Product Description
The Royal Crown ("A Crown for the King" in Slavitt's translation) is the greatest of Gabirol's poems. Bernard Lewis has called it "one of the major works of Hebrew literature since the completion of the New Testament." Its theme is the problem of the human predicament: the frailty of man and his proclivity to sin, in tension with a benign providence that has to leave room for the operation of man's free will and also make available to him the means of penitence. The "Royal Crown" is still printed in prayerbooks of the Sephardic rite for the Day of Atonement, and among North African Jewish commnities (and their offshoots in Israel and elsewhere) it is read communally before the morning service of the Day. In northern Europe and the West this custom has lapsed but the Royal Crown is still used for private penitential reading.
David Slavitt's inspired translation of this classic poem into contemporary English--printed with Hebrew text on facing pages--will make the Royal Crown newly available and accessible to students and scholars of medieval Jewish literature and philosophy and to the general public as well.
Language Notes
Original Language: Hebrew
