, in this situation, it is even easier to arrive at “aesthetic distance” in art; perhaps, in certain circumstances, the artist profits from a shrinking of sources of influence.
I’ll raise another possibility, that the difficulty in acquiring missing elements of culture is actually an aid in producing better poetry. Let’s call this concept the “difficulty principle”. The principle doesn’t derive from the field of poetry, and there are those who will say that it will distance us from it. But it is perhaps, on the contrary, worth studying how the principle works in other areas, and learning how to apply it to poetry.
The “difficulty principle” is the idea of Prof. Amotz Zahavi, who claims that difficulty in one area of functioning compensates us in another. It is possible to identify the difficulty principle as operating in all of nature’s communications systems, and we will try, as I said, to apply it to the development of new Israeli poetry. Prof Zahavi studied the critical function of difficulty in communications between the sexes in nature. In a study of [the songbird known as] the Brown babbler or the Arabian babbler (Latin name Turdoides squamiceps), the concept was used to explain the logic behind its altruistic behavior, which seemed to oppose the evolutionary logic of tending to oneself before tending to others.
According to the difficulty principle, Zehavi discovered that a songbird with a higher status than others invested more than they did in group life. From this point the idea developed that investment in group life contributes to the status of one who contributes to the group – in the eyes of others. That is, altruistic behavior serves the individual, who strengthens his position and increases his worth in the group. The mathematical model for the difficulty principle was published in 1989, and since then it has been accepted by the scientific community as a basic principle of communication in nature.
To go back to what was said about poetry and the cultural freight of poets, it may be that all of us – as individuals living in society – would benefit from a better education which would – through the application of the difficulty principle – find ways to bestow cultural riches [on everyone]. Edward Bullough, “‘Psychical Distance’ as a Factor in Art and as an Aesthetic Principle” British Journal of Psychology, Vol. 5 (1912), pp. 87-117
Translated for PIW from Shvo, Ra‛anana: Even Hoshen Publishers (Summer 2004) 12: 5-6
© Uzi Agassi
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