5. Jewish and Christian readings of the Binding of Isaac

‘Jewish and Christian readings of the Binding of Isaac’ assesses some of the readings of the Bible by believers, both Jews and Christians. It focuses on the Akedah, the story of Abraham’s binding of Isaac in Genesis 22. The Akedah is a story of strange violence and tenderness, of a father ordered by his God to sacrifice ‘his only son’. For Jews, this is a story read in the light of the history of Jewish persecution. Remarkable retellings of the story are to be found from Rabbis in the Rhineland during the Crusades. For Christians, the themes of the Akedah are largely subsumed in their reading of the Passion. Nevertheless, the story has continued to exert its spell, remaining a story which raises profound questions about the nature of faith and suffering. Its use by philosophers (Kierkegaard) and poets (Wilfred Owen) is examined.

MICHAEL BERKELEY (b. 1948)Three Songs to Children (2002)

This chapter looks at British composer Michael Berkeley’s Three Songs to Children (2002). This early piece, recently revised, is ideal for a young artist’s recital. Unpretentious and straightforward in its demands, it has a haunting charm and freshness. In addition to higher voices, a light mezzo could sing it comfortably, since there are no extremes of tessitura. The individual essence of three great but fundamentally different poets is mirrored in the contrasting treatment of the settings. The first—‘A Cradle Song’ (W. B. Yeats)—is a tender, rocking lullaby; the central, longest song—‘Sonnet to a Child’ (Wilfred Owen)—digs deeper, capturing the vibrant imagery and poignant reflections in more rhetorical style; and the third—‘A Child Asleep’ (Walter de la Mare)—is bound together by a continuous running accompaniment. The composer favours a tonal idiom, sometimes modal, and shows a predilection for sudden key shifts. Cues and doublings in the accompaniment are generally helpful. The lithe vocal lines move easily over a wide range and phrasing is well thought out, but there are a few unexpected quirks in syllabic groupings, including changes of accent and syncopation, which give added life to the rhythms.

Il nazionalismo della letteratura britannica prima della Grande Guerra e l’esperienza dei War Poets

L’immagine di un Regno Unito visto come Eden inconsapevole della tragedia che sta per lacerarlo è diffusa, ma piuttosto falsa. L’apparente serenità nasconde una violenza latente e gravi questioni interne e la guerra, quindi, non fa altro che accelerare un processo già in atto. Di tutta la letteratura inglese del Ventesimo secolo, la poesia di guerra sembra, sotto molti punti di vista, una “parentesi” all’interno del panorama letterario. La war poetry è il prodotto di un determinato periodo storico, sociale e culturale venutosi a formare nella Prima guerra mondiale. Tra i migliori poeti della Grande Guerra troviamo Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen e Siegfried Sassoon. Il fatto che molti poeti siano ufficiali – ma non alti ufficiali – permette loro di essere in contatto, a livello socio-culturale, con i ranghi elevati dell’esercito e, fisicamente, con i soldati semplici. In questo modo hanno una visione più ampia della realtà in trincea.

War Traumata in Literature: From Homer to Sahar Khelifeh

In this paper, I identify and describe pain, its signs and symptoms, as manifested in various fictional combatants and noncombatants (civilians) in literary texts that span across few millennia and different cultures and literary genres. Since literature is imitation/representation/simulation of reality, it does give insight into the minds and souls of the characters populating it. From the writings of Homer in ancient Greece to the writings of Wilfred Owen, W.B. Yeats in Britain, Randal Jarrell in America, Ghassan Kanafani in Lebanon, Sahar Khalifeh in Palestine, and others, one can discern war tormented and traumatized characters exhibiting all sorts of symptoms, such as the Agamemnon and Achilles’ syndrome, and the Ulysses-Rambo syndrome. The symptoms exhibited by such tormented characters are similar to and go beyond those inscribed in the scholarly and professional literature in medicine and psychiatry. The paper affirms that war traumas, and pain in certain cases and under certain conditionality that involve occupation of territories and dislocation of civilians, become contagious and dangerous as the plague where the infected becomes either very sick and dies or very sick and lives. Keywords: trauma, war, identity, Homer, Sahar Khelifeh